[Federal Register Volume 83, Number 125 (Thursday, June 28, 2018)]
[Proposed Rules]
[Pages 30380-30382]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2018-13861]
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ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY
40 CFR Part 52
[EPA-R10-OAR-2018-0060; FRL-9979-99--Region 10]
Air Plan Approval; Washington; Interstate Transport Requirements
for the 2012 PM2.5 NAAQS
AGENCY: Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
ACTION: Proposed rule.
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SUMMARY: The Clean Air Act (CAA) requires each State Implementation
Plan (SIP) to contain adequate provisions prohibiting emissions that
will have certain adverse air quality effects in other states. On
February 7, 2018, the State of Washington made a submission to the
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to address these requirements.
The EPA is proposing to approve the submission as meeting the
requirement that each SIP contain adequate provisions to prohibit
emissions that will contribute significantly to nonattainment or
interfere with maintenance of the 2012 annual fine particulate matter
(PM2.5) national ambient air quality standard (NAAQS) in any
other state.
DATES: Comments must be received on or before July 30, 2018.
ADDRESSES: Submit your comments, identified by Docket ID No. EPA-R10-
OAR-2018-0060 at https://www.regulations.gov. Follow the online
instructions for submitting comments. Once submitted, comments cannot
be edited or removed from Regulations.gov. The EPA may publish any
comment received to its public docket. Do not submit electronically any
information you consider to be Confidential Business Information (CBI)
or other information the disclosure of which is restricted by statute.
Multimedia submissions (audio, video, etc.) must be accompanied by a
written comment. The written comment is considered the official comment
and should include discussion of all points you wish to make. The EPA
will generally not consider comments or comment contents located
outside of the primary submission (i.e., on the web, cloud, or other
file sharing system). For additional submission methods, the full EPA
public comment policy, information about CBI or multimedia submissions,
and general guidance on making effective comments, please visit https://www.epa.gov/dockets/commenting-epa-dockets.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Jeff Hunt, Air Planning Unit, Office
of Air and Waste (OAW-150), Environmental Protection Agency, Region 10,
1200 Sixth Ave., Suite 155, Seattle, WA 98101; telephone number: (206)
553-0256; email address: [email protected].
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: Throughout this document whenever ``we,''
``us,'' or ``our'' is used, we mean the EPA. This supplementary
information section is arranged as follows:
Table of Contents
I. What is the background of this SIP submission?
II. What guidance or information is the EPA using to evaluate this
SIP submission?
III. The EPA's Review
IV. What action is the EPA taking?
V. Statutory and Executive Order Reviews
I. What is the background of this SIP submission?
This rulemaking addresses a submission from the Washington
Department of Ecology (Ecology) assessing interstate transport
requirements for the 2012 annual PM2.5 NAAQS. The
requirement for states to make a SIP submission of this type arises
from section 110(a)(1) of the CAA. Pursuant to section 110(a)(1),
states must submit within 3 years (or such shorter period as the
Administrator may prescribe) after the promulgation of a national
primary ambient air quality standard (or any revision thereof), a plan
that provides for the implementation, maintenance, and enforcement of
such NAAQS. The statute directly imposes on states the duty to make
these SIP submissions, and the requirement to make the submissions is
not conditioned upon the EPA taking any action other than promulgating
a new or revised NAAQS. Section 110(a)(2) includes a list of specific
elements that ``[e]ach such plan'' submission must address. The EPA
commonly refers to such state plans as ``infrastructure SIPs.''
Specifically, this rulemaking addresses the requirements under CAA
section 110(a)(2)(D)(i)(I), otherwise known as the ``good neighbor''
provision, which requires SIPs to contain adequate provisions to
prohibit emissions that will contribute significantly to nonattainment
or interfere with maintenance of the NAAQS in any other state.
II. What guidance or information is the EPA using to evaluate this SIP
submission?
The most recent relevant document was a memorandum published on
March 17, 2016, titled ``Information on the Interstate Transport ``Good
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Neighbor'' Provision for the 2012 Fine Particulate Matter National
Ambient Air Quality Standards under Clean Air Act Section
110(a)(2)(D)(i)(I)'' (memorandum). The memorandum describes the EPA's
past approach to addressing interstate transport, and provides the
EPA's general review of relevant modeling data and air quality
projections as they relate to the 2012 annual PM2.5 NAAQS.
