Continued noncompliance could result in loss of federal highway funding

Capitol News Illinois

SPRINGFIELD – Illinois faces a deadline next month to either change the way it enforces air pollution emission limits on heavy industries or face federal sanctions that could eventually result in restricted access to billions of dollars in federal highway funding.

But state agencies are working to avoid that as they rush to meet an Aug. 12 deadline imposed by the federal government to put a new regulatory framework in place that will comply with the federal government’s current interpretation of the Clean Air Act.

Those rule changes, which come from the Illinois Pollution Control Board, are up for review on Tuesday, July 18, before the General Assembly’s Joint Committee on Administrative Rules, a 12-member group that exercises oversight over the state’s administrative rulemaking process.

“At this point, any future course for this rulemaking depends entirely on JCAR’s review and decision-making on this proposal,” IPCB staff attorney Tim Fox said in a phone message. “The board awaits that review and decision-making at its meeting on Tuesday.”

At issue is a policy Illinois has had since the 1970s that allows factories, power plants, and other industries with air pollution emission permits to exceed their emission limits during startups, shutdowns, or malfunctions, or SSM events.

The so-called “SSM exemption” is written into a facility’s emission permit and provides the facility’s...

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