The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on Oct. 22 released a final rule that allows industrial facilities, such as power plants and refineries, to make upgrades in certain cases without obtaining major construction permits that often require pollution controls. Receive daily email alerts, subscriber notes & personalize your experience. Register Now The EPA first outlined a new interpretation of a two-step process required under the Clean Air Act’s New Source Review, or NSR, program in the form of agency guidance in March 2018 under former EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt. Under the EPA’s previous interpretation, the first step required an analysis of whether a discrete proposed project would result in a “significant emissions increase” of a regulated pollutant. If the result was a significant increase, a broader second analysis was required to […]