The memorandum provides information relevant to the EPA Regional office
review of the CAA section 110(a)(2)(D)(i)(I) ``good neighbor''
provision in infrastructure SIPs with respect to the 2012 annual
PM2.5 NAAQS. This rulemaking considers information provided
in that memorandum.
The memorandum also provides states and the EPA Regional offices
with future year annual PM2.5 design values for monitors in
the United States based on quality assured and certified ambient
monitoring data and air quality modeling. The memorandum describes how
these projected potential design values can be used to help determine
which monitors should be further evaluated to potentially address
whether emissions from other states significantly contribute to
nonattainment or interfere with maintenance of the 2012 annual
PM2.5 NAAQS at those sites. The memorandum explains that the
pertinent year for evaluating air quality for purposes of addressing
interstate transport for the 2012 PM2.5 NAAQS is 2021, the
attainment deadline for 2012 PM2.5 NAAQS nonattainment areas
classified as Moderate.
Based on this approach, the potential receptors are outlined in the
memorandum. Most of the potential receptors are in California, located
in the San Joaquin Valley or South Coast nonattainment areas. However,
there is also one potential receptor in Shoshone County, Idaho, and one
potential receptor in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania. The memorandum
also indicates that for certain states with incomplete ambient
monitoring data, additional information including the latest available
data should be analyzed to determine whether there are potential
downwind air quality problems that may be impacted by transported
emissions.
This rulemaking considers analysis in Washington's submission, as
well as additional analysis conducted by the EPA during review of its
submission. For more information on how we conducted our analysis,
please see the technical support document (TSD) included in the docket
for this action.
III. The EPA's Review
This rulemaking proposes action on Washington's February 7, 2018,
SIP submission addressing the good neighbor provision requirements of
CAA section 110(a)(2)(D)(i)(I). State plans must address specific
requirements of the good neighbor provisions (commonly referred to as
``prongs''), including:
--Prohibiting any source or other type of emissions activity in one
state from contributing significantly to nonattainment of the NAAQS in
another state (prong one); and
--Prohibiting any source or other type of emissions activity in one
state from interfering with maintenance of the NAAQS in another state
(prong two).
The EPA has developed a consistent framework for addressing the
prong one and two interstate transport requirements with respect to the
PM2.5 NAAQS in several previous federal rulemakings. The
four basic steps of that framework include: (1) Identifying downwind
receptors that are expected to have problems attaining or maintaining
the relevant NAAQS; (2) identifying which upwind states contribute to
these identified problems in amounts sufficient to warrant further
review and analysis; (3) for states identified as contributing to
downwind air quality problems, identifying upwind emissions reductions
necessary to prevent an upwind state from significantly contributing to
nonattainment or interfering with maintenance of the relevant NAAQS
downwind; and (4) for states that are found to have emissions that
significantly contribute to nonattainment or interfere with maintenance
of the relevant NAAQS downwind, reducing the identified upwind
emissions through adoption of permanent and enforceable measures. This
framework was applied with respect to PM2.5 in the Cross-
State Air Pollution Rule (CSAPR), designed to address both the 1997 and
2006 PM2.5 standards, as well as the 1997 ozone standard.\1\
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\1\ Washington was not part of the CSAPR rulemaking. The EPA
approved the Washington SIP as meeting the CAA section
110(a)(2)(D)(i)(I) requirements for the 1997 ozone and 1997
PM2.5 NAAQS on January 13, 2009 (74 FR 1591) and the 2006
PM2.5 NAAQS on July 30, 2015 (80 FR 45429).
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In its submission, Ecology generally mirrored the framework
established by the EPA. Specifically: (1) Ecology reviewed past and
current air quality nationwide to identify potential downwind receptors
that may have problems attaining or maintaining the 2012
PM2.5 NAAQS; (2) Ecology identified those western receptors
from the broader nationwide list that may be impacted by Washington for
further review and analysis; (3) Ecology then reviewed air quality
reports, modeling results, designation letters, designation technical
support documents, and available attainment plans to determine if
emissions from Washington may impact these specific areas; (4) Lastly,
Ecology conducted its own independent Hybrid Single Particle Lagrangian
Integrated Trajectory (HYSPLIT) back trajectory modeling for Shoshone
County, Idaho to support the state's conclusion that sources in
Washington are not significantly contributing to this receptor, or
interfering with maintenance of this receptor. From this analysis,
Ecology concluded that Washington does not significantly contribute to
nonattainment or interfere with maintenance of the 2012
PM2.5 NAAQS in any other state.
