Stay Lifted on Big River Steel's $1.1 Billion Steel Mill Facility Following Hearing Before Arkansas Pollution & Ecology Commission

On September 18, 2013, the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality ("ADEQ") issued a Title V / PSD Air Permit for the proposed $1.1 billion Big River Steel ("BRS") Mill in Mississippi County, Arkansas. In October 2013, BRS competitors Nucor Corporation and Nucor-Yamato Steel Company ("Nucor") filed a third party appeal of the air permit with the Arkansas Pollution Control and Ecology Commission ("APC&EC").  PPGMR attorneys John Peiserich and Alan Perkins, along with a team of attorneys from BakerHostetler, represent BRS in the appeal proceedings and matters related to the permit appeal.  The BRS Mill project was stayed by operation of Arkansas law when the air permit appeal was filed by Nucor. 

In early January 2014, BRS filed a motion with the APC&EC seeking to have the automatic stay lifted to allow BRS to move forward with construction and other site-related activities.  Rival Nucor opposed lifting the stay, even though the BRS Mill could never operate until its air permit is finally approved.  ADEQ did not oppose lifting the stay.  Alan Perkins argued the motion before the APC&E Commission on January 24.  Perkins pointed out that further delay in the commencement of construction would cause BRS to incur increased project development costs, increased capital costs, lost revenues, and created an atmosphere of uncertainty that risked losing necessary investors in the project.  Nucor focused its arguments on its claims that the air permit was improperly issued by ADEQ.  Administrative Hearing Officer Charles Moulton pointed out to the Commission that the merits of the air permit would be the subject of an evidentiary hearing scheduled to begin February 18, and those issues were not the proper subject of the motion before the Commission. 

At the conclusion of the hearing, the Commission members present voted unanimously (with one abstention) to enter an order granting the requested partial relief from stay.  During the public comment portion of the hearing, Osceola Mayor Dickie Kennemore, Senator David Burnett of Osceola, and Mississippi County Judge Randy Carney all spoke in favor of lifting the stay and in support of the BRS Mill project in general.