On April 10, 2018, the Department of Justice lodged a proposed Second Amendment of Consent Decree with the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Tennessee in the lawsuit entitled United States et al. v. Cemex Inc., et al., Civil Action No. 3:16?cv?471. The Consent Decree was modified by a first amendment to transfer Odessa obligations to GCC Permian LLC, which now owns the Odessa Plant. The 1st amendment was approved by the Court on January 31, 2017. The proposed Second Amendment relates solely to requirements in the original Consent Decree applicable to two kilns at the Odessa, Texas facility. The amendment is necessitated by the technical impracticability of achieving the specified interim emission limit for NOx on Kiln 1. The proposed Second Amendment resolves this development by increasing the interim limit on Kiln 1 while accelerating the deadline for installing NOx control technology and achieving a NOx emission limit on Kiln 2. The amendment will result in a net NOx emission reduction over the life of the Consent Decree.
On July 27, 2016, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) announced a settlement with Cemex, Inc., under which the company will invest approximately $10 million to cut emissions of harmful air pollution at five of its cement manufacturing plants in Alabama, Kentucky, Tennessee and Texas to resolve alleged violations of the Clean Air Act. Under the consent decree lodged in the U.S. Distr