Air Plan Revisions; California; Motor Vehicle Inspection and Maintenance Program

ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY <CFR>40 CFR Part 52</CFR> <DEPDOC>[EPA-R09-OAR-2024-0237; FRL-11999-01-R9]</DEPDOC> <SUBJECT>Air Plan Revisions; California; Motor Vehicle Inspection and Maintenance Program</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Proposed rule. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> Under the Clean Air Act (CAA or “Act”), the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is proposing to approve a revision to the California State Implementation Plan (SIP). This revision addresses the CAA requirements for the motor vehicle inspection and maintenance (I/M) programs (also referred to as “Smog Check” programs) for the 2015 8-hour ozone National Ambient Air Quality Standards (“2015 ozone NAAQS”). We are taking comments on this proposal and plan to follow with a final action. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> Comments must be received on or before August 1, 2024. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> Submit your comments, identified by Docket ID No. EPA-R09-OAR-2024-0237 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 disabilities 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> Jeffrey Buss, EPA Region IX, 75 Hawthorne St., San Francisco, CA 94105. By phone: (415) 947-4152 or by email at <E T="03">Buss.Jeffrey@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 State's Submittal</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">A. What did the State submit?</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">B. Are there other versions of this plan element?</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">C. What is the purpose of the submitted plan element?</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">II. The EPA's Evaluation and Action</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">A. How is the EPA evaluating the plan element?</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">B. Does the plan element meet the evaluation criteria?</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">C. Did the State consider environmental justice in developing this plan element?</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">D. Proposed Action and Public Comments</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">III. Statutory and Executive Order Reviews </FP> </EXTRACT> <HD SOURCE="HD1">I. The State's Submittal</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD2">A. What did the State submit?</HD> On April 26, 2023, the California Air Resources Board (CARB) submitted the “California Smog Check Performance Standard Modeling and Program Certification for the 70 Parts Per Billion (ppb) 8-Hour Ozone Standard” (“Smog Check Certification SIP”) as a revision to the California SIP. <SU>1</SU> <FTREF/> The Smog Check Certification SIP includes CARB's evaluation of the California Smog Check program for compliance with the applicable Smog Check program requirements for SIPs under CAA sections 182(a)(2)(B), 182(b)(4), and 182(c)(3) and the EPA's regulations in 40 CFR part 51, subpart S for certain nonattainment areas for the 2015 ozone NAAQS. <SU>2</SU> <FTREF/> More specifically, the Smog Check Certification SIP addresses the applicable Smog Check SIP requirements for all California air quality planning areas classified as “Moderate” and above for the 2015 ozone NAAQS that are subject to State jurisdiction. These areas (and their respective classifications for the 2015 ozone NAAQS) include Coachella Valley (Severe-15), Eastern Kern (Serious), Mariposa County (Moderate), Sacramento Metro (Serious), San Diego County (Severe-15), San Joaquin Valley (Extreme), Los Angeles-South Coast Air Basin (Extreme), Ventura (Serious), West Mojave Desert (Severe-15) and Western Nevada County (Serious). <SU>3</SU> <FTREF/> While Coachella Valley and Sacramento Metro are currently classified as Severe-15 and Serious, respectively, CARB has submitted voluntary reclassification requests for the areas to Extreme and Severe-15, respectively, and the performance standard modeling presented and documented by CARB in the Smog Check Certification SIP assumes the EPA's grant of the reclassification requests for those areas. <SU>4</SU> <FTREF/> <FTNT> <SU>1</SU>  Letter (with enclosures) dated April 26, 2023, from Steven S. Cliff, Ph.D., Executive Officer, CARB, to Martha Guzman, Regional