An increase in the fees paid by Missouri’s polluters is set to take effect by January 2016.

The Missouri Air Conservation Commission voted Tuesday to proceed with the new fees after Missouri Department of Natural Resources staff spent the summer working with affected industries to devise a new fee structure that would keep its air pollution program solvent.

The proposal would charge industry $48 per emitted ton of sulfur oxides, nitrous oxides, carbon monoxide, particulate matter and other pollutants. That would be up from $40 per ton, and fees will remain capped at 4,000 tons per pollutant and 12,000 tons in all.

The proposal is expected to raise about $1 million more per year, but it still must go through a formal state rulemaking and, in addition, is subject to review from the Legislature.

It’s a scaled-back version of an earlier proposal that would have also raised some permit review fees. However, the special fee adjustment process requires “substantial agreement” with affected companies, and staff at the DNR said last month that some opposition arose late in the process. DNR administrators have not said who opposed the increases.

Most industries that participated through the summer supported the proposal. Last month, some said that raising only emission fees wasn’t fair and that they would like to see permit fees raised, too. If the DNR’s air program cannot meet minimum standards, the Environmental Protection Agency could step in to do the job.

The state air pollution program still faces tight budgets even with the increase, but administrators say it should be able to remain solvent beyond 2016, when it originally projected it would run out of money without an increase in years-old air pollution fees.

It plans to again ask the companies it regulates for permit fee increases beginning next year.

via Missouri regulators approve change in air pollution fees : Business.