Air Plan Approval; North Carolina; Revision to Approved Motor Vehicle Emissions Budgets

ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY <CFR>40 CFR Part 52</CFR> <DEPDOC>[EPA-R04-OAR-2023-0057; FRL-11847-01-R4]</DEPDOC> <SUBJECT>Air Plan Approval; North Carolina; Revision to Approved Motor Vehicle Emissions Budgets</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Proposed rule. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is proposing to approve a revision to the North Carolina State Implementation Plan (SIP), submitted by the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality (NCDEQ), Division of Air Quality, on December 19, 2022. The revision seeks to update the 2026 on-road and nonroad emissions inventories and safety margins, allocate a portion of the newly available 2026 safety margins in the 2008 8-hour Ozone Maintenance Plan to the 2026 nitrogen oxides (NO <E T="52">X</E> ) and volatile organic compounds (VOC) motor vehicle emissions budgets (“budgets”) for the North Carolina portion of the Charlotte-Rock Hill, NC-SC bi-state Area (hereinafter referred to as the “North Carolina portion of the Charlotte Maintenance Area”) to accommodate updates from the EPA Motor Vehicle Emissions Simulator (MOVES3) model. The SIP revision also revises the current 2026 budgets based on the MOVES3 updates and recalculates new available safety margins. NCDEQ's December 19, 2022, submission supplements the revised 2008 8-hour Ozone Maintenance Plan submitted by NCDEQ on July 16, 2020, and approved by EPA on August 25, 2021. EPA is proposing to approve North Carolina's December 19, 2022, SIP revision and deem the budgets adequate for transportation conformity purposes because they meet the applicable statutory and regulatory requirements. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> Comments must be received on or before May 13, 2024. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> Submit your comments, identified by Docket ID No. EPA-R04-OAR-2023-0057 at <E T="03">www.regulations.gov.</E> Follow the online instructions for submitting comments. Once submitted, comments cannot be edited or removed from <E T="03">Regulations.gov</E> . 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. EPA will generally not consider comments or comment contents located outside of the primary submission ( <E T="03">i.e.,</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 <E T="03">www.epa.gov/dockets/commenting-epa-dockets.</E> <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Dianna Myers, Air Regulatory Management Section, Air Planning and Implementation Branch, Air and Radiation Division, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Region 4, 61 Forsyth Street SW, Atlanta, Georgia 30303-8960. The telephone number is (404) 562-9207. Ms. Myers can also be reached via electronic mail at <E T="03">myers.dianna@epa.gov.</E> </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">I. Introduction</HD> EPA is proposing to approve NCDEQ's December 19, 2022, SIP revision which updates the 2026 on-road and nonroad emissions inventories with the latest (at the time of NCDEQ's submission) approved EPA mobile emissions model, MOVES3, allocates a portion of the newly available safety margin, revises the 2026 NO <E T="52">X</E> and VOC budgets, and recalculates the available safety margins for the North Carolina portion of Charlotte 2008 8-hour Ozone Maintenance Area  <SU>1</SU> <FTREF/> for transportation conformity purposes. <FTNT> <SU>1</SU>  The North Carolina portion of the Charlotte Maintenance Area for the 2008 8-hour ozone national ambient air quality standards (NAAQS or standards) is comprised of the following counties: Mecklenburg County in its entirety and portions of Cabarrus, Gaston, Iredell, Lincoln, Rowan, and Union Counties. See section II.B. for more detail. </FTNT> If EPA finalizes this proposed approval, the revised 2026 NO <E T="52">X</E> and VOC budgets from NCDEQ's December 19, 2022, SIP revision will replace the existing budgets in the State's 2008 8-hour Ozone Maintenance Plan approved on August 25, 2021. <E T="03">See</E> 86 FR 47387. If approved, these newly revised 2026 budgets must be used in future transportation conformity analyses for the Area according to the Transportation Conformity Rule. <E T="03">See</E> 40 CFR 93.118. Therefore, the August 25, 2021, approved budgets would no longer be applicable for transportation conformity purposes. In the State's submission, the emissions inventories for point and area sources from NCDEQ's July 16, 2020, SIP revision remain the same. This submission revises the 2026 on-road and nonroad emissions inventories and the NO <E T="52">X</E> and VOC safety margins using