Air Plan Approval; Pennsylvania; Oil and Natural Gas Control Measures for 2008 and 2015 Ozone National Ambient Air Quality Standards

ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY <CFR>40 CFR Part 52</CFR> <DEPDOC>[EPA-R03-OAR-2023-0300; FRL-11403-01-R3]</DEPDOC> <SUBJECT>Air Plan Approval; Pennsylvania; Oil and Natural Gas Control Measures for 2008 and 2015 Ozone National Ambient Air Quality 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 Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. The revisions establish and require reasonably available control technology (RACT) requirements for the 2008 and 2015 ozone national ambient air quality standards (NAAQS) for each category of volatile organic compound (VOC) sources in Pennsylvania covered by the EPA's 2016 control techniques guidelines (CTG) for the oil and gas industry. EPA is also proposing to approve Allegheny County, Pennsylvania's incorporation of the Pennsylvania regulations into the Allegheny County SIP with minor changes to reference Allegheny County's existing regulations. This action is being taken under the Clean Air Act (CAA). </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> Written comments must be received on or before July 29, 2024. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> Submit your comments, identified by Docket ID No. EPA-R03-OAR-2023-0300 at <E T="03">www.regulations.gov,</E> or via email to <E T="03">Goold.Megan@epa.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> . For either manner of submission, 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, 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">www.epa.gov/dockets/commenting-epa-dockets</E> . <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Michael O'Shea, Planning & Implementation Branch (3AD30), Air & Radiation Division, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Region III, 1600 John F. Kennedy Boulevard, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19103. The telephone number is (215) 814-2064. Dr. O'Shea can also be reached via electronic mail at <E T="03">oshea.michael@epa.gov</E> . </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> On December 12, 2022, the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (PADEP) submitted a revision to its SIP establishing RACT requirements for the 2008 and 2015 ozone NAAQS to control VOC emissions from sources covered by EPA's 2016 CTG for the oil and gas industry. On September 8, 2023, the Allegheny County Health Department (ACHD) submitted a revision to the Allegheny County SIP incorporating by reference (IBR) the aforementioned Pennsylvania regulations with minor modifications to Pennsylvania's regulations in order to refer to offices, officers, and make proper cross references to the existing Allegheny County regulations and EPA-approved SIP. <HD SOURCE="HD1">I. Background</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD2">A. Final Control Techniques Guidelines for the Oil and Natural Gas Industry</HD> On October 27, 2016, EPA published in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> the “Final Control Techniques Guidelines for the Oil and Natural Gas Industry” (EPA's 2016 Oil and Gas CTG) (81 FR 74798). <SU>1</SU> <FTREF/> EPA's 2016 Oil and Gas CTG provided information to state, local, and Tribal air agencies to assist them in determining RACT for VOC emissions from select oil and natural gas industry emission sources. CAA section 182(b)(2)(A) and (B) requires that for ozone nonattainment areas classified as Moderate or above, states must revise their SIPs to include provisions to implement RACT for each category of VOC sources covered by a CTG document. CAA section 184(b)(1)(B) extends this RACT obligation to all areas of states within the Ozone Transport Region (OTR). EPA classifies nonattainment areas based on the severity of their ozone problem. Nonattainment areas fall into five categories: Marginal, Moderate, Serious, Severe, and Extreme. The Pennsylvania portion of the Philadelphia-Wilmington-Atlantic City, PA-NJ-MD-DE area is classified as Marginal nonattainment for the 2008 ozone standard, and as Moderate nonattainment for the 2015 ozone standard. The Allentown-Bethlehem-Easton, Lancaster, Pittsburgh-Beaver Valley, <SU>2</SU> <FTREF/> and Reading areas are classified as Marginal nonattainment for the 2008 ozone standard, and attainment for the 2015 ozone standard. <SU>3</SU> <FTREF/> Pennsylvania, which includes Allegheny County, is a State within the OTR. See CAA section 184. States subject to RACT requirements are required