Air Plan Approval; New Jersey; Interstate Transport Requirements for the 2010 1-Hour Sulfur Dioxide Standard

ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY <CFR>40 CFR Part 52</CFR> <DEPDOC>[EPA-R02-OAR-2023-0468; FRL-12057-01-R2]</DEPDOC> <SUBJECT>Air Plan Approval; New Jersey; Interstate Transport Requirements for the 2010 1-Hour Sulfur Dioxide Standard</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 the portions of a State Implementation Plan (SIP) submittal from the State of New Jersey demonstrating that the State satisfies the infrastructure requirements of the Clean Air Act (CAA) addressing interstate transport of pollution with respect to the 2010 1-hour Sulfur Dioxide (SO <E T="52">2</E> ) primary National Ambient Air Quality Standard (NAAQS). This action is being taken in accordance with the requirements of the CAA. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> Written comments must be received on or before July 31, 2024. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> Submit your comments, identified by Docket ID Number EPA-R02-OAR-2023-0468 at <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov.</E> Although listed in the index, some information is not publicly available, <E T="03">e.g.,</E> Confidential Business Information (CBI) 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 electronically through <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 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, 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> Robert Rutherford, Environmental Protection Agency, Air Programs Branch, Region 2, 290 Broadway, New York, New York 10007-1866, at (212) 637-3712, or by email at <E T="03">rutherford.robert@epa.gov.</E> </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <EXTRACT> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">I. Background</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">II. Summary of the SIP Revision and the EPA's Analysis</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">III. Environmental Justice Considerations</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">IV. The EPA's Proposed Action</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">V. Statutory and Executive Order Reviews</FP> </EXTRACT> <HD SOURCE="HD1">I. Background</HD> On June 2, 2010, the EPA signed a revised primary NAAQS for SO <E T="52">2</E> at a level of 75 parts per billion (ppb), based on a 3-year average of the annual 99th percentile of daily maximum 1-hour concentrations (hereafter “the 2010 1-hour SO <E T="52">2</E> NAAQS”). <SU>1</SU> <FTREF/> At the same time, the EPA also revoked the previous 24-hour and annual primary SO <E T="52">2</E> standards. The previous SO <E T="52">2</E> air quality standards were set in 1971, including a 24-hour average primary standard at 140 ppb and an annual average primary standard at 30 ppb. <FTNT> <SU>1</SU>   <E T="03">See</E> 75 FR 35520 (June 22, 2010). See 40 CFR 50.11. </FTNT> Current scientific evidence links short-term exposures to SO <E T="52">2</E> , ranging from five minutes to 24 hours, with an array of adverse respiratory effects including bronchoconstriction and increased asthma symptoms. These effects are particularly important for asthmatics at elevated ventilation rates ( <E T="03">e.g.,</E> while exercising or playing). Studies also show a connection between short-term exposure and increased visits to emergency departments and hospital admissions for respiratory illnesses, particularly in at-risk populations including children, the elderly, and asthmatics. Pursuant to section 110(a)(1) of the CAA, States are required to submit SIPs to meet the applicable requirements of section 110(a)(2) within three years after promulgation of a new or revised NAAQS or within such shorter period as EPA may prescribe. The EPA has historically referred to these SIPs as “infrastructure SIPs.” Section 110(a)(2) requires States to address basic SIP elements in their infrastructure SIPs to assure attainment and maintenance of the NAAQS—such as requirements for monitoring, basic program requirements, and legal authority. Section 110(a) imposes the obligation upon States to make a SIP submission to the EPA for a new or revised NAAQS, but the contents of that submission may vary depending upon the facts and circumstances of each NAAQS and what is in each State's existing SIP. In particular, the data and analytical tools available