EPA Administrator Wheeler has distributed a "Revised Policy
on Exclusions from 'Ambient Air'". Here's the
short version. EPA has long defined "ambient air" as
outside air "to which the general public has access."
EPA's policy has been to require the regulated community to
satisfy two criteria to invoke an exclusion. First, the regulated
entity must have legal control over the land. Second, there must be
a "fence or other physical barriers". The new
interpretation eliminates the per se requirement of a physical
barrier and substitutes a broader test that allows other
measures:
that are effective in precluding access to the land by the
general public.
It's not obvious to me that this is the end of the world as
we know it. I could imagine a Democratic EPA making the same
change. After all, the key is that the public be excluded, not the
manner in which they are excluded. Once EPA has taken the initial
step of defining "ambient air" to exclude some air
that's
