Air Plan Partial Approval and Partial Disapproval; North Dakota; Regional Haze State Implementation Plan for the Second Implementation Period

ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY <CFR>40 CFR Part 52</CFR> <DEPDOC>[EPA-R08-OAR-2023-0495; FRL-12052-01-R8]</DEPDOC> <SUBJECT>Air Plan Partial Approval and Partial Disapproval; North Dakota; Regional Haze State Implementation Plan for the Second Implementation Period</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 partially approve and partially disapprove the regional haze state implementation plan (SIP) revision submitted by the State of North Dakota on August 11, 2022 (North Dakota's 2022 SIP submission), as satisfying applicable requirements under the Clean Air Act (CAA) and the EPA's Regional Haze Rule (RHR) for the program's second implementation period. North Dakota's 2022 SIP submission addresses the requirement that states revise their long-term strategies every implementation period to make reasonable progress towards the national goal of preventing any future, and remedying any existing, anthropogenic impairment of visibility, including regional haze, in mandatory Class I Federal areas. North Dakota's 2022 SIP submission also addresses other applicable requirements for the second implementation period of the regional haze program. The EPA is taking this action pursuant to the CAA. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> Written comments must be received on or before August 9, 2024. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> Submit your comments, identified by Docket ID No. EPA-R08-OAR-2023-0495, to the Federal Rulemaking Portal: <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">https://www.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 public comment policy of the EPA, 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> All documents in the docket are listed in the <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov</E> index. Although listed in the index, some information is not publicly available, <E T="03">e.g.,</E> CBI or other information whose disclosure is restricted by statute. Certain other material, such as copyrighted material, will be publicly available only in hard copy. Publicly available docket materials are available electronically in <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov.</E> Please email or call the person listed in the <E T="02">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT</E> section if you need to make alternative arrangements for access to the docket. <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Holly DeJong, Air and Radiation Division, EPA, Region 8, Mailcode 8ARD-IO, 1595 Wynkoop Street, Denver, Colorado 80202-1129, telephone number: (303) 312-6241, email address: <E T="03">dejong.holly@epa.gov;</E> or Joe Stein, Air and Radiation Division, EPA, Region 8, Mailcode 8ARD-IO, 1595 Wynkoop Street, Denver, Colorado 80202-1129, telephone number: (303) 312-7078, email address: <E T="03">stein.joseph@epa.gov.</E> </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">Table of Contents</HD> <EXTRACT> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">I. What action is the EPA proposing?</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">II. Background</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">A. History of the Regional Haze Program</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">B. Roles of Agencies in Addressing Regional Haze</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">C. North Dakota's First Implementation Period SIP Submissions</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">D. North Dakota's Second Implementation Period SIP Submission</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">III. Requirements for Regional Haze Plans for the Second Implementation Period</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">A. Identification of Class I Areas</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">B. Calculations of Baseline, Current, and Natural Visibility Conditions; Progress to Date; and the Uniform Rate of Progress</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">C. Long-Term Strategy for Regional Haze</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">D. Reasonable Progress Goals</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">E. Monitoring Strategy and Other State Implementation Plan Requirements</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">F. Requirements for Periodic Reports Describing Progress Towards the Reasonable Progress Goals</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">G. Requirements for Federal Land Manager Coordination</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">IV. The EPA's Evaluation of North Dakota's Regional Haze Submission for the Second Implementation Period</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">A. Calculations of Baseline, Current, and Natural Visibility Conditions; Progress to Date; and the Uniform Rate of Progress Under 40 CFR 