As discussed in the TSD for this action, we came to the same
conclusion as the state. In our evaluation, potential downwind
nonattainment and maintenance receptors were identified in other
states. The EPA evaluated these potential receptors to determine first
if, based on review of relevant data and other information, there would
be downwind nonattainment or maintenance problems, and if so, whether
Washington contributes to such problems in these areas. After reviewing
air quality reports, modeling results, designation letters, designation
technical support documents, attainment plans and other information for
these areas, we find there is no contribution sufficient to warrant
additional SIP measures. Therefore, we are proposing to approve the
Washington SIP as meeting CAA section 110(a)(2)(i)(I) interstate
transport requirements for the 2012 PM2.5 NAAQS.
IV. What action is the EPA taking?
The EPA is proposing to approve Ecology's February 7, 2018,
submission certifying that the Washington SIP is sufficient to meet the
interstate transport requirements of CAA section 110(a)(2)(D)(i)(I),
specifically prongs one and two, as set forth above. The EPA is
requesting comments on the proposed approval.
V. Statutory and Executive Order Reviews
Under the CAA, the Administrator is required to approve a SIP
submission that complies with the provisions of the CAA and applicable
federal regulations. 42 U.S.C. 7410(k); 40 CFR 52.02(a). Thus, in
reviewing SIP submissions, the
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EPA's role is to approve state choices, provided that they meet the
criteria of the CAA. Accordingly, this action merely approves state law
as meeting federal requirements and does not impose additional
requirements beyond those imposed by state law. For that reason, this
action:
Is not a significant regulatory action subject to review
by the Office of Management and Budget under Executive Orders 12866 (58
FR 51735, October 4, 1993) and 13563 (76 FR 3821, January 21, 2011);
Is not an Executive Order 13771 (82 FR 9339, February 2,
2017) regulatory action because SIP approvals are exempted under
Executive Order 12866;
Does not impose an information collection burden under the
provisions of the Paperwork Reduction Act (44 U.S.C. 3501 et seq.);
Is certified as not having a significant economic impact
on a substantial number of small entities under the Regulatory
Flexibility Act (5 U.S.C. 601 et seq.);
Does not contain any unfunded mandate or significantly or
uniquely affect small governments, as described in the Unfunded
Mandates Reform Act of 1995 (Pub. L. 104-4);
Does not have Federalism implications as specified in
Executive Order 13132 (64 FR 43255, August 10, 1999);
Is not an economically significant regulatory action based
on health or safety risks subject to Executive Order 13045 (62 FR
19885, April 23, 1997);
Is not a significant regulatory action subject to
Executive Order 13211 (66 FR 28355, May 22, 2001);
Is not subject to requirements of Section 12(d) of the
National Technology Transfer and Advancement Act of 1995 (15 U.S.C. 272
note) because application of those requirements would be inconsistent
with the CAA; and
Does not provide EPA with the discretionary authority to
address, as appropriate, disproportionate human health or environmental
effects, using practicable and legally permissible methods, under
Executive Order 12898 (59 FR 7629, February 16, 1994).
In addition, the SIP is not approved to apply on any Indian
reservation land or in any other area where EPA or an Indian tribe has
demonstrated that a tribe has jurisdiction. In those areas of Indian
country, the rule does not have tribal implications and will not impose
substantial direct costs on tribal governments or preempt tribal law as
specified by Executive Order 13175 (65 FR 67249, November 9, 2000).
List of Subjects in 40 CFR Part 52
Environmental protection, Air pollution control, Incorporation by
reference, Intergovernmental relations, Particulate matter, Reporting
and recordkeeping requirements.
Dated: June 14, 2018.
Chris Hladick,
Regional Administrator, Region 10.
[FR Doc. 2018-13861 Filed 6-27-18; 8:45 am]
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