On May 21, nine state Attorneys General wrote to U.S. EPA’s Air Quality Assessment Division detailing how two alternative test methods used to certify that new wood stoves meet EPA’s current emission standards are subject to manipulation and should be scrapped.
A review by the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation (ADEC) and other state organizations found that compliance certifications based on those methods “suffer from deficiencies that artificially lower emissions,” and that the two approaches “allow too much variability and manufacturer or laboratory manipulation” to provide a useful result.
In the letter, the AGs request that EPA revoke use of alternative test methods 125 and 127 for New Source Performance Standard Wood Heaters Certification if the states’ findings are corroborated.
The letter was signed by the Attorneys General for New York, Alaska, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Washington, along with the Puget Sound Clean Air Agency.
In March, the Northeast States for Coordinated Air Use Management released a report stating that “[t]he unavoidable conclusion of this report is that EPA’s certification program to ensure new wood heaters meet clean air requirements is dysfunctional. It is easily manipulated by manufacturers and testing laboratories.” The National Association of Clean Air Agencies held a joint briefing led by NESCAUM and ADEC, and slides from that discussion can be found here.
