On March 13, 2018, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (“EPA”) released a guidance memorandum announcing a new policy to address NSR applicability –  facilities may now take into account emissions decreases in calculating whether a proposed project will trigger NSR in the first instance. Please note that it remains to be seen if Washington State will operate using this guidance.  Additional interpretation on this guidance can be found here.

Other key Clean Air Act changes recently included (1) change in the NSR program concerning the “actual-to-projected-actual” test stated that it would no longer “second guess” the pre-construction projection of a company unless there was a clear error (12/7/2017 memo) and (2) retraction of EPA’s “once-in-always-in” policy for the classification of major sources of hazardous air pollutants under section 112 of the Clean Air Act (1/25/2018 memo).