A national emission standard for vinyl chloride emitted from ethylene dichloride-vinyl chloride and polyvinyl chloride plants is being promulgated under the authority of section 112 of the Clean Air Act. Vinyl chloride has been implicated as the causal agent of angiosarcoma and other serious disorders, both carcinogenic and noncarcinogenic, in people with occupational exposure and in animals with experimental exposure to vinyl chloride. Reasonable extrapolations from these findings cause concern that vinyl chloride may cause or contribute to the same or similar disorders at present ambient air levels. The purpose of the standard is to minimize vinyl chloride emissions from all known process and fugitive emission sources in ethylene dichloride-vinyl chloride and polyvinyl chloride plants to the level attainable with best available control technology. This would have the effect of furthering the protection of public health by minimizing the health risks to the people living in the vicinity of these plants and to any additional people who are exposed as a result of new construction. This is estimated to have the effect of reducing emissions from a typical ethylene dichloride-vinyl chloride plant by approximately 94 percent and from a typical polyvinyl chloride plant by approximately 95 percent. This document contains a summary of the public comments on the proposed standard and EPA's responses to the comments. It also contains updated information concerning the environmental and inflationary impacts of the standard.

Issued Sept. 1976.