Trump Administration to change Obama era wood stove and boiler emission regulations

Delaying or weakening emission regulations will impact thousands of communities nationwide

The EPA is “taking steps to provide relief to wood heater manufacturers and retailers” according to a statement released by the EPA.  The EPA expects to issue a proposed rule this spring that could potentially weaken parts of the regulations enacted under the Obama administration.

January 2019 update: The EPA has proposed giving a 2-year sell through for wood boilers and furnaces, allowing manufacturers to make and sell Step 1 units right up until May 2020.  Those units could then be sold through May 2022 by manufacturers directly or by retailers. Attorney Generals from seven states filed comments saying the EPA did not have the legal authority to provide such sell-throughs, portending a legal fight.

March 2020 update: The EPA issued its final rule and decided not to provide any sell-through periods for any class of wood heater.

The April 2018 move to provide relief is supported  by companies such as Central Boiler, the largest outdoor wood boiler manufacturer in North America, who has been aggressively lobbying to delay and weaken the standards that were to come into effect in 2020. But to some smaller companies who have already invested in the R&D to meet the stricter 2020 standards, the EPA announcement undermines the significant investment they’ve made in designing cleaner and more efficient wood heaters. 

Thousands of cities, towns and communities are impacted by excessive wintertime levels of wood smoke, posing health risks and undermining support for an iconic renewable energy technology.

It is widely expected that part of the relief that EPA will be providing to industry is a three-year delay in the emission standards that were  set to take effect in June 2020.  Republicans in the House of Representatives had already passed legislation for a three-year delay, but the Senate has not.  A court filingby the EPA said that it “intends to take final action on this first proposed rule by this fall,” and that would allow manufacturers to slow down their R&D and certification testing.

But the EPA can pick and choose which parts of the Obama era wood heater regulations that it wants to rewrite and they say they will issue a series of federal register notices asking stakeholders for comment and input on substantive issues.  Experts believe that a statement released by the EPA indicate that emission test methods are being considered. 

Environmental groups, industry and the EPA have been wanting to move away from testing and certifying wood stoves with crib wood – 2x4s and 4x4s – which has been the standard testing fuel since the first set of wood stove regulations in 1988.  All parties want to switch to using cordwood, the fuel used by homeowners, recognizing that stoves have been fine tuned to run better on crib wood, rather than cordwood.  This has resulted in stoves that may run at 4 grams an hour of smoke in the lab, but may be 10 grams an hour or more in the hands of homeowners. In a statement this week, the EPA said it is concerned that its regulation“may not be achieving the environmental benefits it was supposed to provide.”  

The EPA appears likely to accelerate the transition to testing with cordwood but industry seems to favor an ASTM cordwood test method while some states and others are developing a new method that reflects how stoves are used by homeowners.  This method, call the Integrated Duty Cycle (IDC) method is still in draft form and is a drastic departure from the traditional way that stoves have been tested since the 1988.  

The EPA could also decide to weaken emission limits for wood boilers, which would primarily benefit the outdoor wood boiler industry led by Central Boiler.  

Since the 2015 regulations went into effect, scores of wood and pellet stoves and boilers have been tested to meet the 2020 standards and most prices have not gone up significantly.  The 2015 regulations began a process of requiring that manufacturers test and report their efficiencies, and delaying the 2020 deadline would set back efficiency disclosures, harming the ability of consumers to choose more efficient appliances. 

States are allowed to set stricter standards but not looser ones, and if the EPA were to weaken the federal rule too much, some states could either stick to the original standards set by the Obama administration in 2015 or develop new ones. States like New York, Oregon, Vermont and Washington are already battling long-term wood smoke problems and have started to chart their own course for wood heater regulations. If several states adopted a different cordwood test method or stricter emission standards, they could have a “California effect” of moving the entire market.

“We are very concerned that the Trump Administration  may weaken consumer and environmental protections for wood stoves,” said John Ackerly, President of the Alliance for Green Heat, an independent non-profit that promotes cleaner and more efficient residential wood heating. “Wood and pellet stoves are vital to help families affordably reduce fossil heating fuels, but we can’t move this technology forward unless they can burn cleaner in people’s homes,” he said. 

