The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency asked a federal court Tuesday to push back a deadline for the agency to announce new rules on boiler emissions.

The current deadline is Jan. 16, 2011. The motion the EPA filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia asks for it to be delayed to April 13, 2012.

“The requested extension will also provide EPA the opportunity to respond fully to all of the significant comments received from the public on the proposed emission standards,” the motion states.

The news hits home for Malheur Lumber Co., which has added a mill to its John Day biomass plant that can produce wood pellets and bricks.

Schools, hospitals and other buildings can use such wood products to generate steam for heat and power with commercial boilers. And the new mill at the John Day plant uses boilers to dry and form wood bricks and pellets.

The construction of the new mill was partly funded by a $4.89 million federal stimulus grant, but new EPA rules on boiler emissions could impose costly limits on production at the mill, or even shut it down.

John Shelk, managing director of Prineville’s Ochoco Lumber, which owns Malheur Lumber Co., said he had not heard about the news on Thursday, but when he was told, he was not surprised.

“I would say that … it’s reasonable that they take a further look at what the proposed boiler MACT rules would do to companies with existing technology,” Shelk said, referring to maximum achievable control technology.

Shelk added that the mill should become operational in about a week.

Critics of the EPA’s proposed boiler rules, including Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., have asked for more nuance, to accommodate businesses with various kinds of boilers.

In a letter submitted to EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson in April, he wrote, “I ask you to use the agency’s flexibility to adopt different standards for different types of boilers, rather than a one-size-fits-all approach.”

Further, Wyden’s office sent The Bulletin a statement on the news Thursday.

“EPA’s decision to seek extra time from the court to rewrite the boiler emissions rules shows that they are taking our concerns and the concerns of the timber industry in Oregon seriously,” Wyden said. “The original proposal would have created difficulties for struggling forest product businesses in our state and raise barriers to the development of new biomass energy projects. It is important that they reconsider.”

The federal court does not have to approve the EPA request. But Uri Papish, air quality program operations manager at the state Department of Environmental Quality, said he believes the EPA “usually won’t ask for an extension unless (it has) a pretty good case for the extension, (a) fairly high likelihood of success that (it will) get the extension.”

If the federal court accepts the EPA request, Papish said, “it’s also going to potentially delay when sources actually have to install pollution controls, because the rule will be adopted at a later date. … It would allow pollution for a longer period of time before it’s required to be reduced.”