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Federal Register / Vol. 86, No. 186 / Wednesday, September 29, 2021 / Proposed Rules extension of the compliance date in certain circumstances. Accordingly, the timeline proposed in the Proposed HFC
Allocation Rule matches the timeline proposed in this rulemaking, such that facilities would have no compliance obligations until October 1, 2022, or later if a compliance date extension was granted, to allow facilities necessary time to install and calibrate equipment.
The HFC-23 must be destroyed using a technology approved in the context of the AIM Act regulations which are also proposed in the same notice.
C. Emission Reduction Commitments Studies indicate that HFC-23 emission trends from HCFC-22 manufacturing largely depend on the magnitude of HCFC-22 manufacturing and the effectiveness of HFC-23 destruction associated with that manufacture of HCFC-22.7 8 9 HFC-23 has a substantially longer atmospheric lifetime and higher GWP than all other HFCs at 14,800. In 2015, EPA estimated that global controls on byproduct HFC-23 emissions from HCFC-22 manufacture would result in cumulative HFC-23 byproduct emission reductions of 12,600 MMTCO2 eq through 2050.10
On September 16, 2014, and October 15, 2015, entities in the private sector announced commitments to reduce emissions of HFCs.11 Several of those commitments included reducing HFC23 byproduct emissions. For example, one commitment from 2015 states, in part:

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Chemours today agreed to control and, to the extent feasible, eliminate by-product emissions of HFC-23 at all its fluorochemical production facilities worldwide.
Furthermore, Chemours today agreed to use in the U.S. only feedstock HCFC-22 from 7 Montzka, S.A., L. Kuijpers, M.O. Battle, M.
Aydin, K.R. Verhulst, E.S. Saltzman, and D.W.
Fahey. et al.: Recent increases in global HFC-23
emissions, Geophysical Research Letters, 37, L02808, doi:10.1029/2009GL041195, 2010.
8 B.R. Miller, M. Rigby, L.J.M. Kuijpers, P.B.
Krummel, et al.: HFC-23 CHF3 emission trend response to HCFC-22 CHClF2 production and recent HFC-23 emission abatement measures, Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics, 10, 7875
7890, 2010.
9 World Meteorological Organization WMO, Executive Summary: Scientific Assessment of Ozone Depletion: 2018, World Meteorological Organization, Global Ozone Research and Monitoring ProjectReport No. 58, 67 pp., Geneva, Switzerland, 2018.
10 Proposed amendment to the Montreal Protocol submitted by Canada, Mexico and the United States of America. https ozone.unep.org/system/files/
documents/OEWG-36-3E.pdf.
11 https obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/thepress-office/2014/09/16/fact-sheet-obamaadministration-partners-private-sector-newcommitmentsand https obamawhitehouse.
archives.gov/the-press-office/2015/10/15/fact-sheetobama-administration-and-private-sector-leadersannounce.

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producers that control and, to the extent feasible, eliminate by-product emissions of HFC-23 at their production facilities in North America.

And a second 2015 pledge states, in part:
Daikin Industries Ltd. today announced its commitment to strictly control and, to the extent feasible, eliminate by-product emissions of HFC-23 at its fluorochemical production facilities worldwide. Daikins plant in Decatur, Alabama, was the first plant in the U.S. that committed to the destruction of HFC-23 when it started operations in 1994.

These commitments demonstrate longstanding concerns over and efforts to limit HFC-23 byproduct emissions.
Further, in a 2021 news release, Chemours announced a project to significantly reduce emissions at their Louisville, Kentucky, manufacturing site. As stated in the news release, the project includes the design, custombuild, and installation of proprietary technology to capture at least 99 percent of HFC-23 process emissions from the site. The news release is available in the docket to this rule EPAHQOAR
20210253.
III. What is EPA proposing in this action?
A. What is EPA proposing to require for manufacturers of class II ODS?
In this action, EPA is proposing plants that manufacture HCFCs must control, capture, and destroy HFC-23 byproduct emissions. More specifically, EPA is proposing that, no later than October 1, 2022, as compared to the amount of chemical intentionally manufactured on a facility line over a certain time period, no more than 0.1 percent of HFC-23
generated on the line may be emitted during that same time period. After such point, emissions of HFC-23 byproduct that exceed the 0.1 percent would be treated as violations of an applicable emissions limitation in violation of federal law and subject to appropriate enforcement action. The proposed 0.1
percent allowable emissions standard is mass based, with the mass of the intentionally produced substance as the comparison point. In other words, if a line is intentionally producing 1,000
pounds of HCFC-22 over a certain time period, only one pound of HFC-23 could be emitted over that same time period.
EPA proposes that any captured HFC-23
must either be refined and employed for commercial purposes, in accordance with any other governing regulatory requirements, or destroyed.
Given that the focus of this rulemaking is to minimize HFC-23
byproduct emissions, it is reasonable to
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require that if the HFC-23 is not being captured and employed for a commercial purpose, in which case it is not directly emitted from the HCFC
manufacturing facility, HFC-23 must be destroyed using a technology that has been demonstrated to be highly effective in destroying HFC-23. EPA is proposing that HFC-23 must be destroyed using a technology approved by EPA. HFC-23 is a regulated substance under the newly enacted AIM Act. EPA has recently published the Proposed HFC Allocation Rule 86 FR 27150, May 19, 2021, which includes a proposal to approve specific technologies as permissible for the destruction of HFC-23. Because HFC-23 is a regulated substance under the AIM Act, it seems most appropriate to list approved technologies for the destruction of HFC-23 through the Proposed HFC Allocation Rule.
Therefore, EPA is not separately proposing a list of technologies through this rulemaking. The list of technologies proposed for approval through the Proposed HFC Allocation Rule is as follows: 1 Gaseous/fume oxidation; 2
Liquid injection incineration; 3
Reactor cracking; 4 Rotary kiln incineration; 5 Argon plasma arc; 6
Nitrogen plasma arc; 7 Chemical reaction with hydrogen and carbon dioxide; and 8 Superheated steam reactor. As stated in the preamble of the Proposed HFC Allocation Rule 86 FR
27183, these technologies are capable of destroying HFC-23 to a destruction and removal efficiency DRE of 99.99
percent.12
For additional information on these technologies, EPAs basis for approving them for destruction of HFC-23, and to participate in the public process concerning that Proposed HFC
Allocation Rule, please see the earliercited proposed rule. EPA is soliciting comment on its proposed approach to require use of a technology listed as approved through the Proposed HFC
Allocation Rule, and it is also soliciting comment in this rulemaking on whether the same set of destruction technologies should be separately listed and approved for HFC-23 destruction under 12 The preamble to the Proposed HFC Allocation Rule also states that many of the destruction technologies previously approved by EPA to destroy ODS have also been found capable of destroying HFCs to a minimum DRE of 99.99
percent, citing the 2018 TEAP Report, Volume 2:
Decision XXIX/4 TEAP Task Force Report on Destruction Technologies for Controlled Substances. March 15, 2021. https ozone.unep.
org/sites/default/files/2019-04/TEAP-DecXXIX4-TFReport-April2018.pdf. In addition, we note that these eight technologies are currently included in the list of destruction processes approved by EPA
for class I and class II ODS, which can be found in the definition of destruction in 40 CFR 82.3.

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