March 11, 2020 update: The EPA finalized amendments to the 2015 NSPS and did not provide a retailer sell-through or any extensions for central heaters or room heaters.  They did remove pellet fuel minimum requirements but retained the list of prohibited fuels in the 2015 NSPS.

HPBA lawsuit extended again in hopes of renewed talks with EPA

The US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit agreed to yet another extension to the lawsuit brought by the Hearth Patio & Barbecue Association (HPBA) and the Pellet Fuel Institute (PFI) against portions of the EPA’s 2015 residential wood heater regulations.

HPBA “hopes to be back in talks with the EPA” said Rachel Feinstein, Government Affairs Manager for HPBA. In the motion requesting the extension, HPBA explained that talks between them and HPBA had broken down under the Obama Administration, but after Trump's election, HPBA is again “attempting to discuss with DOJ and EPA whether the agencies are willing to engage in further discussions concerning the Rule.”

The Trump Administration has been re-opening rule making on many regulations, but some observers say it will likely be an uphill battle for the hearth industry because the EPA is already contending with many higher profile rules. In addition, even if the EPA were to agree to review parts of the NSPS, the rule would have to go through the notice and comment process that can take 1 to 3 years, at which point there could be a new President and a new head of the EPA.

The EPA can revise regulations at any point, with or without a pending lawsuit. It can commit to a new rule making process on selected parts of the NSPS, but it cannot necessarily guarantee any particular outcome. In cases of voluntary remand, petitioners can also lose their right to appeal.

If the case goes to court in 2018, the outcome partially depends on which panel of judges get appointed to the case and the result could be more unpredictable and potentially more favorable to the groups that intervened in the suit – the American Lung Association, the Clean Air Council and Environment and Human Health. If the case goes to court, the best outcome for HPBA would likely be a settlement agreement that puts part of the NSPS on hold until another rule making is complete.

HPBA and PFI now have until August 25 to file their brief laying out their grievances with the new regulations. HPBA is not challenging the requirement that when tested with cribwood, wood stoves must emit no more than 2 grams an hour as of 2020. This means that all stove manufacturers remain under this deadline to retest their stoves to achieve 2 grams an hour or less under the revised test method. All stoves that tested at 2 or under prior to May 15, 2015 still have to retest to be compliant with the 2020 limits. 

HPBA is challenging the requirement that if a stove is voluntarily tested with cordwood, it must achieve 2.5 grams per hour or less. HPBA asserts that since there is not yet an approved test method, it was premature for the EPA to set an emission limit. HPBA is also challenging emission limits for wood and pellet boilers and furnaces.

Related posts:

What consumers need to know about the new EPA wood stove rules. (Updated, June 2017)
HPBA gets delay in lawsuit to give Trump administration time to review.  (April 2017)
Paper undermines stove industry variability study. (August 2014)

A Response to James Houck’s Indictment of the NSPS

A stove being tested at
Omni lab, where Jim
Houck used to work.

In the May issue of Hearth & Home magazine, James Houck wrote a lengthy criticism of the 1988 and 2015 NSPS,  Straight Talk”, in which he took the “gloves off ... to tell it like it is.” It is essential reading for anyone who wants to better understand the science and politics of regulating wood stoves.

But let’s take this a bit further and examine some of things that Jim Houck did not mention that also have implications for the future of wood heating in America. Houck states his premise is right up front:

“The 1988 NSPS was bad.  The 2015 NSPS is bad.  They are bad technically and they are bad for the hearth industry.  Certainly they have and will provide some environmental and health benefits, but they are poorly written, they have loopholes, they have cost the hearth industry dearly [and] they have allowed gamesmanship. [...] The blame cannot be put on regulators alone: those in the hearth industry also share some of it.”

Jim goes on to explain why we are going down the wrong path.  The 2015 NSPS essentially adopts the same test method as the 1988 one: a method based on grams per unit of time, not grams per unit of fuel, or better yet, grams per unit of heat.  He also very clearly shows how both the EPA and industry have ignored basic science by, for example, claiming that certified stoves reduce pollution far more than the data shows.  The best data shows an average decline in PM of nearly 50%, yet the EPA often claims its 75% and industry 90%.

