The Environmental Protection Agency on Friday released its much-delayed and oft-revised air quality regulations for industrial boilers and incinerators. The proposal is a modest refashioning of boiler rules introduced earlier this year, which were themselves a major revision of a 2010 plan by the agency that drew heavy political and industry opposition. The E.P.A. has been recalibrating its approach to pollution regulation in recent months after President Obama made it clear that he was going to give close scrutiny to rules that impose heavy compliance costs on businesses and local governments. In September, he rejected a major E.P.A. proposal on smog-causing pollutants, saying the cost was too high in a fragile economy......99 percent of the 1.5 million boilers in the United States would be exempt from the new rules or could meet them simply by performing routine maintenance and tune-ups. Only a fraction of the 14,000 boilers that are major sources of mercury, soot and other pollutants will be required to install abatement equipment...The E.P.A. had previously estimated the cost of compliance at about $2 billion a year, with health and other benefits of $27 billion to $67 billion. “With this action, E.P.A. is applying the right standards to the right boilers,” Ms. McCarthy said in a press release. “Gathering the latest and best real-world information is leading to practical, affordable air pollution safeguards that will provide the vital and overdue health protection that Americans deserve.” She said the new standards would prevent as many as 8,100 premature deaths, 5,100 heart attacks and 52,000 asthma attacks a year by 2015. Read on at: http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/12/02/new-pollution-rules-for-boilers-and...
