Air Plan Approval; ID; Revisions to Air Quality Regulations

ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY <CFR>40 CFR Part 52</CFR> <DEPDOC>[EPA-R10-OAR-2023-0583; FRL-11575-01-R10]</DEPDOC> <SUBJECT>Air Plan Approval; ID; Revisions to Air Quality Regulations</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) proposes to approve revisions to the Idaho State Implementation Plan (SIP) submitted on May 8, 2023 and May 13, 2024. The SIP submissions include changes designed to streamline the Idaho air quality regulations by repealing outdated provisions, striking duplicative terms, and simplifying rule language. The submissions also update the adoption by reference of specific Federal standards and reference methods. The EPA proposes to determine that the submitted changes to the Idaho SIP are consistent with Clean Air Act requirements. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> Comments must be received on or before July 24, 2024. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> Submit your comments, identified by Docket ID No. EPA-R10-OAR-2023-0583, at <E T="03">https://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> The EPA may publish any comment received to its public docket. Do not electronically submit any information you consider to be Confidential Business Information (CBI) or other information the disclosure of which 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, 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> <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Kristin Hall, EPA Region 10, 1200 Sixth Avenue, Suite 155, Seattle, WA 98101, at (206) 553-6357 or <E T="03">hall.kristin@epa.gov.</E> </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> In this document, “we” and “our” mean “the EPA.” <HD SOURCE="HD1">Table of Contents</HD> <EXTRACT> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">I. Background</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">II. Submissions</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">A. Overall Readability</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">B. Definitions</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">C. Incorporations by Reference</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">D. Permitting Regulations</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">E. Smoke and Visibility Requirements</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">F. Repeals</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">III. Evaluation</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">IV. Proposed Action</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">V. Incorporation by Reference</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">VI. Statutory and Executive Order Reviews</FP> </EXTRACT> <HD SOURCE="HD1">I. Background</HD> The EPA has established national ambient air quality standards (NAAQS) for carbon monoxide, lead, nitrogen dioxide, ozone, particulate matter, and sulfur dioxide. <SU>1</SU> <FTREF/> Each State has a State Implementation Plan (SIP) designed to meet the national ambient air quality standards through various air pollution regulations, control measures and strategies. A SIP contains emission limits, pollution control technology requirements, permitting programs, enforcement mechanisms, and other elements. Each State revises its SIP over time to respond to new Federal requirements and to address changing air quality conditions. <FTNT> <SU>1</SU>  See 40 CFR part 50. </FTNT> The Clean Air Act requires states to submit SIP revisions to the EPA for review and approval. <SU>2</SU> <FTREF/> The EPA takes action through notice and comment rulemaking to approve and incorporate State air quality regulations by reference into the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR). As part of the SIP, State regulations are made enforceable by the EPA and citizens. <SU>3</SU> <FTREF/> <FTNT> <SU>2</SU>  See Clean Air Act section 110. </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>3</SU>  See Clean Air Act sections 113 and 304. </FTNT> <HD SOURCE="HD1">II. Submissions</HD> On May 8, 2023, the Idaho Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) submitted a comprehensive SIP revision to the EPA. The submission was developed in response to a January 16, 2020, Executive Order issued by Governor Brad Little that required Idaho State agencies to review and revise administrative rules to reduce regulatory burden and increase clarity and ease of use. <SU>4</SU> <FTREF/> The May 8, 2023, submission included changes to the Rules for the Control of Air Pollution in Idaho, established at IDAPA 58.01.01, and an Attorney General statement certifying that the submitted changes were not intended to be substantive and would not impede the Idaho DEQ's lawful authority to implement EPA-approved Clean Air Act programs. We note that the EPA engaged with the Idaho DEQ early and often in the drafting process to ensure consistency with Clean Air Act requirements. The EPA met with the Idaho DEQ to discuss the intent of the draft rule changes and the EPA reviewed and commented on the draft changes at both the State's negotiated rulemaking stage and public notice and comment stage. The EPA's comment letters and the May 8, 2023, Idaho submission are included in the docket for this action. <FTNT> <SU>4</SU>  Executive Order No. 2020-01 Zero Based Regulation, January 16, 2020. </FTNT> On May 13, 2024, the Idaho DEQ submitted an update to the adoption by reference of specific Federal standards and reference methods. Also in the May 13, 2024, submission, the Idaho DEQ corrected two inadvertent issues with the May 8, 2023, submission. The issues and the corrections are described in section III.B. of this preamble. The May 13, 2024, submission may be found in the docket for this action. <HD SOURCE="HD1">III. Evaluation</HD> The following paragraphs summarize our evaluation of the submitted revisions to the EPA-approved Idaho air quality rules in the Idaho SIP, codified at 40 CFR part 52, subpart N. We have not described corrections to spelling, grammar, and punctuation. <HD SOURCE="HD2">A. Overall Readability</HD> Idaho made numerous changes throughout the State air quality rules designed to improve overall readability. For example, the State replaced “which” with “that,” “so long as” with “if,” and “set forth” with “establish.” In addition, the State replaced “shall” with “must” where the rules impose obligations directly on regulated sources, and replaced “shall” with “will” where the rules impose obligations on the Idaho DEQ. The State also reformatted certain regulatory requirements into tables to promote ease of use. We propose to approve the submitted readability changes. <HD SOURCE="HD2">B. Definitions</HD> Idaho made changes to the centralized definitions sections of the air quality rules. For example, the State removed terms and definitions that are already incorporated by reference, repealed those that are considered common knowledge or that were no longer used, combined definitions for related terms, and moved terms from the centralized definitions sections to the implementing rule sections. To facilitate our review, we created a table listing each term and definition repealed from, or moved out of, the centralized definitions sections along with the citation and the reason the definition was repealed or moved. The table, arranged alphabetically, is included in the docket for this action. The EPA notes that streamlining definitions in the air quality rules may not necessarily align with one of the stated goals of the revisions—to increase clarity and ease of use for the public and regulated community. However, in reviewing SIP submissions, the EPA's role is to approve State choices, provided that they meet the criteria of the Clean Air Act. The following paragraphs describe our evaluation of the key changes to the centralized definitions sections. In the submissions, Idaho added language to the centralized definitions section at IDAPA 58.01.01.005 to make clear that key terms defined in Idaho statute and Federal regulation are incorporated by reference as applicable requirements, unless otherwise specified. Idaho incorporates Federal provisions by reference as of a specific date and conducts routine rulemaking updates to ensure that the most recent Federal changes are captured. <SU>5</SU> <FTREF/> Where a key term has been incorporated by reference, Idaho repealed that term and definition from the centralized definitions sections in IDAPA 58.01.01.006 and 007. <FTNT> <SU>5</SU>  See document in the docket for this action entitled “State Submission Overview of Incorporation by Reference.” </FTNT> In the May 8, 2023, submission, Idaho revised IDAPA 58.01.01.005 to make clear that the definitions of “air pollutant/air contaminant,” “air pollution,” “board,” “department,” “director,” and “person” are defined in Idaho Code 39-103, and stated that the definitions of the same terms in IDAPA 58.01.01.006 were duplicative and may be repealed. However, Idaho did not include, in the May 8, 2023, submission, a request to approve and incorporate by reference the statutory definitions. Therefore, Idaho included such a request in the May 13, 2024, submission. <SU>6</SU> <FTREF/> We propose to approve the repeal of the definitions of “air pollutant/air contaminant,” “air pollution,” “board,” “department,” “director,” and “person” in IDAPA 58.01.01.006 and also propose to approve, and incorporate by reference into 40 CFR 5 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 77k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━