The key question is, can manufacturers make genuinely cleaner stoves regardless of the EPA regulations?  Put another way, do manufacturers have the expertise and innovation necessary to take stoves to the next level despite poor regulations, or does the NSPS retard innovation and require that stoves continue to be designed according to faulty parameters?  There are good arguments on both sides of this debate. 

 

The lead author of the 2015 NSPS
was Gil Wood, at right, who retired
the day the final rule was published.

Two of the greatest threats to stoves burning clean in homes are things that Houck never mentioned: tuning primary air for cribwood, not cordwood, and the EPA requirement that stoves burn at a low burn rate.  Together, those requirements almost guarantee that cordwood stoves in homes are likely to produce smoke at their lowest burn rate.

Jim Houck does not mention the upcoming switch to cordwood testing laid out in the newest NSPS.  Nor does he mention that the cordwood test method will include a cold start.  Granted, emissions will still be measured in grams per hour and the process of getting to cordwood testing is fraught with scientific, political and legal potholes.  But industry, the EPA and other key stakeholders at least see the need and value of getting there.

Houck’s article is about non-catalytic stoves.  The testing, repeatability and other issues can be very different with catalytic and pellet stoves.  Together, pellet and catalytic stoves make up one third or more of stove sales.  It should not be anathema to recognize that other technologies can achieve greater repeatability in the lab and greater consistency between the lab and the living room.  Otherwise, it makes it sound that all biomass heaters are far dirtier in the homes than in labs which is not true with pellet stoves and boilers. If consistency is the goal, we need to focus on technologies which can do that best, including automated stoves that use sensors to regulate primary and secondary air.  Homeowners can never keep track of changing combustion conditions like an oxygen sensor can.

 

Automated stoves that help
ensure the stove gets enough air
during key parts of the burn
cycle can greatly reduce PM in
in real world use.

It’s also worthwhile looking at regulatory frameworks in other countries to see if better stoves emerge where they test using grams per unit of heat and avoid other pitfalls of our NSPS.  Looking at non-cat wood stoves produced by various European countries, New Zealand and elsewhere, I think we can pretty safely say that our non-cat stoves measure up very well, if not better than stoves from those countries.  Part of the answer is because regulations in those countries allow for a different set of loopholes and types of gamesmanship. 

The bottom line is that it appears that despite all the failings of the NSPS, it still may be one of the best regulatory systems anywhere for conventional wood stoves.  Europeans have advanced wood and pellet boiler technology faster than the US because higher heating fuel prices and policies promoting renewable energy have led to a greater demand for efficient technology. 

Houck says that the 1988 NSPS was bad and notes that hundreds of companies went out of business because of it.  But it did result in a new generation of cleaner stoves that appear to be about 50% cleaner.  Houck recalled that we are now saddled with the legacy of the 1988 test method thanks to one stubborn regulator who strongly advocated it and subsequent bureaucratic inertia.  Making radical changes to the NSPS is difficult for the EPA, due in part to its lack of resources—a condition which is likely to get worse under the current administration.  In fact, the lack of resources at the EPA could hobble the stove industry even more than the new regulations.  As it is now, there is only one official who does enforcement, which includes approving lab certifications.  If that person’s time were to be cut back even more, it could pose serious economic consequences for manufacturers trying to get stoves to market for the heating season.

In 1988, the EPA almost adopted a test method using the Condar, a very small portable dilution tunnel that uses larger filters.  Some data from the Masonry Heater Association shows that by simply using a larger filter to catch PM, the repeatability of testing can be significantly improved (powerpoint).  But any radical change to test methods would likely have to come from a transparent process driven by an institution that has the funding and credibility to carry it out.  

Extensive round robin testing in Europe
 coordinated by BeReal should expand our
understanding of repeatability.

Universities or labs could develop of a better test method, but stoves do not have the same level of R&D support from Congress, DOE or other potential major funders that other renewables have. In Europe, there is more public funding and the BeReal project is doing far more extensive round robin testing than what Houck describes in the US.  Some agencies and groups prefer to see stove technology stagnate and have its market share wither, due to antipathy or ambivalence toward this complicated creature that can be affordable to homeowners but too often noxious to neighbors.

