ELR Citation: ELR 20135
No(s). s. 04-1385 et al (D.C. Cir. Jun 8, 2007)

The court vacated U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA's) national emission standards for hazardous air pollutants (NESHAPs) for industrial, commercial, and institutional boilers and process heaters as well as its definitions rule for commercial and industrial solid waste incineration (CISWI) units. EPA's narrow definition of commercial or industrial waste, as incorporated in the CISWI definitions rule, violates the plain language of Clean Air Act §129 and impermissibly constricts the class of solid waste incineration units that are subject to the emission standards of the CISWI rule. The definitions rule, therefore, must be vacated. And given the likelihood (if not certainty) that the NESHAPs for boilers and process heaters will change substantially as a result of the court's vacatur of the challenged CISWI definition, the NESHAPs should also be vacated in their entirety and remanded for EPA to repromulgate after revising the CISWI definitions rule.