Minnesota Criteria Pollutant Emission Inventory — Fees

Minnesota Rules parts 7019.3000-7019.3100 (the emission inventory rule) require all facilities in Minnesota that have an air emissions permit to submit an annual emission inventory report to the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA).

History of Emission-based Fees

In 1986, the MPCA began collecting fees for air quality permits. The fees were designed to cover the costs of reviewing and acting on permit applications and for enforcement of permit conditions.

In 1990, Congress enacted the federal Clean Air Act Amendment (CAAA), which requires states to implement air emission fee systems to fund their activities under the CAAA.

If states do not exercise the option to implement the requirements of the CAAA, including the requirement to collect air emission fees, the federal government will do so. Because of the federal CAAA requirements, all facilities in the United States subject to permitting have paid air emission fees since 1995.

In the 1991 legislative session, the Minnesota Legislature authorized the MPCA to collect the fees required by the CAAA. The fees are used to cover the costs of the CAAA and the state programs historically funded by the state general fund. The air emission fee structure specified under the CAAA requires a minimum fee "target" that states must collect.

Calculating Emission-based Fees

The air emission-based fee calculation begins with an unadjusted “fee target”, which is the total dollar amount appropriated by the legislature from the environmental fund to the MPCA to support the Air Quality Program.  This total includes both direct and indirect appropriations.  The fee target then gets adjusted as follows:

1. If the agency fails to collect its fee target the previous year, after making a reasonable effort to do so, the shortfall is added to the following year’s fee target;
2. If the agency collected more than its fee target the previous year, the excess is subtracted from following year’s fee target;
3. For any year, the MPCA commissioner may increase the fee target by up to five percent to reflect the anticipated fee non-payment rate;
4. There are several other adjustments made based on the different levels of VOC produced by facilities, whether or not the facilities are newly permitted, etc…

The adjusted fee target then gets divided by the total number of tons of all (un-capped) chargeable pollutants listed in the most recently available annual emission inventory.   This is the actual per ton fee that facilities pay. 

Another set of fee calculation involves multiplying the annual quantity of regulated pollutants emitted (capped at 4,000 tons per facility per pollutant) by $25 per ton, adjusted for inflation since 1989.  This product is the annual minimum of fee collection required by the Clean Air Act Amendment (CAAA).  The MPCA uses this calculation to monitor and make sure that it collects at least the CAAA minimum of air fees every year.  

Who to Call for Help

For questions regarding the emission inventory or the fee rule, call Michael Smith at 651-757-2733.

For questions regarding the fee process, call Glenn Olson, 651-757-2628.