We will never know what would have happened if the regulators had written better test methods.  Perhaps todays’ stoves would reduce PM by 60 or 70%, instead of the 50% that Houck cites.  We also don’t know how much better stoves will be 10 years from now after the 2015 NSPS plays out.  It appears that few stove manufacturers will go out of business this time around, partially because many of them also rely on profits from their gas stove lines.  But will the stoves really be cleaner in the hands of average homeowners?

Ben Myren, owner of one of the EPA
approved test labs, is a leader in
developing cord wood testing.  Here
he starts a cord wood test at the 2013
Wood Stove Design Challenge.

The NSPS is supposed to be updated every 8 years, so theoretically there will be regular opportunities to improve the testing process.  If we can get to cordwood testing in the next 5 years, possibly the next NSPS could move to testing grams per unit of heat.  Litigation over this NSPS may bring some relief to some boiler and furnace manufacturers and others, but it may have the opposite impact on support for wood heating among civil society in general. 

Attitudes of the general public that shape policies at all levels of government, our media, the non-profit sector, etc., will have to change if wood heating is really going to be a growing renewable energy technology.  We have hosted the Wood Stove Design Challenge, with the next one scheduled for November 2018, to see if we can focus attention and resources on genuine technological advances that make stoves cleaner in homes.  Public opinion will only change when stove technology changes and stoves become cleaner not just in the lab, but also in our communities.  The 2015 NSPS alone will not get us there, for all the reasons Jim Houck outlined, but it is still possible to get there.

#    #    #

A response from Scott Nichols on boiler repeatability

Scott Nichols, owner of Tarm Biomass that distributes European made boilers sent in a response to this blog and we reproduced it below.  Scott is also on the Board of Advisors of the Alliance for Green Heat.

I agree with a great deal of what Dr. Houck wrote.  The single biggest problem with emissions from wood burning is that old stock remains in the market.  

Inherent test variability for appliances designed to burn firewood is also a problem without a doubt.

Scott Nichols has been a leader in
installing modern, automated boilers
in institutions and homes in New England.

Of course, my world is now the boiler world and the some of the testing used for boilers solves several of the problems inherent with wood stove testing.  I’ll mention some of the differences, as It may spur some ideas as you think about testing for woodstoves.  

For instance:

1)      The partial thermal storage test method is a cold to cold test, which is more indicative of both worst case and standard conditions.

2)      Boiler PM is reported in lbs/MM Btu, which eliminates the appliance size conundrum that Dr. Houck mentions at length. 

Further:

1)      Boilers very often include lambda technology, which enables the boiler to react to real time stack conditions by adjusting combustion air to optimize combustion.  Lambda technology improves cleanliness by helping the appliance to accommodate various wood moistures, volatility of the fuel, size and shape of the fuel, draft, and other factors in real time.

2)      Some regulators are already thinking about how to encourage lambda technology because they know that outside of the lab, such technology can more closely provide results as tested in laboratories.

3)      Boilers are built much more robustly than stoves and usually do not use catalysts that deteriorate over time.  They therefore tend to produce as tested results for a longer period of time. 

4)      Thermal storage allows for what is effectively single burn rate operation.  In a laboratory that can result in 4 test runs in which the boiler operates identically from run to run at full output.  This enables more comparable data for each test even though each run is weighted differently.  

5)      Round robin lab testing of one of our boilers has been underway for months.  That testing has been funded by NYSERDA.  We don’t know the final results yet, but it is important to note that people are thinking about repeatability and are putting money behind learning more.  Initial results, before we were removed from the viewing process, indicated that repeatability was a problem. 

Problems with wood boiler testing that wood stoves don’t have:

1)      Boilers are tested in room temperature laboratories.  Outdoor boilers are therefore provided an efficiency advantage because jacket heat losses in the laboratory do not reflect the real world. 

2)      Wood fuel used in outdoor boilers is always the temperature of the outdoors in the real world, not room temperature.  If you put 150 pounds of wood in a boiler and it is 10 F outside, combustion will be substantially different than if that wood is 60 F warmer in a laboratory. 

