On Tuesday, January 5, 2016, EPA partially approved and
partially disapproved a revision to the Texas "regional
haze" State Implementation Plan (SIP). The regional haze
program is intended to protect and improve visibility at national
parks and requires states to write plans for accomplishing those
goals. While EPA has disapproved dozens of states' regional
haze SIPs in the past, primarily based on the state's
determination of "Best Available Retrofit Technology"
(BART), this action simply defers EPA's decision on BART.
Instead, EPA disapproves other portions of the SIP deemed
inadequate to address requirements for "reasonable
progress," "long-term strategy," and "the
"calculation of natural visibility conditions." In an
effort to address these alleged deficiencies, the rule includes a
Federal Implementation Plan (FIP) that requires over a dozen
electric generating units in Texas to achieve more stringent SO2
emission limits based on the installation of scrubber
