The Clean Air Act Amendments: regulator's dream, cement industry's nightmare

At the time of writing, the 1990 Clean Air Act Amendments are a moving target with some of the key regulations most notably the maximum achievable control technology (MACT) standards for hazardous air pollutants from cement kilns, still to emerge. However, the situation has crystallized sufficiently for us to make an initial tally of the prizes going to the winners and the costs to the losers. The regulators win. The prize they get is a scheme in which the regulated community monitors and reports its own compliance with environmental standards. The cement industry loses. It gets to pay for the administration of the compliance scheme through emission fees. It must also cover the cost of the Title V permitting process, and be prepared to invest in continuous emission monitors to comply with the enhanced monitoring rules. It must install reasonably achievable control technology in some plants in nonattainment areas, and be ready to tighten its belt to respond to the MACT standards. Finally, there is the burden of having to collect and manage what promises to be very large amounts of monitoring data, and the possibility of losing operating flexibility because of the rigidity of permits and the difficulty of making permit modifications. These costs are discussed and quantified where possible.