							September 14, 2000

Mr. Michael Trutna

Information Transfer and Program Integration Division  (MD-12)

United States Environmental Protection Agency

Research Triangle Park, North Carolina  27711

Dear Mr. Trutna:

We are submitting comments in response to a public notice issued in the
August 15, 2000, Federal Register, Volume 65, No. 158, pages
49803-49804, regarding “Notice of Availability for Draft Guidance on
Design of Flexible Air Permits (White Paper 3).”  The subject document
for public review, prepared by the United States Environmental
Protection Agency (U.S. EPA), is dated August 7, 2000.  We understand
that the document is intended to show how state and local permitting
authorities may develop and issue “flexible” Title V operating
permits with less impedance to the fast changing needs of some
industries to meet changing market demands.  We thank you for this
opportunity to comment.

As you know, there are thirty-five air quality management and air
pollution control districts (districts) in California.  The districts,
all county or regional agencies, are the permitting authorities for
stationary sources in California.  The districts may have separate
concerns and may provide comments aside from ours.

White Paper 3 presents a discussion of certain approaches intended to
provide industry more flexibility to operate under a Title V operating
permit.  In our view the guidance does not present any new flexibility
to industry.  What it does, is provide a means to develop a
comprehensive but cumbersome Title V permit, so a source will not need
to go through a second cumbersome Title V permit revision process.  Our
main concern is that industry may be led to believe that White Paper 3
provides substantial, new Title V flexibility, when in fact there is
little.

While we appreciate U.S. EPA’s attempt to be responsive to air
agencies and industry’s needs, we believe the real issue concerns the
need to revise the U.S. EPA’s Part 70 regulation to incorporate more
realistic Title V permit modification procedures.  The Part 70
regulation and, in particular, the permit modification procedures are
inherently prescriptive, and time consuming.  White Paper 3 appears to
be an attempt to work around the Part 70 procedures, by the use of
approaches that under ordinary 

circumstance would be ill advised.  The use of approaches outlined White
Paper 3, usable to only a few Title V facilities, will not solve the
fundamental ongoing problems inherent in the Part 70 regulation.  To
the contrary, we believe that some of the approaches have the potential
to undermine long-standing preconstruction permit programs, developed to
protect air quality and public health. 

For example, the White Paper 3 suggests, in some situations, that the
permitting authority should change preconstruction permit conditions to
achieve flexibility for Title V operating permits.  We understand that
in some limited situations, it may be desirable to revise
preconstruction permit conditions that are unnecessarily prescriptive. 
However, we would discourage widespread changes to preconstruction
permit conditions for the purpose of creating Title V flexibility. 
Title V is intended to be an administrative process to consolidate
existing permit conditions from the underlying emissions-control-related
programs, and should not be used as a means to impose non-control
related, and possibly adverse, new requirements that may lead to actual
emissions increases.

Much of White Paper 3 focuses on the creation of emission caps. Several
districts in California have adopted certain control-based rules to
enable the use of either facility-wide emission caps or the use of
field-wide emission caps (limited to equipment for petroleum
production).  Such underlying district rules were adopted to directly
provide flexibility, while achieving emission reductions.   White Paper
Number 3 would not provide any more flexibility than existing district
requirements.  Instead, our concern is that White Paper Number 3 could
reduce the underlying flexibility, by having Title V administrative
requirements that are excessively duplicative or not consistent with
district requirements.  For example, permit modification procedures, and
monitoring, testing, recordkeeping, reporting, and certification
requirements under Title V, may be different and less flexible than
district requirements and thus the speed of facility changes could be
hindered.

The ongoing issue of Part 70 revisions is beyond the scope of the
August 15, 2000 public notice in the Federal Register.  As you know,
for many years we have discussed with U.S. EPA staff, possible ways to
revise Part 70.  We have coordinated with state and local permitting
authorities, notably through the California Air Pollution Officers
Association (CAPCOA), and the State and Territorial Air Pollution
Program Administrators / Association of Local Air Pollution Control
Officials (STAPPA/ALAPCO), on ways to revise the current Part 70
regulation.  We also have had discussions with industry and
environmental groups. 

It is our intent to continue to work with the U.S. EPA and others to
develop a more realistic program through the Part 70 revisions.  We
thank you for this opportunity to provide comments on the draft guidance
document.  If you want to discuss our comment in detail, I can be
reached at (916) 322-6026.

Sincerely,

/ S /

Raymond E. Menebroker, Chief

Project Assessment Branch

Stationary Source Division

cc:	Mr. Rick McVaigh, Chair

	Title V Subcommittee

	California Air Pollution Officers Association (CAPCOA)

	San Joaquin Valley Unified Air Pollution Control District

	Ms. Geri O’Sullivan

	Permitting Committee

State and Territorial Air Pollution Program Administrators / Association
of Local

Air Pollution Control Officials (STAPPA/ALAPCO)

Mr. Terry McCall

	South Coast Air Quality Management District

California Environmental Protection Agency

Printed on Recycled Paper

Mr. Michael Trutna

Page   PAGE  2 

Gray Davis

Governor

Air Resources Board

 

Alan C. Lloyd, Ph.D.

Chairman

2020 L Street • P.O. Box 2815 • Sacramento, California  95812 •
www.arb.ca.gov

Winston H. Hickox

Winston H. Hickox

Agency Secretary