to adopt controls that represent reasonably available control technology for sources covered by CTGs either via the adoption of regulations, or by issuance of single source orders or permits that specify what the source is required to do to meet RACT. See CAA section 184(b)(1). PADEP, on behalf of the City of Philadelphia, Department of Public Health, Air Management Services (AMS), previously submitted a negative declaration, which EPA approved, stating that Philadelphia County contained no source categories covered by the 1983 Oil and Gas CTG as part of its SIP revision to address the RACT requirements for the 2008 Ozone national ambient air quality standard. <SU>4</SU> <FTREF/> <FTNT> <SU>1</SU>   <E T="03">www.epa.gov/sites/default/files/2016-10/documents/2016-ctg-oil-and-gas.pdf</E> . </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>2</SU>   <E T="03">www.epa.gov/green-book/green-book-8-hour-ozone-2008-area-information</E> . </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>3</SU>   <E T="03">www.epa.gov/green-book/green-book-8-hour-ozone-2015-area-information</E> . </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>4</SU>  The final rule action satisfying Philadelphia's VOC RACT requirements for source categories covered by CTGs for the 2008 Ozone NAAQS was published on October 24, 2019, effective November 25, 2019 (84 FR 56946). </FTNT> <HD SOURCE="HD2">B. Findings of Failure To Submit</HD> On November 16, 2020, and December 16, 2021, <SU>5</SU> <FTREF/> EPA issued Findings of Failure to Submit (FFS) which found that certain states, including Pennsylvania, failed to submit SIP revisions in a timely manner to satisfy the CAA's RACT requirement for either, or both of, the 2008 and 2015 Ozone NAAQS, to implement RACT for categories of sources addressed by the EPA's 2016 Oil and Gas CTG. These findings of failure to submit each established a 24-month deadline for EPA to either approve SIP revisions or finalize Federal implementation plans (FIPs) to implement RACT level controls for the categories of sources addressed in the CTG. These actions also established timelines for the implementation of two mandatory sanctions that would begin if the named states did not submit complete SIP revisions to address the CTG: (1) eighteen months after the effective date of these findings, a 2-to-1 offset ratio for the nonattainment new source review (NSR) permitting program would go into effect, such that for every unit of VOC or Nitrogen Oxides (NO <E T="52">X</E> ) emissions a new or modified source will contribute to the nonattainment area or OTR state, two units must be reduced; and (2) six months after the date of offset sanctions, Federal highway funding would be withheld in nonattainment areas. See 85 FR 72963 at 72965, November 16, 2020. <SU>6</SU> <FTREF/> Pennsylvania did not submit a SIP revision to EPA prior to June 16, 2022, so the offset sanctions identified in CAA section 179(b)(2) began June 16, 2022. <FTNT> <SU>5</SU>  The finding of failure to submit for the EPA 2016 Oil and Gas CTG for the 2008 NAAQS was issued and published on November 16, 2020 (85 FR 72963), with an effective date of December 16, 2020, and for the 2015 NAAQS on December 16, 2021 (86 FR 71385), with an effective date of January 18, 2022. </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>6</SU>  Findings of Failure To Submit State Implementation Plan Revisions in Response to the EPA 2016 Oil and Natural Gas Industry Control Techniques Guidelines for the 2008 Ozone National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) and for States in the Ozone Transport Region, 85 FR 72963 (November 16, 2020). </FTNT> On December 12, 2022, PADEP submitted a SIP revision to implement RACT-level controls on categories of sources addressed by the EPA's 2016 Oil and Gas CTG to fulfill obligations associated with the 2008 and 2015 ozone NAAQS. <SU>7</SU> <FTREF/> On September 8, 2023, PADEP submitted a SIP revision on behalf of the ACHD  <SU>8</SU> <FTREF/> which incorporated by reference, with minor changes, Pennsylvania's regulations implementing RACT controls for sources covered by EPA's 2016 Oil and Gas CTG for both the 2008 and 2015 ozone NAAQS. ACHD submitted this revision so that regulations at the county level could be consistent with regulations at the State level and in Pennsylvania's approved SIP. Except for minor modifications, Allegheny County's regulation is identical to the Pennsylvania regulations ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 31k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━