51.308(f)(1)</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">B. North Dakota's Long-Term Strategy Under CAA 169A and 40 CFR 51.308(f)(2)</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">1. North Dakota's Long-Term Strategy Under CAA 169A and 40 CFR 51.308(f)(2)(i)</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">a. Reliance on Non-Statutory Considerations To Reject Reasonable Controls at Coyote Station and Antelope Valley</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">i. North Dakota Unreasonably Rejected Controls Based on Visibility Modeling</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">(a) Modeling Showing No “Significant” Change in Visibility Is Not a Sufficient Basis To Reject Controls Under CAA 169A and 40 CFR 51.308(f)(2)(i)</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">(b) North Dakota Failed To Consider Visibility Impacts at Out-of-State Class I Areas</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">ii. Projections That North Dakota Class I Areas Will Meet the Adjusted Uniform Rate of Progress Is Not a Sufficient Basis To Reject Controls Under 40 CFR 51.308(f)(2)(i)</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">b. Failure To Consider the Four Factors at Coal Creek and Unreasonable Rejection of Controls at Coal Creek and Leland Olds</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">2. Other Long-Term Strategy Requirements Under 40 CFR 51.308(f)(2)(ii)-(iv)</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">C. Reasonable Progress Goals</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">D. Reasonably Attributable Visibility Impairment (RAVI)</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">E. Monitoring Strategy and Other Implementation Plan Requirements</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">F. Requirements for Periodic Reports Describing Progress Towards the Reasonable Progress Goals</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">G. Requirements for Federal Land Manager Coordination</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">V. Proposed Action</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">VI. Environmental Justice</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">VII. Statutory and Executive Order Reviews </FP> </EXTRACT> <HD SOURCE="HD1">I. What action is the EPA proposing?</HD> On August 11, 2022, the North Dakota Department of Environmental Quality submitted a revision to its SIP to address regional haze for the second implementation period. North Dakota made this SIP submission to satisfy the requirements of the CAA's regional haze program under CAA sections 169A and 169B and 40 CFR 51.308(f). The EPA is proposing to approve the portions of North Dakota's 2022 SIP submission relating to 40 CFR 51.308(f)(1): calculations of baseline, current, and natural visibility conditions, progress to date, and the uniform rate of progress; 40 CFR 51.308(f)(4): reasonably attributable visibility impairment; 40 CFR 51.308(f)(5) and 40 CFR 51.308(g): progress report requirements; and 40 CFR 51.308(f)(6): monitoring strategy and other implementation plan requirements. The EPA is proposing to disapprove the portions of North Dakota's 2022 SIP submission relating to CAA 169A and 40 CFR 51.308(f)(2): long-term strategy; 40 CFR 51.308(f)(3): reasonable progress goals; and 40 CFR 51.308(i): FLM consultation. Consistent with section 110(k)(3) of the CAA, the EPA may partially approve portions of a submittal if those elements meet all applicable requirements and may disapprove the remainder so long as the elements are fully separable. <SU>1</SU> <FTREF/> <FTNT> <SU>1</SU>   <E T="03">See</E> CAA section 110(k)(3) and July 9, 1992 EPA memorandum titled “Processing of State Implementation Plan (SIP) Submittals” from John Calcagni, at <E T="03">https://www.epa.gov/sites/default/files/2015-07/documents/procsip.pdf.</E> </FTNT> <HD SOURCE="HD1">II. Background</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD2">A. History of the Regional Haze Program</HD> In the 1977 CAA Amendments, Congress created a program for protecting visibility in the nation's mandatory Class I Federal areas, which include certain national parks and wilderness areas. <SU>2</SU> <FTREF/> CAA 169A. The CAA establishes as a national goal the “prevention of any future, and the remedying of any existing, impairment of visibility in mandatory Class I Federal areas which impairment results from manmade air pollution.” CAA 169A(a)(1). The CAA further directs the EPA to promulgate regulations to assure reasonable progress toward meeting this national goal. CAA 169A(a)(4). On December 2, 1980, the EPA promulgated regulations to address visibility impairment in mandatory Class I Federal areas (hereinafter referred to as “Class I areas”) that is “reasonably attributable” to a single source or small group of sources. (45 FR 80084, December 2, 1980). These regulations, codif ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 172k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━