Can the EPA Set Future Emission Limits Using a Cordwood Test?

In the proposed new regulations for residential wood heating devices, known as the New Source Performance Standards or “NSPS”, the EPA is not only trying to reduce the amount of smoke allowed from new stoves, but it is also proposing to switch the fuel used for testing devices in future years.

Traditionally, stoves have been tested using “crib” fuel, meaning Douglas Fir 2 x 4s and 4 x 4s that are stapled together to maximize the consistency of the fuel load.  EPA is proposing to allow manufacturers to use either crib wood or cordwood (which is more similar to the split wood logs that stove users typically burn) to test new stoves during the first phase of the proposed rule.  However, EPA would require that only cordwood be used to test stoves during the later phases of the rule.  Using cordwood for testing makes sense because a test using cordwood would likely come closer to what the real-world emissions from new stoves might be.

EPA is proposing that new stoves would be required to emit no more than 1.3 grams of particulate matter (smoke) an hour during the later phases of the rule (within 5-8 years) as demonstrated using cordwood.  Some observers have pointed out that although 1.3 grams an hour is already achievable today with some stoves tested with crib fuel, it is not clear how many (or if any at all) could pass the test using cordwood.  There is not any way to convert between tests using crib wood and tests using cordwood, and very few stoves have so far been tested using cordwood. 

Industry has voiced concerns, saying EPA cannot legally set a standard where there is insufficient data to back it up.  However, there are a number of ways EPA could still set a standard based on cordwood, even if it doesn’t have a mountain of data right now.  For example, there is legal precedent supporting EPA’s setting a rule based on what it reasonably predicts a technology could achieve in the future even if it doesn’t have hard data when it proposes a new rule.  In addition, there are many options for EPA to obtain more data before it finalizes the NSPS of which the wood stove community should be aware.

First, if EPA learns of new data using cordwood testing before it issues the final rule, it can issue a Notice of Data Availability, or “NODA” that makes the data available and requests additional comment.  Even absent a NODA, the EPA can consider comments and data submitted after May 5, but it is not required to do so.  This approach could allow EPA to collect more data about cordwood testing during the rest of 2014.

Second, EPA could issue an “Information Collection Request” under the Clean Air Act that would require manufacturers to test and turn in data on their stoves’ emission using a cordwood test.  

Third, EPA could re-open and re-consider the NSPS after it issues the final rule.  For instance, the agency could open a discrete part of the rule in 2 or 3 years for the sole purpose of setting or adjusting the emission limits for wood stoves using a cordwood test method.  EPA would have to go through the notice and comment process, but a technical update to the rule that adjusts the test method or emission limit based on new data could be completed relatively quickly, with a shorter comment period and fewer comments for EPA to consider.  

If the EPA ultimately sets very strict limits using cordwood for later phases of the NSPS, there is only a small chance that any lawsuit could stop the regulation from initially going into effect.  To prevent a regulation from going into effect, there is a very high burden of showing irreparable harm.  Also, courts are supposed to give EPA a lot of leeway in interpreting contested scientific or technical information (such as the achievability of the 1.3 gram per hour limit using cordwood).  Since the initial emission limits will be based on cribwood tests and will have little impact on the wood stove industry for the first several years, the wood stove industry will be hard pressed to show immediate, irreparable harm.  Warm air furnaces, outdoor boilers and other exempt appliances may have a better chance at showing irreparable harm as they have not been regulated before and there are manufacturers of those appliances who are more likely to be harmed or go out of business.  But those are the appliances that industry, states and others most want to be regulated, and where the greatest air quality benefits will come from.  However, EPA could also agree to stay the rule if industry is able to persuade it to do so.

As long as EPA itself doesn’t agree to stay the rule, the regulations would likely go into effect immediately upon final rulemaking, and all the initial emission limits would become law and would be effective even if industry sued.  If the industry were successful in suing EPA, a court could strike down certain provisions or remand the rule to the EPA.  Thus, a lawsuit by industry is very unlikely to stop the regulations from taking effect, may not succeed in the end, and would only prolong the uncertainty that industry has had to face to date.