Furniture Industry Likes EPA Move

December 8, 2010  by in UnCategorized   

By Home Furnishings Business in Green on December 9, 2010

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has filed a motion in federal District Court seeking a deadline extension for issuing rules governing industrial boilers.

A lobbying effort by American Home Furnishings Alliance member companies and others helped convince EPA to request the extension, which would allow another 15 months for the EPA to release Maximum Achievable Control Technology (MACT) rules aimed at reducing harmful air emissions from large and small boilers and solid waste incinerators. Without the extension, the EPA is on a court-ordered timeline to issue final rules by Jan. 16. The proposed extension would push back the final release of the rule to April 2012 and allow another public comment period.

As originally written, the proposed boiler MACT would have prevented furniture manufacturers from using wood as a combustible fuel for their boilers. The wood currently combusted by furniture makers is a clean, renewable energy source that is a product of the manufacturing process.

The proposed boiler rule lumped this dry wood fuel into a larger "biomass" category that includes less clean fuels such as "wet" wood, pulp, bark and animal waste. Domestic furniture operations would be forced to implement costly controls in order to achieve a very limited environmental benefit--or switch to fossil fuels and landfill or otherwise dispose of their wood byproduct.

AHFA Vice President Bill Perdue organized a last-minute visit to key U.S. Senators last week to give furniture executives one last chance to convey the devastating implications of the proposed rule. AHFA member company executives participating in the effort included John and Wyatt Bassett, Vaughan-Bassett Furniture; Micah Goldstein, Stanley Furniture; Barbara Nuckles, Ashley Furniture Inds.; Reggie Propst, Kincaid Furniture; and Jon Botsford, Furniture Brands International. Gat Caperton of Gat Creek Furniture also joined the contingent.

"While EPA requested and received some information from industry before the proposal, the comments EPA received following the proposal shed new light on a number of key areas, including the scope and coverage of the rules and the way to categorize the various boiler types," according to an EPA press release. "Industry groups and others offered this information during the public comment period after EPA proposed the rule. After reviewing the data and the more than 4,800 public comments, the agency believes it is appropriate to issue a revised proposal that reflects the new data and allows for additional public comment."

AHFA applauded the EPA's move.

"The senators we met with last week understood and agreed that the proposed rule would have been harmful to U.S. competitiveness in several industries, including residential furniture," Perdue said. "AHFA will remain involved in this process in hopes that a revised rule can be written that provides meaningful public protection--without requiring cost-prohibitive controls on U.S. plants that operate using a clean, renewable energy source."