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

<RULE> ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY <CFR>40 CFR Part 52</CFR> <DEPDOC>[EPA-R04-OAR-2023-0057; FRL-11847-02-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> Final rule. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is approving 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 updates the 2026 on-road and nonroad emissions inventories and safety margins and allocates 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 approving North Carolina's December 19, 2022, SIP revision pursuant to section 110(a)(1) of the Clean Air Act (CAA) and deeming the budgets adequate for transportation conformity purposes because they meet the applicable statutory and regulatory requirements. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> This rule is effective July 15, 2024. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> EPA has established a docket for this action under Docket Identification No. EPA-R04-OAR-2023-0057. All documents in the docket are listed on the <E T="03">www.regulations.gov</E> website. Although listed in the index, some information may not be publicly available, <E T="03">i.e.</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 either electronically through <E T="03">www.regulations.gov</E> or in hard copy at the 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. EPA requests that if at all possible, you contact the person listed in the <E T="02">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT</E> section to schedule your inspection. The Regional Office's official hours of business are Monday through Friday 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., excluding Federal holidays. <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Dianna Myers, Air Regulatory Management Section, Air Planning and Implementation Branch, Air and Radiation Division, Region 4, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, 61 Forsyth Street SW, Atlanta, Georgia 30303-8960. The telephone number is (404) 562-9207. Ms. Dianna 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. This Action</HD> EPA is approving 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. </FTNT> 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. When today's action is effective, the 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 will no longer be applicable for transportation conformity purposes. This action 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. The emissions inventories for point and area sources from NCDEQ's July 16, 2020, SIP revision remain the same. EPA is approving North Carolina's December 19, 2022, SIP revision because it continues to demonstrate maintenance for the Charlotte Maintenance Area. <HD SOURCE="HD1">II. Background</HD> Effective July 20, 2012, EPA designated the Charlotte-Rock Hill, NC-SC Area as Marginal nonattainment for the 2008 8-hour ozone national ambient air quality standard (hereinafter referred to as NAAQS or standard). The North Carolina portion of the Charlotte 2008 Maintenance Area includes Mecklenburg 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 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 originally approved NCDEQ's 2008 8-hour ozone redesignation request and maintenance SIP for the North Carolina portion of the Charlotte Maintenance Area on July 28, 2015 (80 FR 44873), with base year NO <E T="52">X</E> and VOC actual emissions inventories for 2014; projected, future, and interim year inventories for 2015, 2018, and 2022; and projected final year emission inventory for 2026. On August 17, 2015 (80 FR 49164), EPA approved North Carolina's section 110(l) noninterference demonstration requesting relaxation of the Federal Reid Vapor Pressure requirement from 7.8 pounds per square inch (psi) to 9.0 psi and a revision to the 2026 NO <E T="52">X</E> and VOC sub-area budgets for Mecklenburg and Gaston Counties only. <E T="03">See</E> 80 FR 44868 (July 28, 2015). On September 11, 2019 (84 FR 47889), EPA approved NCDEQ's July 25, 2018, SIP revision related to North Carolina's I/M Program. The September 11, 2019, SIP approval updated the on-road mobile source inventory and revised the 2026 sub-area VOC and NO <E T="52">X</E> budgets; these remain the current SIP-approved budgets and inventories. The revised 2026 budgets became effective on October 11, 2019. On August 25, 2021, EPA approved NCDEQ's July 16, 2020, SIP revision which allocated a portion of the available safety margin to the 2026 sub-area NO <E T="52">X</E> and VOC budgets to accommodate updates to the travel demand model used to calculate vehicle miles traveled in the Area. <E T="03">See</E> 86 FR 47387. The revision to the 2026 sub-area budgets became effective on September 24, 2021. EPA's analysis of North Carolina's December 19, 2022, SIP submittal indicates that maintenance will continue to be demonstrated for the Charlotte Maintenance Area with the revised MOVES3 on-road and nonroad emissions inventories, revised safety margins and new allocations of the available safety margins to the 2026 budgets because the total level of emissions from all source categories remains equal to or less than the attainment level of emissions. In a notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM) published on April 12, 2024 (89 FR 25849), EPA proposed to approve the December 19, 2022, SIP revision. The details of North Carolina's submittal and the rationale for EPA's action are explained further in the April 12, 2024, NPRM. Comments on the NPRM were due on or before May 13, 2024. EPA did not receive any comments on the April 12, 2024, NPRM. Tables 1 through 3, below, provide the Revised NO <E T="52">X</E> and VOC Total Man-Made Emissions and Safety Margins. <SU>2</SU> <FTREF/> <FTNT> <SU>2</SU>  A safety margin is the difference between the attainment level of emissions from all source categories ( <E T="03">i.e.,</E> point, area, on-road, ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 27k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━