Auto Salvage Yards Exempted for Title V Permits

A recent Environmental Protection Agency final ruling permanently exempted auto salvage yards, along with four other types of small businesses from having to obtain a federal operating, or Title V, permit. 

An operating permit is a federally enforceable document issued by state and local permitting authorities, or EPA, after a facility has begun to operate. 

The purpose of the Title V permit is to reduce violations of air pollution laws and to improve enforcement of those laws.  Operating permits outline all air pollution requirements that apply to specific facilities, requires those facilities to make regular reports on how they are tracking and controlling emissions, and requires the facilities to certify each year whether the have met their air pollution requirements.

The final ruling also prohibits states from issuing federal operating permits to “area sources” once the Agency has exempted them from the national permitting program.  States may continue to issue other types of air permits for such sources, such as state operating permits.  “Area sources” are small facilities that emit less than 10 tons per year of a single toxic air pollutant or fewer than 25 tons of a combination of such pollutants.  Small sources that are secondary lead smelters are still required to obtain a federal operating permit.

In order to exempt a category of “area sources” from operating permitting requirements, the Clean Air Act requires EPA to determine that complying with the requirements is “impracticable, infeasible, or unnecessarily burdensome” for the area source.  Based on that criterion, the EPA has determined that all “area sources,” except secondary lead area sources, should be exempted.  However, area sources are still required to monitor emissions and complete sworn statements demonstrating they are in compliance.  Those statements are to be available to the public on request.

“The Automotive Recyclers Association applauds this move on the part of the EPA,” said Ray Tarnowski, ARA’s Government Affairs Manager.  Tarnowski went on, “automotive recyclers are typically small businesses which provide a very valuable service to the country, consumers, economy and the environment by removing severely damaged, unsafe and end-of-life vehicles from the country’s roadways, and recycling their usable parts.  At the same time recyclers capture and remove the vehicles’ hazardous fluids and materials keeping them from contaminating the soil, water and air.”

The EPA ruling does not alter the requirements governing the control of emissions of toxic air pollutants that apply to these facilities. It simply removes the burdensome, impracticable and costly process of obtaining an operating permit.