Four industries must upgrade their facilities by installing MACTs to reduce national emissions of toxic air pollutants by some 88,000 tons a year within five years.

Four industries must upgrade their facilities by installing Maximum Achievable Control Technologies (MACTs) to reduce national emissions of toxic air pollutants by some 88,000 tons a year within five years. The new rules affect industrial, commercial and institutional boilers and process heaters; plywood and composite wood products; stationary reciprocating internal combustion engines (RICEs); and surface coating processes in automobile and light-duty trucks manufacturing.

The new rules complete the series of technology-based national emissions standards under the 1990 Clean Air Act Amendments. The EPA has issued 96 MACT standards to reduce toxic emissions from more than 160 industrial-source categories. When fully implemented, they will collectively reduce 1.7 million tons a year of toxic air emissions from 1990 baseline emissions.

The new MACT rules are: Boiler MACT covering boilers and process heaters at facilities such as refineries, chemical and manufacturing plants, and paper mills; Plywood MACT covering 220 facilities that manufacture plywood and veneer, particleboard, medium-density fiberboard, hardboard, fiberboard, oriented strandboard and engineered wood products; Auto Coatings MACT covering the application of decorative, protective or functional coatings to new automobile and light-duty truck bodies and body parts; and RICE MACT covering RICEs at facilities such as pipeline compressor stations, chemical and manufacturing plants, and power plants.

To ensure that compliance with Boiler MACT and Plywood MACT is achieved cost-effectively, the EPA is providing alternative compliance options for industrial sources whose toxic emissions are below federal limits. See Recent Actions at www.epa.gov/ttn/oarpg.