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- tY EFA nad its charx:e tc re a%ate h 9 den sulfide htlpJhvww chroacon ntent/rhronKlelpagel/97/11109m2smyn rn nl Rooi:evtlt tiational Pa, in ?~orih Dakota had recorded more than 3,000 violations ofthe start's hvdro~en sulfide standard each year from 1984 tluough 1986. As it stands, the chemical essentially is treated as an afterthought by the EPA: Its concentration in inLus?real fuel gas is limited to minimize emissions of sulfur dioxide, the lung-imtating gas created when hydrogen sulfite is burned. fh, story of the federal government's failed run at hydrogen sulfide begins in the mid-1980s, by which time a groundswell had developed for an overhaul of the original Clean .0.ir Act, passed in t97U, Restrained by a cumbersome regulatory scheme that forced it to do elaborate risk analyses on a case-b}-case basis, the EPA l,ad made little head;aay against air toxics Realizing t!tat hundreds of pernicious compounds were threatening public health and the environment, agency officials began io rethink their strategy LIltimatel} it was decided that air-taxies regulation shculd be a two-step process. Irxitsaries that poi out listed chemicals above certain levels arc being required to employ "maximum achievable control technologies" (!s1AC7) systems used by the most progressive members of a given industrial categary Afte: these controls art in place, tfte EP-4 will revisit rack cattgor}~ If it determines that ti;ere is a residual health risk, mere controls will be required. The >ti1ACT progr aru is proccrdin~ apace. One hundred seventy-four categories from dry cleaners to aerospace and organic-chemical manufacturers must have start-of--the-art control technologies ur puce b}~ tiovember 2000_ About halt already do, and the LPA estimates that this has resulted in an annual ,eduction of 2 billion pounds of air taxies What would hair happened if hydrogen sirll'ide had stayed on the L'PA's target list° The agency would have looked at industric; knawn to pollute the air with large amaunts of ti:r chemical refineries, paper milk, etc and probably would have set a laugh but attainable emission standard, as it has ur will set for much rarer compounds [r•dustr} resistance to i.ontrvls on hydrogen suifdt s not surprising, given that compliance could be ~.;uite expensive. Natter to lathont is the traction to a seemingly Tess onerous CPA proposal to gild h}drogcr, sulfide to a list of chemicals whose release; must be reported annually under the Taxies Release Incentor~ program Tic clttmical was atuang 82 nonunated Cur listing iu a petition subm_~tted in 1992 by then-Ne;c YorF. Mario Coumo and the V'atural Resources f)efense Council Afti~r it accepted the petition and arnouncrd its intentions, the EPA reccivrt a torrent of letters, many of which focused on hydrogen s~!Ifite and a re'atet campuund, methyl mereaptan, adted to natural gas W give it a drtectahl~ odor The Chemical Man,,fl+cturcrs -association insisted that there had not been a "sufficient dema~~~suati~~r, ~:1 h~~~lirgen ~niiite'-• chroni, etTects " Fi~~e }rueri~an F~_~re>t and Paper .a:;octation sai;i that there was "no scientific rationa?e for list,ng rith• hulr,~2en sulfid~t ni methyl mcr:•aptan "