Air Plan Approval; New Mexico; Periodic Emission Inventory SIP for the Sunland Park Nonattainment Area for the 2015 Ozone NAAQS

ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY <CFR>40 CFR Part 52</CFR> <DEPDOC>[EPA-R06-OAR-2023-0648; FRL-11992-01-R6]</DEPDOC> <SUBJECT>Air Plan Approval; New Mexico; Periodic Emission Inventory SIP for the Sunland Park Nonattainment Area for the 2015 Ozone NAAQS</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Proposed rule. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> Pursuant to the Federal Clean Air Act (CAA or the Act), the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is proposing to approve State Implementation Plan (SIP) revisions related to the 2015 8-hour ozone National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) for the Sunland Park New Mexico marginal nonattainment area. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> Written comments must be received on or before August 2, 2024. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> Submit your comments, identified by Docket No. EPA-R06-OAR-2023-0648, at <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov</E> or via email to <E T="03">salem.nevine@epa.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 Ms. Nevine Salem, 214-665-7222, <E T="03">salem.nevine@epa.gov.</E> 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> <E T="03">Docket:</E> The index to the docket for this action is available electronically at <E T="03">www.regulations.gov.</E> While all documents in the docket are listed in the index, some information may not be publicly available due to docket file size restrictions or content ( <E T="03">e.g.,</E> CBI). <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Ms. Nevine Salem, EPA Region 6 Office, Infrastructure and Ozone Section, 214-665-7222, <E T="03">salem.nevine@epa.gov.</E> We encourage the public to submit comments via <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov.</E> Please call or email the contact listed above if you need alternative access to material indexed but not provided in the docket. </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> Throughout this document wherever “we,” “us,” or “our” is used, we mean the EPA. <HD SOURCE="HD1">I. Background</HD> Ozone is a gas that is formed by the reaction of Volatile Organic Compounds (VOC) and Oxides of Nitrogen (NOX) in the atmosphere in the presence of sunlight. Therefore, an emission inventory for ozone focuses on the emissions of VOC and NOX referred to as ozone precursors. These precursors (VOC and NOX) are emitted by many types of pollution sources, including point sources such as power plants and industrial emissions sources; on-road and off-road mobile sources (motor vehicles and engines); and smaller residential and commercial sources, such as dry cleaners, auto body shops, and household paints, collectively referred to as nonpoint sources (also called area sources). <HD SOURCE="HD2">1. The 2015 Ozone NAAQS</HD> On October 1, 2015, the EPA revised both the primary and secondary NAAQS  <SU>1</SU> <FTREF/> for ozone from concentration level of 0.075 part per million (ppm) to 0.070 ppm to provide increased protection of public health and the environment (80 FR 65296, October 26, 2015). The 2015 8-hour ozone NAAQS retains the same general form and averaging time as the 0.075 ppm NAAQS set in 2008 NAAQS but is set at a more protective level. Specifically, the 2015 8-hour ozone NAAQS is attained when the 3-year average of the annual fourth-highest daily maximum 8-hour average ambient air quality ozone concentrations is less than or equal to 0.07 ppm. <SU>2</SU> <FTREF/> <FTNT> <SU>1</SU>  The primary ozone standards provide protection for children, older adults, and people with asthma or other lung diseases, and other at-risk populations against an array of adverse health effects that include reduced lung function, increased respiratory symptoms and pulmonary inflammation; effects that contribute to emergency department visits or hospital admissions; and mortality. The secondary ozone standards protect against adverse effects to the public welfare, including those related to impacts on sensitive vegetation and forested ecosystems. </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>2</SU>  For a detailed explanation of the calculation of the 3-year 8-hour average, see 80 FR 65292 and 40 CFR part 50, Appendix U. </FTNT> On March 9, 2018 (83 FR 10376), the EPA published the Classifications Rule that establishes how the statutory classifications will apply for the 2015 8-hr ozone NAAQS, including the air quality