The American Wood Council (AWC) President and CEO Jackson Morrill responded to the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) announcement of a reconsideration of the 2024 National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) for particulate matter (PM2.5) and the recent National Emission Standards for Hazardous Air Pollutants (NESHAP):
“The American Wood Council is pleased the EPA has decided to revisit the 2024 PM NAAQS that has created permitting gridlock across the country and harmed American manufacturing. The 9 µg/m3 standard lowered the limit to near background levels while doing nothing to address the largest sources of particulate matter, such as wildfire smoke. In effect, our industry’s ability to modernize mills to reduce emissions and improve air quality is severely limited by the current rule due to a lack of permit headroom.
“The U.S. wood products industry is committed to protecting human health and maintaining safe air quality and welcomes the EPA moving to modernize the NAAQS implementation and permitting process using sound science and realistic modeling inputs.
“AWC looks forward to continuing to work with the EPA on a more streamlined permitting process that protects people and allows American manufacturing and rural economies to thrive.
“Finally, we are pleased the EPA is reconsidering several recently finalized NESHAPs. While the EPA is still working on the NESHAP for the wood product industry, we hope the EPA can finalize it quickly using the significant flexibility under the Clean Air Act to meet the obligations of the law without imposing additional, unnecessarily burdensome requirements.”
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