Snowe, Michaud ask EPA to reconsider biomass and boiler rules
By: Jonathan Riskind
The Portland Press Herald
Pending federal boiler emission regulations could make it more difficult for Maine businesses such as paper mills to use alternative energy biomass sources of fuel, say Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, and Rep. Mike Michaud, D-2nd.
Snowe and ten other senators – all Democrats, including Sherrod Brown of Ohio, Maria Cantwell of Washington and Ron Wyden of Oregon – this week sent a letter to the Environmental Protection Agency asking the EPA to “clarify” whether the rule as written could “create uncertainty” for businesses over whether biomass could be wrongly defined as a hazardous material. That would be up the cost of using biomass, the senators say.
“We have each heard from paper mills and other businesses in our states that the rule as written may force investments to be curtailed and may require companies to replace biomass with fossil fuels, which disrupts the forest-based economy supply chain and detracts from environmental objectives as well,” the senators wrote in their letter to the agency.