thresholds for each classification category and attainment deadline associated with each classification. On June 4, 2018, the EPA classified the Sunland Park area in southern Doña Ana County, New Mexico as a marginal nonattainment area for 2015 ozone NAAQS with an attainment deadline of August 3, 2021. (See 83 FR 25776). Any state in which a marginal nonattainment area is located is required to submit certain SIP elements to the EPA in accordance with section 182(a) of the CAA. <HD SOURCE="HD2">2. Statutory and Regulatory Emission Inventory Requirements</HD> An emission inventory of ozone is an estimation of actual emissions of air pollutants that contribute to the formation of ozone in an area. The emissions inventory provides emissions data for a variety of air quality planning tasks, including establishing baseline emission levels for calculating emission reduction targets needed to attain the NAAQS, determining emission inputs for ozone air quality modeling analyses, and tracking emissions over time to determine progress toward meeting Reasonable Further Progress (RFP) requirements. CAA sections 182(a)(1) and 182(a)(3)(A) require submission of base year and periodic emissions inventories respectively for each ozone nonattainment area. <SU>3</SU> <FTREF/> States are required to submit a periodic inventory of emissions sources in the nonattainment areas to meet the requirements of CAA 182 (a)(3)(A), as specified in the Air Emissions Reporting Requirement (AERR) at 40 CFR part 51, subpart A. Each periodic inventory shall be submitted no later than the end of each 3-year period after the required submission of the base year inventory for the nonattainment area and this requirement shall apply until the area is redesignated to attainment. The emissions value included in the inventories shall be actual ozone season day emissions as defined by § 51.1300(q). <SU>4</SU> <FTREF/> These requirements allow the EPA, based on the states' progress in reducing emissions, to periodically reassess its policies and air quality standards and revise them as necessary. Most important, these inventories will be used to develop and assess new control strategies that states may use in attainment demonstration SIPs for the new NAAQS for ozone or other pollutants. The inventory may also serve as part of statewide inventories for purposes of regional modeling in transport areas, where the inventory plays an important role in modeling demonstrations for areas classified as nonattainment and outside transport regions. <FTNT> <SU>3</SU>  For each nonattainment area, the state shall submit a base year inventory as defined by § 51.1300(p) to meet the emissions inventory requirement of CAA section 182(a)(1). This inventory shall be submitted no later than 24 months after the effective date of designation. The inventory year shall be selected consistent with the baseline year for the RFP plan as required by § 51.1310(b). </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>4</SU>  See Implementation of 2015 National Ambient Air Quality Standards for Ozone: Nonattainment Area State Implementation Plan Requirements Rule (SRR) 83 FR 62998. </FTNT> <HD SOURCE="HD1">II. State's Submittal</HD> CAA Sections 182(a)(3) and 172(c)(3) require the periodic submission of emissions inventories for the SIP planning process to address SIP requirements applicable to ozone nonattainment areas in each classification category. The area of Sunland Park in southern Doña Ana County was classified as marginal nonattainment for the 2015 ozone NAAQS; initiating a two-year deadline to submit a baseline emissions inventory, followed by a periodic emission inventory every 3-years until the nonattainment area attains the standard (83 FR 25776). New Mexico Environmental Department (NMED's) baseline emissions inventory revisions SIP for the 2015 ozone NAA submittal was approved by EPA on April 6, 2022 (87 FR 12592). On December 20, 2023, NMED submitted SIP revisions that included the periodic emissions inventory for the Sunland Park Nonattainment area. The inventory was submitted to meet the CAA section 182(a)(3)(A) obligation to develop a periodic emission inventory every 3-years after their base year inventory until the nonattainment area is designated as attainment for the NAAQS. The State conducted a public comment period with a public hearing and the State did not receive any comment during the comment period or the hearing. The inventory includes annual and ozone season daily emissions  <E ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 23k characters. 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