ENGROSSED

COMMITTEE SUBSTITUTE

FOR

Senate Bill No. 152

(By Senators Schoonover, Love, Dittmar, Anderson,

Bowman, Helmick, Ross, Walker, Buckalew, Sharpe,

Boley, Plymale and Blatnik)

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[Originating in the Committee on Energy, Industry and Mining;

reported February 26, 1996.]

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A BILL to amend article five, chapter twenty-two of the code of West Virginia, one thousand nine hundred thirty-one, as amended, by adding thereto a new section, designated section seventeen, relating to requiring the director of the division of environmental protection to promulgate legislative rules allowing for facility-wide and multi-unit alternate emission control strategies.

Be it enacted by the Legislature of West Virginia:
That article five, chapter twenty-two of the code of West Virginia, one thousand nine hundred thirty-one, as amended, be amended by adding thereto a new section, designated section seventeen, to read as follows:
ARTICLE 5. AIR POLLUTION CONTROL.

§22-5-17. Bubble control strategies; director to promulgate rule.

(a) Within ninety days after the effective date of this section, the director shall promulgate, to the fullest extent allowed by federal law, a generic air emissions bubble rule that includes all elements necessary to obtain approval from the United States environmental protection agency to administer the program. The generic air emissions bubble rule shall eliminate the need for case-by-case federal determinations on individual emissions trades within a bubble as individual state implementation plan revisions.
(b) For purposes of promulgating a generic air emissions bubble rule:
(1) The term "bubble" shall mean an air pollution control strategy which is requested by a facility owner or operator and allows multi-unit aggregate emission limits to be established within a facility, in lieu of unit-specific emission limits, on a pollutant-specific basis. A bubble may be established for all units at a facility, or multiple bubbles may be created for groups of units at a facility. The application of a bubble to a facility shall allow emissions at one or more units to fluctuate within the bubble as long as the multi-unit limit is not exceeded. Multi-unit limits shall be established by aggregating unit-specific limits for all new or existing units being included in the bubble. The bubble shall also allow the department to establish, at the request of the owner or operator of a facility, alternative emission limits for individual units as long as the aggregated emissions limit for all involved units is not increased.
(2) Emissions from units that are not subject to regulation for the pollutant for which the bubble is created, and emissions from units that are considered insignificant or trivial sources under rules of the division implementing Title V of the federal Clean Air Act, shall not be considered for purposes of determining compliance with bubble limits.
(3) Emissions of pollutants for which national ambient air quality standards have been established shall not be considered for purposes of determining compliance with bubble limits unless the potential to emit such pollutants is greater than one ton per year or one pound per hour for any such pollutant: Provided, That all emissions of such pollutants from units that are not considered for purposes of determining compliance with bubble limits may not exceed ten thousand pounds per year within a bubble. Emissions of other pollutants from a unit that are less than one-tenth pound per hour or two hundred pounds per year shall not be considered for purposes of determining compliance with bubble limits, unless the emission of that pollutant from that unit is subject to a rule adopted under this article: Provided, however, That emissions of such pollutants from units that are not considered for purposes of determining compliance with bubble limits may not exceed one thousand pounds per year within a bubble.
(4) The term "facility" shall mean all emissions units that are located on one or more contiguous or adjacent properties that are under common control of the same person or persons.
(5) The term "unit" shall mean the point at which pollutants are released to the ambient air.