[Federal Register Volume 81, Number 40 (Tuesday, March 1, 2016)]
[Proposed Rules]
[Pages 10563-10564]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2016-04468]
[[Page 10563]]
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ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY
40 CFR Part 81
[EPA-HQ-OAR-2014-0464; FRL-9943-02-OAR]
EPA Responses to Certain State Designation Recommendations for
the 2010 Sulfur Dioxide National Ambient Air Quality Standard: Notice
of Availability and Public Comment Period
AGENCY: Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
ACTION: Notice of availability and public comment period.
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SUMMARY: Notice is hereby given that the Environmental Protection
Agency (EPA) has posted on its Internet Web site responses to certain
state designation recommendations for the 2010 Sulfur Dioxide
(SO2) National Ambient Air Quality Standard (NAAQS). The EPA
invites the public to review and provide input on its responses during
the comment period specified in the DATES section. The EPA sent its
responses directly to the states on or about February 16, 2016. The EPA
intends to make final the designation determinations for the areas of
the country addressed by these responses no later than July 2, 2016.
DATES: Comments must be received on or before March 31, 2016. Please
refer to SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION for additional information on the
comment period.
ADDRESSES: Submit your comments, identified by Docket ID No. EPA-HQ-
OAR-2014-0464, at http://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 whose disclosure 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 http://www2.epa.gov/dockets/commenting-epa-dockets.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: For general questions concerning this
action, please contact Rhea Jones, U.S. EPA, Office of Air Quality
Planning and Standards, Air Quality Planning Division, C539-04,
Research Triangle Park, NC 27711, telephone (919) 541-2940, email at
[email protected]. For questions regarding areas in EPA Region 1,
please contact Leiran Biton, U.S. EPA, telephone (617) 918-1267, email
at [email protected]. For questions regarding areas in EPA Region 2,
please contact Henry Feingersh, U.S. EPA, telephone (212) 637-3382,
email at [email protected]. For questions regarding areas in EPA
Region 3, please contact Irene Shandruk, U.S. EPA, telephone (215) 814-
2166, email at [email protected]. For questions regarding areas in
EPA Region 4, please contact Twunjala Bradley, U.S. EPA, telephone
(404) 562-9352, email at [email protected]. For questions
regarding areas in EPA Region 5, please contact John Summerhays, U.S.
EPA, telephone (312) 886-6067, email at [email protected]. For
questions regarding areas in EPA Region 6, please contact Dayana
Medina, U.S. EPA, telephone (214) 665-7241, email at
[email protected]. For questions regarding areas in EPA Region 7,
please contact David Peter, U.S. EPA, telephone (913) 551-7397, email
at [email protected]. For questions regarding areas in EPA Region 8,
please contact Adam Clark, U.S. EPA, telephone (303) 312-7104, email at
[email protected]. For questions regarding areas in EPA Region 9,
please contact Gwen Yoshimura, U.S. EPA, telephone (415) 947-4134,
email at [email protected]. For questions regarding areas in EPA
Region 10, please contact John Chi, U.S. EPA, telephone (206) 553-1185,
email at [email protected].
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:
I. Background and Purpose
On June 2, 2010, the EPA Administrator signed a notice of final
rulemaking that revised the primary SO2 NAAQS (75 FR 35520;
June 22, 2010) after review of the existing two primary SO2
standards promulgated on April 30, 1971 (36 FR 8187). The EPA
established the revised primary SO2 NAAQS at 75 parts per
billion (ppb) which is attained when the 3-year average of the annual
99th percentile of 1-hour daily maximum concentrations does not exceed
75 ppb.
The process for designating areas following promulgation of a new
or revised NAAQS is contained in the Clean Air Act (CAA) section 107(d)
(42 U.S.C. 7407). After promulgation of a new or revised NAAQS, each
governor or tribal leader has an opportunity to recommend air quality
designations, including the appropriate boundaries for nonattainment
areas, to the EPA. The EPA considers these recommendations as part of
its duty to promulgate the formal area designations and boundaries for
the new or revised NAAQS. By no later than 120 days prior to
promulgating designations, the EPA is required to notify states and
tribes, as appropriate, of any intended modifications to an area
designation or boundary recommendation that the EPA deems necessary.
The EPA completed an initial round of SO2 designations
for certain areas of the country on July 25, 2013, designating 29 areas
in 16 states as nonattainment. Pursuant to a March 2, 2015, court-
ordered schedule,\1\ the EPA must complete SO2 designations
for the remaining areas of the country by three specific deadlines:
July 2, 2016, December 31, 2017, and December 31, 2020. This current
second round of designation addresses two groups of areas: (1) Areas
that have newly monitored violations of the 2010 SO2 NAAQS,
and (2) areas that contain any stationary sources that had not been
announced as of March 2, 2015, for retirement and that according to the
EPA's Air Markets Database emitted in 2012 either (i) more than 16,000
tons of SO2, or (ii) more than 2,600 tons of SO2
with an annual average emission rate of at least 0.45 pounds of
SO2/mmBTU. The EPA has determined that the areas meeting
these criteria are associated with 68 stationary sources and the island
of Hawaii.
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\1\ Sierra Club v. McCarthy, No. 3-13-cv-3953 (SI) (N.D. Cal.
Mar. 2, 2015).
