Missoula Wood Stove Dealer Reacts to New EPA Regulations

New EPA rules for wood burning stoves are going to tighten up regulations on sellers and manufacturers of stoves and heaters, but Guy Hanson from Missoula’s Axmen says the updated rules are a welcome change.

"They address a lot of the new technology more accurately and they fix some of the quirks of the old law," Hanson said. "We've looked at our products on our floor we don't have anything that we sell that will be affected by this in the next five years."

Senator Steve Daines recently said the new regulations were a threat to rural Montana because they would "threaten access to affordable energy." Hanson sees things differently.

"I'm sorry but I don't agree," Hanson said. "I've spent you know four years working on this. I really think that it's a pretty good improvement on what we had before. I think there's a lot of misunderstanding of what it does and how it works, but it's been actually a really good process. The EPA has I think negotiated in good faith and done a good job of trying to make this a workable process."

The new regulations are the first major update by the EPA on the emission standards since 1988 a major part of the delay has been concern from legislators that new standards would come at a prohibitive cost.