US: Lawyers for the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and ESSROC are in talks to settle a legal dispute pending before the Environmental Appeals Board (EAB). The EAB had scheduled the case for 7 November 2013 but on 6 November 2013 EAB Judge Leslye Fraser stayed the case until 20 February 2014 to allow time for settlement talks. The order requires ESSROC and EPA's Region V to report to the EAB on the status of negotiations by 9 January 2014.
The case began 8 July 2013 when the ESSROC Cement Corporation petitioned the EAB to review Region V's decision requiring an SSRA at ESSROC's hazardous waste combustor facility in Logansport, IN, during the 2012 renewal of the facility's Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) permit. In a 25 September 2013 order, the EAB granted oral argument in the case, and asked that during the proceedings the two sides revisit arguments from industry's past challenge to a 2005 EPA rule setting maximum achievable control technology (MACT) standards under the Clean Air Act for the combustion facilities.