The following appears in a box on page 40 of the printed report.

Making Decisions: Steel Industry

The Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990 required EPA to cut toxic air pollution from iron and steel plant coke ovens. Coke ovens produce the material used in blast furnaces to convert iron ore to iron. Coke oven air emissions were already regulated by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration and states, and by EPA under the hazardous substance notification requirements of Superfund. The issue of how best to reduce coke oven emissions was contentious and had been deadlocked for 20 years.

To break this logjam, EPA initiated a negotiated rulemaking process with extensive stakeholder involvement. Over two years, the Agency met with representatives of industry and industry associations, labor unions, states, and environmental groups in workshops and informal and formal meetings. Negotiators worked with stakeholders to develop a regulation that all parties could support. By making concessions in one area in exchange for others in other areas, the parties resolved such major issues as what emissions data would be used, monitoring methods, numerical emission limits, costs and economics, and work practices. They also identified and discussed emission sources, enforcement and implementation needs, future research, and integrating the proposed regulation with EPA’s new permitting system.

The process successfully involved stakeholders in making decisions that had dragged out for decades. The resulting regulation reduces hazardous air pollution by 1,500 tons per year.