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On or about February 16, 2016, the EPA notified affected states of
its intended designation of certain specific areas as either
nonattainment, unclassifiable/attainment, or unclassifiable for the
2010 SO2 NAAQS. Those states now have an opportunity to
demonstrate why they believe an intended modification by the EPA
regarding those specified areas may be inappropriate. In 2015, the EPA
encouraged these states to provide additional information for the EPA
to consider in finalizing designations for these specified areas.
The purpose of this notice of availability is to solicit input from
interested parties other than states on
[[Page 10564]]
the EPA's recent responses to the state designation recommendations for
the 2010 SO2 NAAQS. These responses, and their supporting
technical analyses, can be found on the EPA's Internet Web site at
http://www.epa.gov/so2designations and also in the public docket for
SO2 designations at Docket ID No. EPA-HQ-OAR-2014-0464. The
CAA section 107(d) provides a process for air quality designations that
involves recommendations by states and tribes to the EPA and responses
from the EPA to those parties, prior to the EPA promulgating final area
designations and boundaries. The EPA is not required under the CAA
section 107(d) to seek public comment during the designation process,
but is electing to do so for these areas under the 2010 SO2
NAAQS in order to gather additional information for the EPA to consider
before making final designations for the specific areas addressed in
the EPA's recent responses to states. The EPA invites public input on
its responses to states regarding these areas during the 30-day comment
period provided in this notice of availability. In order to receive
full consideration, input from the public must be submitted by March
31, 2016. At this time, the EPA is not asking for public comments on
other areas for which states and tribes have submitted designation
recommendations, beyond those to which the EPA has provided the
responses that are the subject of this proposed action. This notice of
availability and opportunity for public comment does not affect any
rights or obligations of any state, tribe or the EPA which might
otherwise exist pursuant to the CAA section 107(d).
Please refer to the ADDRESSES section above in this document for
specific instructions on submitting comments and locating relevant
public documents.
In establishing nonattainment area boundaries for a particular
area, the EPA is required to identify both the area that does not meet
the standard and any nearby area contributing to the area that does not
meet the standard. We are particularly interested in receiving
comments, supported by relevant information, if you believe that a
specific geographic area that the EPA is proposing to identify as a
nonattainment area should not be categorized by the CAA section 107(d)
criteria as nonattainment, or if you believe that a specific nearby
area not proposed by the EPA to be identified as contributing to a
nonattainment area should in fact be categorized as contributing to
nonattainment using the CAA section 107(d) criteria. Please be as
specific as possible in supporting your views.
Describe any assumptions and provide any technical
information and/or data that you used.
Provide specific examples to illustrate your concerns, and
suggest alternatives.
Explain your views as clearly as possible.
Provide your input by the comment period deadline
identified.
The EPA intends to complete designations for the areas subject to
this round no later than July 2, 2016. The EPA is not yet prepared to
respond to state and tribal area designation recommendations, or seek
public input thereon, for other areas that are not yet designated for
the 2010 SO2 NAAQS. The EPA will address those areas in the
last two rounds of designations scheduled for 2017 and 2020. Additional
information on the EPA's intended approach for addressing designations
for all areas can be found on the EPA's SO2 implementation
Web site at http://www3.epa.gov/airquality/sulfurdioxide/implement.html. Please be advised that, in this action, the EPA is not
proposing as a regulatory action and is not soliciting public comments
on the intended approach for these other areas, regarding either
designations or implementation.
II. Instructions for Submitting Public Comments and Internet Web Site
for Rulemaking Information
A. What should I consider as I prepare my comments for the EPA?
1. Submitting CBI. Do not submit this information to the EPA
through www.regulations.gov or email. Clearly mark the part or all of
the information that you claim to be CBI. For CBI in a disk or CD ROM
that you mail to the EPA, mark the outside of the disk or CD ROM as CBI
and then identify electronically within the disk or CD ROM the specific
information that is claimed as CBI. In addition to one complete version
of the comment that includes information claimed as CBI, a copy of the
comment that does not contain the information claimed as CBI must be
submitted for inclusion in the public docket. Information so marked
will not be disclosed except in accordance with procedures set forth in
40 CFR part 2. Send or deliver information identified as CBI only to
the following address: Tiffany Purifoy, OAQPS CBI Officer, U.S. EPA,
Office of Air Quality Planning and Standards, Mail Code C404-02,
Research Triangle Park, NC 27711, telephone (919) 541-0878, email at
[email protected], Attention Docket ID No. EPA-HQ-OAR-2014-0464.
2. Tips for Preparing Your Comments. When submitting comments,
remember to:
Identify the rulemaking by docket number and other
identifying information (subject heading, Federal Register date and
page number).
Follow directions.
Explain why you agree or disagree; suggest alternatives
and substitute language for your requested changes.
B. Where can I find additional information for this rulemaking?
The EPA has also established a Web site for this rulemaking at
http://www3.epa.gov/so2designations. The Web site includes the EPA's
state and tribal designation recommendations, information supporting
the EPA's preliminary designation decisions, as well as the rulemaking
actions and other related information that the public may find useful.
Dated: February 16, 2016.
Mary E. Henigin,
Acting Director, Office of Air Quality Planning and Standards.
[FR Doc. 2016-04468 Filed 2-29-16; 8:45 am]
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