Approval and Promulgation of Implementation Plans; State of California; Coachella Valley; Extreme Attainment Plan for 1997 8-Hour Ozone Standards

ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY <CFR>40 CFR Part 52</CFR> <DEPDOC>[EPA-R09-OAR-2023-0448; FRL-11677-01-R9]</DEPDOC> <SUBJECT>Approval and Promulgation of Implementation Plans; State of California; Coachella Valley; Extreme Attainment Plan for 1997 8-Hour Ozone Standards</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 state implementation plan (SIP) revisions submitted by the State of California to meet Clean Air Act (CAA) requirements for the 1997 8-hour ozone national ambient air quality standards (NAAQS or “standards”) in the Riverside County (Coachella Valley), CA nonattainment area (“Coachella Valley”). These SIP revisions address the “Extreme” nonattainment area requirements for the 1997 8-hour ozone standards, including the requirements for the attainment demonstration, reasonable further progress demonstration, and reasonably available control measures demonstration, among others. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> Comments must be received on or before May 16, 2024. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> Submit your comments, identified by Docket ID No. EPA-R09-OAR-2023-0448 at <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov.</E> For comments submitted at <E T="03">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> . 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 ( <E T="03">i.e.,</E> on the web, cloud, or other file sharing system). For additional submission methods, please contact the person identified in the <E T="02">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT</E> section. For the full EPA public comment policy, information about CBI or multimedia submissions, and general guidance on making effective comments, please visit <E T="03">https://www.epa.gov/dockets/commenting-epa-dockets.</E> 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> Tom Kelly, Geographic Strategies and Modeling Section (AIR-2-2), U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Region IX, (415) 972-3856, <E T="03">kelly.thomasp@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. The 1997 8-Hour Ozone Standards and the Coachella Valley Nonattainment Area</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">A. Background on the 1997 8-Hour Ozone Standards</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">B. The Coachella Valley 1997 8-Hour Ozone Nonattainment Area</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">II. CAA and Regulatory Requirements for Ozone Nonattainment Area SIPs</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">III. CARB's SIP Submittals To Address the Extreme Requirements for the 1997 8-Hour Ozone Standards in the Coachella Valley</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">A. CARB's SIP Submittals</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">B. CAA Procedural and Administrative Requirements for SIP Submittals</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">IV. Review of the Coachella Valley Ozone Plan</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">A. Emissions Inventories</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">B. Reasonably Available Control Measures Demonstration and Adopted Control Strategy</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">C. Attainment Demonstration</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">D. Rate of Progress and Reasonable Further Progress Demonstrations</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">E. Vehicle Miles Travelled Offset Demonstration</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">F. Clean Fuels or Advanced Control Technology for Boilers</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">G. Other CAA Requirements</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">V. Environmental Justice Considerations</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">VI. The EPA's Proposed Action and Public Comment</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">VII. Statutory and Executive Order Reviews</FP> </EXTRACT> <HD SOURCE="HD1">I. The 1997 8-Hour Ozone Standards and the Coachella Valley Nonattainment Area</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD2">A. Background on the 1997 8-Hour Ozone Standards</HD> Ground-level ozone is formed when oxides of nitrogen (NO <E T="52">X</E> ) and volatile organic compounds (VOC) react in the presence of sunlight. <SU>1</SU> <FTREF/> These two pollutants, referred to as ozone precursors, are emitted by many types of pollution sources, including on- and off-road motor vehicles and engines, power plants and industrial facilities, and smaller area sources such as lawn and garden