Pilot Flexible Air Permit Profile

Source: Intel Corporation
Facility Type: Semiconductor fabrication
Location: Aloha, Oregon

The Oregon Department of Environmental Quality (ODEQ) and EPA worked with Intel Corporation to develop the first flexible title V air permit in the country. The permit enabled Intel to launch new products without delays by allowing Intel to rapidly construct a fabrication facility for a new generation of semiconductors and to make on-going operational and equipment changes in a streamlined manner. This improved the company’s ability to respond rapidly to new market opportunities, to support continual improvement projects within the organization, and to secure new work. The flexible permit ensured that all applicable regulatory requirements are addressed and created incentives for pollution prevention.

In October 1995, Intel Corporation’s Aloha, Oregon semiconductor fabrication facility received the first flexible title V permit (Permit No. 34-2681) developed in U.S.  Intel desired a permit for the Portland area facility that would better enable the company to meet aggressive product development schedules in a highly competitive semiconductor market. 

Tools & Methods Used in the Pilot Permit

Environmental Benefits and Pollution Prevention

• Reduced allowable and actual air emissions. During the title V permit term, Intel lowered its actual VOC emissions from 83 tons per year (tpy) to 56 tpy despite increasing production by more than 300 percent, enabling the facility to become a synthetic minor source.  During the permit term, Intel donated 30 tpy of VOC capacity to emit to the State to assist with meeting regional air quality improvement goals.  Most of the P2 gains at Aloha have been proliferated to other Intel facilities through the company’s “copy exactly” process.
  
• Easier P2 implementation. The permit provided a framework highly conducive to pollution prevention (P2) by facilitating streamlining the process for making equipment and operational changes. This enabled the facility to significantly reduce solvent usage and VOC emissions (from approximately 90 tons per billion production units to less than 20 tons per billion production units in the period 1991 to 1995) without triggering costly and time-consuming permitting actions. 

Economic Competitiveness Benefits

• Agile manufacturing and new product introduction. As new generations of computer chips are introduced every 12 to 24 months, Intel typically needs to make 150 to 200 equipment and operational changes per year that could trigger permitting action.  Consequently, even short delays due to air permitting can result in missed market opportunities.  Intel and industry estimates indicate that delays linked to new product launch and equipment downtime can cost several millions of dollars in just a few days.
• Making continuous improvement easy and efficient. Intel estimated that in the absence of the flexible permit, it would have required approximately 150 to 200 additional notice of construction applications per year, with each application requiring an average of approximately 8 hours of staff time, resulting in 1,200 to 1,600 hours per year.  Intel indicated that process experimentation and P2 is substantially more attractive to them when it operates in an environment of low administrative friction and high predictability with regard to the applicability of regulatory requirements.

Monitoring and Enforceability

• Replicable monitoring and routine reporting. ODEQ and Intel chose a chemical mass balance approach to monitoring, which is based on chemical usage.  In practice this approach was conservative in its estimate of VOC emissions, assuming all VOCs used were emitted to air, unless they could be otherwise accounted for by the facility.  

Corporate and Government Efficiency

• Compliance burden reduction. Intel estimated that each notice of construction approval action would require approximately 8 hours of staff time with each hour valued at $150. This translates into an administrative cost of $1,200 per permit action and an annual cost between $180,000 and $204,000. Intel representatives said that time spent on preparing construction permit actions would divert attention and focus away from more forward looking activities such as their design for environment program and in-process pollution prevention efforts.
• Paperwork and backlog reduction.  The permit saved ODEQ significant staff time associated with processing notice of construction applications from Intel’s Aloha facility.  Even at a very low estimate of 2 staff hours per application, the staff time saved is significant, at 300 to 400 hours per year.

Public Response

• Conventional public comment process. ODEQ held an optional, initial public meeting in January 1995 to discuss the initial draft permit.  Representatives from two local non-governmental organizations attended the briefing, and no comments were submitted.  The permit went through the standard title V public comment process in July 1995, including a non-required public hearing, and again, no comments were received.
• No Complaints.  There was no record of public complaints related to Intel’s Aloha facility.

For More Information

• Pilot Permit
• Intel's XL Permit: A Framework for Evaluation. James Boyd, Alan J. Krupnick and Janice Mazurek. Resources for the Future Discussion Paper 98-11. January 1998
• EPA Pilot Flexible Permitting Evaluation Report