Approval of Implementation Plans for Air Quality Planning Purposes; State of Nevada; Clark County Second 10-Year Maintenance Plan for the 1997 8-Hour Ozone Standard

<RULE> ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY <CFR>40 CFR Part 52</CFR> <DEPDOC>[EPA-R09-OAR-2022-0955; FRL-10549-02-R9]</DEPDOC> <SUBJECT>Approval of Implementation Plans for Air Quality Planning Purposes; State of Nevada; Clark County Second 10-Year Maintenance Plan for the 1997 8-Hour Ozone Standard</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Final rule. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is taking final action to approve, as a revision of the Nevada state implementation plan (SIP), the State's second 10-year plan for maintaining the 1997 8-hour ozone standard in Clark County (“Clark County Second Maintenance Plan” or “Plan”). The Clark County Second Maintenance Plan includes, among other elements, a base year emissions inventory, a maintenance demonstration, contingency provisions, and motor vehicle emissions budgets for use in transportation conformity determinations to ensure the continued maintenance of the 1997 National Ambient Air Quality Standards for ozone (“1997 ozone NAAQS” or “1997 8-hour ozone standard”). With this action, the EPA is approving the motor vehicle emissions budgets for 2017, 2023, and 2033. The EPA is taking this final action because the SIP revision meets the applicable statutory and regulatory requirements for such plans and motor vehicle emissions budgets. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> This action is effective on May 6, 2024. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> The EPA has established a docket for this action under Docket ID No. EPA-R09-OAR-2022-0955. All documents in the docket are listed on the <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov</E> website. Although listed in the index, some information is not publicly available, <E T="03">e.g.,</E> Confidential Business Information or other information whose disclosure is restricted by statute. Certain other material, such as copyrighted material, is not placed on the internet and will be publicly available only in hard copy form. Publicly available docket materials are available through <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov,</E> or please contact the person identified in the <E T="02">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT</E> section for additional availability information. If you need assistance in a language other than English or if you are a person with a disability who needs a reasonable accommodation at no cost to you, please contact the person identified in the <E T="02">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT</E> section. <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Andrew Ledezma, EPA Region IX, 75 Hawthorne St., San Francisco, CA 94105. By phone: (415) 972-3985 or by email at <E T="03">Ledezma.Andrew@epa.gov.</E> </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> Throughout this document, “we,” “us,” and “our” refer to the EPA. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Table of Contents</HD> <EXTRACT> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">I. Summary of Proposed Action</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">II. Public Comments and EPA Responses</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">III. Final Action</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">IV. Statutory and Executive Order Reviews </FP> </EXTRACT> <HD SOURCE="HD1">I. Summary of Proposed Action</HD> On December 21, 2023, the EPA proposed to approve two submittals from the Nevada Division of Environmental Protection (NDEP) as a revision to the Nevada SIP: the Clark County Second Maintenance Plan dated December 21, 2021, and a supplement to the Clark County Second Maintenance Plan (“Contingency Provision Supplement”) dated August 16, 2023. <SU>1</SU> <FTREF/> We refer to the Clark County Second Maintenance Plan and the Contingency Provision Supplement collectively as the “Clark County Second Maintenance Plan.” We proposed to find that the Clark County Second Maintenance Plan adequately demonstrates that the Clark County area will maintain the 1997 ozone NAAQS through 2033 ( <E T="03">i.e.,</E> for more than 10 years beyond the first 10-year maintenance period), with the maintenance period ending on February 7, 2033. We also proposed to find that the Plan includes sufficient contingency provisions to promptly correct any violation of the 1997 ozone NAAQS that may occur. Lastly, we proposed to find that the motor vehicle emissions budgets (“budgets”) for volatile organic compounds (VOC) and nitrogen oxides (NO <E T="52">X</E> ) for 2017, 2023, and 2033 were adequate. <FTNT> <SU>1</SU>  88 FR 88300. </FTNT> Please see our proposed rule for a detailed discussion of the background for this action and substantive review of the Clark County Second Maintenance Plan and associated budgets. <HD SOURCE="HD1">II. Public Comments and EPA Responses</HD> Our December 21, 2023 proposed rule provided a 30-day public comment period that closed on January 22, 2024. During this comment period we received no comments on our proposal. <HD SOURCE="HD1">III. Final Action</HD> Under CAA section 110(k)(3), and for reasons set forth in our December 21, 2023 proposed rule, the EPA is taking final action to approve the Clark County Second Maintenance submittal as a revision to the Nevada SIP. The EPA finds that the maintenance demonstration showing the area will continue to maintain the 1997 ozone NAAQS for an additional 10 years beyond the first maintenance period, and the contingency provisions describing the actions that NDEP will take in the event of a future monitored violation, meet all applicable requirements for maintenance plans and related contingency provisions in CAA section 175A. The EPA is also approving the budgets for VOC and NO <E T="52">X</E> for 2017, 2023, and 2033 because they are derived from an approvable maintenance demonstration and are adequate and meet the applicable transportation conformity requirements under 40 CFR 93.118(e). <HD SOURCE="HD1">IV. Statutory and Executive Order Reviews</HD> Under the Clean Air Act, the Administrator is required to approve a SIP submission that complies with the provisions of the Act and applicable federal regulations. 42 U.S.C. 7410(k); 40 CFR 52.02(a). Thus, in reviewing SIP submissions, the EPA's role is to approve state choices, provided that they meet the criteria of the Clean Air Act. Accordingly, this proposed action merely proposes to approve 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); • Does not impose an information collection burden under the provisions of the Paperwork Reduction Act (44 U.S.C. 3501 <E T="03">et seq.</E> ); • 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 <E T="03">et seq.</E> ); • 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 Clean Air Act; and • Will not have disproportionately high and adverse human health or environmental effects on minority populations, low-income populations and/or indigenous peoples, as specified in Executive Order 12898 (59 FR 7629, February 16, 1994), as discussed in section VI of the proposed rule. In addition, there are no areas of Indian country within the planning area, and the state plan for which the EPA is approving does not apply on any Indian reservation land or in any other area where the EPA or an Indian tribe has demonstrated that a tribe has jurisdiction. In those areas of Indian country, the Clark County Second Maintenance Plan does not apply, and therefore, this action does not have tribal implications and would not impose substantial direct costs on tribal governments or preempt tribal law as specified by Executive Order 13175 (65 FR 67249, November 9, 2000). Executive Order 12898 (Federal Actions To Address Environmental Justice in Minority Populations and Low-Income Populations, 59 FR 7629, Feb. 16, 1994) directs Federal agencies to identify and address “disproportionately high and adverse human health or environmental effects” of their actions on minority populations and low-income populations to the greatest extent practicable and permitted by law. The EPA defines environmental justice (EJ) as “the fair treatment and meaningful involvement of all people regardless of race, color, national origin, or income with respect to the development, implementation, and enforcement of environmental laws, regulations, and policies.” The EPA further defines the term fair treatment to mean that “no group of people should bear a disproportionate burden of environmental harms and risks, including those resulting from the negative environmental consequences of industrial, governmental, and commercial operations or programs and policies.” The air agency did not evaluate EJ considerations as part of its SIP submittal; the CAA and applicable implementing regulations neither prohibit nor require such an evaluation. The EPA's evaluation of environmental justice is described in the proposed rule titled ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 15k characters. 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