WASHINGTON — A Biden administration proposal to change how rail carriers report air emissions data is getting pushback not just from rail companies but from state government agencies as well.
The Environmental Protection Agency’s proposed rule, issued in August, is considering making rail yard locomotive activity reporting mandatory as opposed to the current voluntary reporting structure. The reporting of locomotive activity is aimed at improving air quality in local communities.
EPA notes in its proposal that the current approach to informing its National Emissions Inventory, a triennial estimate of air pollution sources, relies on voluntary reporting from private rail companies.
“While this approach has mutual benefit to both the EPA and those companies, it is nevertheless a voluntary measure,” according to the agency, which is therefore considering a “rail companies” option “that would additionally regulate the rail companies directly to provide activity data to EPA.”
“For the rail companies option, the EPA proposes that owners/operators of rail companies would be required to report activity data from [rail yards] to EPA. The rail companies option would have a disadvantage of imposing more requirements than continuing the ongoing voluntary approach with rail companies.”
In comments filed with EPA opposing the change, the Association of American Railroads explained that it collects information on the national locomotive fleet from its member railroads and provides that data to the Eastern Research Technical Advisory Committee (ERTAC), which uses the information to generate an estimate of emissions from rail operations by state and county.
“This approach ensures a standard methodology for identifying the active locomotive fleet and provides a single point of contact (AAR) for ERTAC and EPA when working through their triennial inventory calculation,” AAR stated. “It also avoids the complications and burdens that would be created by individual state reporting requirements that may differ significantly from one state to another.
“AAR and its members thus oppose the ‘rail companies’ approach described in the preamble to the proposed rule. This approach would simply add more complexity and complications with no demonstrable additional benefit.”
AAR also warned EPA against using national-level locomotive fleet data to estimate emissions on a local level.
“Using data on the size of the national locomotive fleet to calculate accurate and meaningful, county-specific railyard emissions inventories is not possible,” the group stated.
“Most locomotives generally move freely around and across the country and may be operated by different railroads in different locations. Use of a locomotive varies from time to time and place to place, based on need. While ERTAC’s calculations may serve a practical purpose, their limitations must be understood and recognized … and should not be used as a basis for regulation or policy setting.”
State environmental regulators push back on EPA as well
Because state and local environmental agencies would also be responsible for compiling extra data associated with the proposed rule, several states took issue with EPA’s proposed timelines and a lack of federal resources to offset the proposed requirements.
“Before requiring states to undertake the expense and effort required to change software and databases, update regulations, identify the required new reporters, and increase entity-specific reporting, EPA should have first engaged the states to more thoroughly consider the feasibility of states incorporating the voluminous changes all at once in the extremely short deadline,” commented the Arkansas Department of Energy and Environment, noting EPA’s change from triennial reporting to annual reporting.
“The proposed action will strain state resources, necessitate mandated unfunded capital expenditures, and potentially weaken data quality.”
The Ohio Environmental Protection Agency agreed with that assessment, pointing out that adding more reporting requirements on increasingly short timelines without additional funding “shows a lack of understanding of current state processes, informed by long term experience with CAP reporting, and the resources that are available to states.”
The West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection stated, “frankly, the proposed rule cannot realistically be implemented as proposed regardless of whether the states accept delegation of the [air pollution] reporting or leave implementation to the EPA.”