Administrator, EPA Region IX (submitted electronically April 26, 2023). The letter and enclosures, which include the Smog Check Certification SIP, among other materials, are included in the docket for this rulemaking. The “70 Parts Per Billion (ppb) 8-Hour Ozone Standard” refers to the ozone NAAQS the EPA established in 2015. </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>2</SU>  We previously found that the Eastern Kern ozone nonattainment area was not subject to the Basic or Enhanced Smog Check SIP requirement for the 2008 ozone NAAQS. See 85 FR 68268, 68280 (October 28, 2020) (proposed rule for Eastern Kern) and 86 FR 33528 (June 25, 2021) (final rule for Eastern Kern). Also, we previously found that the West Mojave Desert ozone nonattainment area was not subject to the Enhanced Smog Check SIP requirement for the 2008 ozone NAAQS—see 86 FR 53223, at 53225 (September 27, 2021) (final rule for West Mojave Desert). For the San Diego County area, we recently approved the Smog Check Certification SIP as it relates to San Diego County for both the 2008 and 2015 ozone NAAQS. 89 FR 15035 (March 1, 2024). </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>3</SU>  40 CFR 81.305. </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>4</SU>  See letters from Steven S. Cliff, Ph.D., Executive Officer, CARB, to Martha Guzman, Regional Administrator, EPA Region IX, dated February 22, 2023 (Reclassification request to Extreme for Coachella Valley); CARB Resolution 23-19, October 26, 2023 (Adopting Severe area ozone plan for the 2015 ozone NAAQS for the Sacramento Metro area). </FTNT> CARB's SIP submittal package for the Smog Check Certification SIP includes CARB Resolution 23-9 (through which CARB adopted the Smog Check Certification as part of the California SIP  <SU>5</SU> <FTREF/> ), public notice of CARB's hearing on the proposed SIP revision, public comments and responses, and the EPA's Motor Vehicle Emission Simulator model (MOVES)  <SU>6</SU> <FTREF/> input and output data sheets. Earlier this year, the EPA took final action to approve the San Diego County area portion of the Smog Check Certification SIP as part of the EPA's action on the San Diego ozone attainment plan. <SU>7</SU> <FTREF/> In this document, we are proposing action on the Smog Check Certification SIP as it relates to all the other nonattainment areas that are addressed in the SIP submission. <FTNT> <SU>5</SU>  CARB Board Resolution 23-9, March 23, 2023. </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>6</SU>  MOVES is the acronym for the EPA's Motor Vehicle Emission Simulator model. </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>7</SU>  89 FR 15035 (March 1, 2024). </FTNT> On October 26, 2023, the Smog Check Certification SIP submission was deemed complete by operation of law under CAA section 110(k)(1)(B). <HD SOURCE="HD2">B. Are there other versions of this plan element?</HD> In 2010, we approved the California Smog Check program as meeting all applicable SIP requirements for California nonattainment areas for the 1997 ozone NAAQS. <SU>8</SU> <FTREF/> Since then, we have taken actions to approve area-specific SIP submissions addressing the Smog Check SIP requirements for California nonattainment areas for the 2008 ozone NAAQS. <SU>9</SU> <FTREF/> The Smog Check Certification SIP submission that is the subject of this document relates to California nonattainment areas for the 2015 ozone NAAQS. <FTNT> <SU>8</SU>  75 FR 38023 (July 1, 2010). </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>9</SU>  See, <E T="03">e.g.,</E> 84 FR 3302, 3304 (February 12, 2019) (San Joaquin Valley); 84 FR 52005, 52013 (October 1, 2019) (South Coast Air Basin); and 85 FR 11814, 11816 (February 27, 2020) (Ventura County). </FTNT> <HD SOURCE="HD2">C. What is the purpose of the submitted plan element?</HD> Emissions of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and oxides of nitrogen (NO <E T="52">X</E> ) contribute to the production of ground-level ozone, or “smog,” which harm human health and the environment. The EPA has established NAAQS to protect public health and welfare for certain pervasive air pollutants, including ozone. Section 110(a)(1) of the CAA requires States to adopt and submit plans (“State Implementation Plans,” or “SIPs”) that provide for implementation, maintenance, and enforcement of the NAAQS within ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 37k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━