TFI: Tightening of Air Standards will Hamper Fertilizer Production, Economic Growth
The Fertilizer Institute (TFI) has expressed alarm with the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) lowering of the National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) for fine particulate matter. According to TFI, this change will lead to permitting gridlock across much of the country, negatively impacting economic growth and fertilizer production.
“At a time when the need to strengthen the domestic fertilizer industry has been made clear by multiple ongoing global crises and echoed by the Biden Administration, now is not the time to hamstring fertilizer production by making new production facilities or the expansion of existing production more difficult or, in some instances, impossible,” said TFI President and CEO Corey Rosenbusch.
The PM NAAQS has significantly curtailed air pollution nationwide, but a major challenge for industries arises as those levels are progressively lowered. Despite ongoing technological improvements, industries reach a threshold where additional air quality improvements become more and more unfeasible under stricter standards, especially as 84% of current PM2.5 emissions originate from non-industrial sources.
“PM2.5 emissions have declined nearly 40% over the past twenty years, and they continue to go down,” Rosenbusch concluded. “TFI does not support lowering NAAQS levels and instead supports the previous standard that balanced robust environmental protection with economic growth.”
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