equipment and paints. <FTNT> <SU>1</SU>  The State of California uses the term Reactive Organic Gases (ROG) rather than VOC in some of its ozone-related SIP submissions. As a practical matter, ROG and VOC refer to the same set of chemical constituents and for simplicity, we refer to this set of gases as VOC. </FTNT> Health effects associated with exposure to ground-level ozone include: reduced lung function, making it more difficult for people to breathe as deeply and vigorously as normal; irritated airways, causing coughing, sore or scratchy throat, pain when taking a deep breath and shortness of breath; increased frequency of asthma attacks; inflammation of and damage to the lining of the lung; increased susceptibility to respiratory infection; and aggravation of chronic lung diseases such as asthma, emphysema, and bronchitis. Ozone may continue to cause lung damage even when the symptoms have disappeared and breathing ozone may contribute to premature death, especially in people with heart and lung disease. <SU>2</SU> <FTREF/> <FTNT> <SU>2</SU>  EPA, “Fact Sheet, Final Revisions to the National Ambient Air Quality Standards for Ozone,” March 2008. </FTNT> In 1979, under section 109 of the Clean Air Act (CAA), the EPA established primary and secondary NAAQS for ozone at 0.12 parts per million (ppm) averaged over a 1-hour period. <SU>3</SU> <FTREF/> On July 18, 1997, the EPA revised the primary and secondary standards for ozone to set the acceptable level of ozone in the ambient air at 0.08 ppm, averaged over an 8-hour period (“1997 8-hour ozone standards”). <SU>4</SU> <FTREF/> The EPA set the 1997 8-hour ozone standards based on scientific evidence demonstrating that ozone causes adverse health effects at lower concentrations and over longer periods of time than was understood when the previous 1-hour ozone standards were set. The EPA determined that the 1997 8-hour standards would be more protective of human health, especially for children and adults who are active outdoors, and individuals with a pre-existing respiratory disease, such as asthma. The 8-hour ozone standards were further strengthened in 2008 and 2015. <SU>5</SU> <FTREF/> Although the 1979 1-hour ozone standards and the 1997 8-hour ozone standards have subsequently been revoked following the promulgation of more stringent ozone standards, certain requirements that had applied under the revoked standards continue to apply under the anti-backsliding provisions of CAA section 172(e), including an approved attainment plan. <SU>6</SU> <FTREF/> <FTNT> <SU>3</SU>  44 FR 8202 (February 8, 1979). </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>4</SU>  62 FR 38856. </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>5</SU>  In 2008, the EPA revised and strengthened the NAAQS for ozone by setting the acceptable level of ozone in the ambient air at 0.075 ppm, averaged over an 8-hour period. 73 FR 16436 (March 27, 2008). In 2015, the EPA further tightened the 8-hour ozone standards to 0.070 ppm. 80 FR 65292 (October 26, 2015). The EPA has approved most elements of the 2008 ozone attainment plan for the Coachella Valley. 85 FR 57714 (September 16, 2020). The EPA has yet to act on the Coachella Valley attainment plan for the 2015 ozone NAAQS, submitted electronically on February 23, 2023. This action applies only to the 1997 8-hour ozone standards and does not address requirements for the 2008 and 2015 8-hour ozone standards. </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>6</SU>  80 FR 12264, 12296 (March 6, 2015). </FTNT> <HD SOURCE="HD2">B. The Coachella Valley 1997 8-Hour Ozone Nonattainment Area</HD> Following promulgation of a new or revised NAAQS, the EPA is required by the CAA to designate areas throughout the nation as attaining or not attaining the standards. Effective June 15, 2004, the EPA designated nonattainment areas for the 1997 8-hour ozone standards. <SU>7</SU> <FTREF/> The designations and classifications for the 1997 8-hour ozone standards for California areas are codified at 40 CFR 81.305. In a rule governing certain facets of implementation of the 1997 8-hour ozone standards (the “Phase 1 Rule”), the EPA classified the Coachella Valley as “Serious” nonattainment for the 1997 8-hour ozone standards, with an attainment date no later than June 15, 2013. <SU>8</SU> <FTREF/> On November 28, 2007, the California Air Resources Board (CARB) requested that the EPA reclassify the Coachella Valley 1997 8-hour ozone nonattainment area from Serious to “Severe-15.” The EPA granted the reclassification, effective June 4, 2010, with an attainment date of not later than June 15, 2019. <SU>9</SU> <FTREF/> On June 11, 2019, CARB requested another reclassifi ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 134k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━