MOVES3. The revision also allocates a portion of the revised available safety margins to the 2026 NO <E T="52">X</E> and VOC budgets and recalculates new available safety margins. As explained below, EPA is proposing to conclude that North Carolina's December 19, 2022, SIP revision continues to demonstrate maintenance for the Charlotte Maintenance Area. <HD SOURCE="HD1">II. Background</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD2">A. SIP Budgets and Transportation Conformity</HD> Under the Clean Air Act (CAA or Act), states are required to submit, at various times, control strategy SIP revisions and maintenance plans for nonattainment and maintenance areas for a given NAAQS. These emission control strategy SIP revisions ( <E T="03">e.g.,</E> reasonable further progress and attainment demonstration SIP revisions) and maintenance plans include budgets of on-road mobile source emissions for criteria pollutants and/or their precursors to address pollution from cars, trucks, and other on-road vehicles. The budgets are the portion of the total allowable emissions that are allocated to on-road-vehicle use that, together with emissions from other sources in the area, will provide for attainment or maintenance. The budgets serve as a ceiling on emissions from an area's planned transportation system. Under section 176(c) of the CAA, transportation plans, transportation improvement programs (TIPs), and transportation projects must “conform” to ( <E T="03">i.e.,</E> be consistent with) the SIP before they can be adopted or approved. Conformity to the SIP means that transportation activities will not cause new air quality violations, worsen existing air quality violations, or delay timely attainment of the NAAQS or an interim milestone. The transportation conformity regulations can be found at 40 CFR parts 51 and 93. Before budgets may be used in conformity determinations, EPA must affirmatively find the budgets adequate. However, adequate budgets do not supersede approved budgets for the same CAA purpose. If the submitted SIP budgets are meant to replace budgets for the same CAA purpose and year(s) addressed by a previously approved SIP revision, as is the case with this SIP revision, EPA may approve the revised SIP and budgets and also affirm that the budgets are adequate at the same time. Once EPA approves the submitted budgets, the revised budgets must be used by State and Federal agencies in determining whether transportation activities conform to the SIP as required by section 176(c) of the CAA. EPA's substantive criteria for determining the adequacy of budgets are set out in 40 CFR 93.118(e)(4). <HD SOURCE="HD2">B. Prior Approval of Budgets</HD> Effective July 20, 2012, EPA designated the Charlotte-Rock Hill, NC-SC Area as Marginal nonattainment for the 2008 8-hour ozone NAAQS. The North Carolina portion of the Charlotte 2008 Maintenance Area includes Mecklenburg County in its entirety and portions of Cabarrus, Gaston, Iredell, Lincoln, Rowan, and Union Counties. The Charlotte Maintenance Area also includes a portion of York County located in Rock Hill, South Carolina. <E T="03">See</E> 77 FR 30088 (May 21, 2012). The North Carolina portion of the Charlotte Maintenance Area is comprised of three metropolitan planning organizations (MPOs): the Charlotte Regional Transportation Planning Organization (CRTPO) which covers Iredell, Mecklenburg, and Union Counties; the Cabarrus-Rowan Metropolitan Planning Organization (CRMPO) which covers Cabarrus and Rowan Counties; and the Gaston-Cleveland-Lincoln Metropolitan Planning Organization (GCLMPO) which covers Gaston, Cleveland, and Lincoln Counties. Although Cleveland County is included in the GCLMPO planning boundary, it was not included in the North Carolina portion of the Charlotte Maintenance Area. Each MPO has its own budget, which is referred to as a “sub-area budget.” The York County, South Carolina, portion of this maintenance area has a separate MPO and budgets. The South Carolina portion of the maintenance area implements transportation conformity independent of the North Carolina portion. EPA approved the redesignation request and maintenance plan for North Carolina's portion of the Charlotte 2008 8-hour ozone Area on July 28, 2015 (80 FR 44873) with 2014 and 2026 NO <E T="52">X</E> and VOC sub-area budgets. On August 17, 2015 (80 FR 49164), EPA approved North Carolina's requested relaxation of the Federal Reid Vapor Pressure (RVP) requirement from 7.8 pounds per square inch (psi) to 9.0 psi. <E T="03">See</E> 80 FR 44868 (approving the CAA section 110(l) non-interference demonstr ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 45k characters. 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