§7651i Election for Additional Sources

Summary

A plant owner can choose to make a unit or a qualifying process source part of the acid rain program so it can get sulfur dioxide allowances. The owner must send an election, a permit application, and a compliance plan to the Administrator. The Administrator must approve it if it meets the rules and then set a baseline using 1985–1987 fuel and operating data (or other representative data if those years aren’t available). The yearly sulfur dioxide limit is the baseline times the smaller of the unit’s 1985 actual or allowable emission rate in lbs/mmBtu (or, if it didn’t run in 1985, the smaller of its actual or allowable rate for a later year), divided by 2,000. The Administrator will give allowances equal to that limit. Allowances from shutting down or cutting use cannot be banked or sold except when another covered unit replaces the lost heat and the allowances move to that replacing unit. The Administrator must write rules to run this program and must set up a process-source option within 18 months after November 15, 1990. Small diesel refineries that make diesel after October 1, 1993, may get allowances for the period October 1, 1993 through December 31, 1999. The number equals the pounds of sulfur removed by desulfurizing diesel divided by 2,000, using a sulfur removal of 0.274% minus 0.050% by weight. A “small refinery” is one that on November 15, 1990 had under 18,250,000 barrels per year throughput and was owned by a refiner with under 50,187,500 barrels per year total. No refinery may get more than 1,500 allowances a year, and all small refineries together cannot get more than 35,000 in a year. The owner must certify that the diesel for which they claim allowances met the fuel standard in subsection 7545(i).