at the time the State develops and submits the SIP revision for a new or revised NAAQS affect the content of the submission. Section 110(a)(2)(D)(i)(I) of the CAA requires a State's SIP to include adequate provisions prohibiting any emissions activity in the State that contributes significantly to nonattainment, or interferes with maintenance, of the NAAQS in any other State. The EPA sometimes refers to these requirements as prong 1 (significant contribution to nonattainment) and prong 2 (interference with maintenance), or jointly as the “good neighbor” provision of the CAA. <HD SOURCE="HD1">II. Summary of the SIP Revision and the EPA's Analysis</HD> On October 17, 2014, the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (NJDEP) submitted a revision to its SIP to address requirements under section 110(a)(2) of the CAA (the infrastructure requirements) related to the 2008 Lead, 2008 Ozone, 2010 NO <E T="52">2</E> , 2010 SO <E T="52">2</E> , 2006 PM <E T="52">10</E> , 2011 CO, and 2012 PM <E T="52">2.5</E> NAAQS. The EPA finalized actions on all applicable section 110(a)(2) elements of the October 17, 2014 submittal with the exception of 110(a)(2)(D)(i)(I) for the 2010 1-hour SO <E T="52">2</E> NAAQS. <SU>2</SU> <FTREF/> Further information regarding those actions can be found in the Technical Support Document (TSD) for this action, which is included in the docket for this rulemaking. <FTNT> <SU>2</SU>  See 81 FR 64070 (September 19, 2016), 83 FR 24661 (May 30, 2018), 83 FR 40151 (August 14, 2018), and 85 FR 28883 (May 14, 2020). </FTNT> This proposed rulemaking action is addressing the portions of New Jersey's infrastructure submittal for the 2010 1-hour SO <E T="52">2</E> NAAQS that pertain to the “good neighbor” provision of the CAA. In their SIP submission to the EPA, NJDEP discussed how they have addressed the interstate transport requirements of CAA 110(a)(2)(D)(i)(I) through their state-adopted rules and enforceable consent decrees, which control sources that impact air quality in neighboring States. NJDEP emphasized that their rules do not hinder other States' air quality standards, and their emissions regulations are stricter than Federal and nearby State rules. New Jersey highlighted its existing SIP-approved regulations and other federally enforceable control measures, including power plant consent decrees and low sulfur fuel requirements for distillate and residual fuels (N.J.A.C. 7:27-9) that have reduced SO <E T="52">2</E> emissions that may be transported to other States. For the reasons explained in the accompanying TSD in the docket, EPA proposes to determine that New Jersey's SIP is adequate to prevent sources in New Jersey from significantly contributing to nonattainment or interfering with maintenance in another State with respect to the 2010 1-hour SO <E T="52">2</E> NAAQS. This determination is based on a weight of evidence analysis that takes into account the following considerations: SO <E T="52">2</E> emissions statewide have declined significantly from 2014 to 2022; the absence of nearby SO <E T="52">2</E> nonattainment areas in neighboring States or uncharacterized air quality near New Jersey point sources; SO <E T="52">2</E> ambient air quality data far below the SO <E T="52">2</E> NAAQS and exhibiting downward trends or remaining stable; EPA's impact assessment that shows that New Jersey sources within 50 kilometers of New Jersey's borders are unlikely to significantly contribute to nonattainment or interfere with maintenance in any nearby States based on emission trends, wind patterns, air monitoring, and modeling data; and New Jersey's existing control measures, which ensure that SO <E T="52">2</E> emissions will continue to be effectively controlled for existing and new sources or modifications. A detailed summary of EPA's review and rationale for the proposed approval of this SIP revision as meeting CAA section 110(a)(2)(D)(i)(I) for the 2010 1-hour SO <E T="52">2</E> may be found in the TSD. <HD SOURCE="HD1">III. Environmental Justice Considerations</HD> New Jersey provided a supplement to the SIP submission being proposed for approval with this rulemaking on May 16, 2023. The supplemental submission briefed the EPA on Environmental Justice (EJ) considerations within New Jersey by detailing the State's programs and initiatives add ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 19k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━