Air Plan Approval; Pennsylvania; Adoption of Federal Implementation Plan Reasonably Available Control Technology Requirements for Keystone, Conemaugh, Homer City and Montour Generating Facilities for the 1997 and 2008 Ozone National Ambient Air Quality Standards

ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY <CFR>40 CFR Part 52</CFR> <DEPDOC>[EPA-R03-OAR-2024-0302; FRL-12064-01-R3]</DEPDOC> <SUBJECT>Air Plan Approval; Pennsylvania; Adoption of Federal Implementation Plan Reasonably Available Control Technology Requirements for Keystone, Conemaugh, Homer City and Montour Generating Facilities for the 1997 and 2008 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 part of State implementation plan (SIP) revisions submitted by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. The revisions being proposed for approval adopt nitrogen oxides (NO <E T="52">X</E> ) emission limits and requirements for the coal-fired electric generating units (EGUs) equipped with selective catalytic reduction (SCR) at the Keystone, Conemaugh, Homer City, and Montour facilities. The NO <E T="52">X</E> limits address reasonably available control technology (RACT) requirements for these EGUs for the 1997 and 2008 ozone national ambient air quality standards (NAAQS) and are intended to address the deficiencies identified in EPA's August 16, 2022 disapproval of an earlier SIP submission. 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 August 9, 2024. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> Submit your comments, identified by Docket ID No. EPA-R03-OAR-2024-0302 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> Sean Silverman, 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) 814-5511. Mr. Silverman can also be reached via electronic mail at <E T="03">silverman.sean@epa.gov.</E> </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> On April 10, 2024, the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (PADEP) submitted two new revisions to its SIP, and simultaneously withdrew its prior SIP submissions of May 26 and June 11, 2022. The new SIP revisions consisted of title V permits which adopted the NO <E T="52">X</E> RACT limits and other requirements promulgated by EPA in the Federal Implementation Plan (FIP) published August 31, 2022 (87 FR53381), and codified at 40 CFR 52.2065. One SIP revision contained, among other things, title V permits setting RACT requirements for the large EGUs at Keystone, Conemaugh and Homer City, while the other SIP revision contained a title V permit adopting RACT limits and other requirements for the EGUs at the Montour facility. Elsewhere in this <E T="04">Federal Register</E> , EPA is issuing an interim final determination (IFD) which proposes to find that Pennsylvania's April 10, 2024 SIP revisions address the deficiencies cited by EPA as the basis of EPA's August 16, 2022 final disapproval of certain portions of Pennsylvania's RACT regulations. The effect of that IFD is to stay emission offset sanctions and defer the imposition of highway funding sanctions triggered by EPA's August 16, 2022 partial disapproval of a prior Pennsylvania SIP addressing RACT for these EGUs. Comments on the IFD should be submitted in accordance with the instructions in that action. EPA is not taking action at this time on the RACT limits for certain auxiliary boilers at the Keystone and Conemaugh facilities found in the title V permits for these sources which were included as part of the April 10, 2024 SIP submittal. Approval into the SIP of the RACT limits for these auxiliary boilers is not required to address the deficiencies cited in EPA's August 16, 2022 disapproval action. EPA is not proposing to withdraw the FIP in this action. <HD SOURCE="HD1">I. Background</HD> The RACT requirements in CAA section 182(b)(2) apply to all ozone nonattainment areas classified as Moderate or higher ( <E T="03">i.e.,</E> Serious, Severe, or Extreme). Section 184(b)(1)(B) of the CAA also applies RACT to all areas located within ozone transport regions. The entire Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is part of the Ozone Transport Region (OTR) established by section 184 of the CAA and therefore subject statewide to RACT requirements. On May 16, 2016, Pennsylvania submitted a SIP revision intended to satisfy certain CAA RACT requirements for sections 182(b)(2)(C), 182(f), and 184 for the 1997 and 2008 ozone NAAQS. The SIP addressed RACT for all major sources of NO <E T="52">X</E> and volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in Pennsylvania that were not subject to control techniques guidelines (CTGs), with a few exceptions not relevant to this action (hereafter the “RACT II rule”). On May 9, 2019, EPA published a final action fully approving certain provisions and conditionally approving other portions of Pennsylvania's RACT II rule. 84 FR 20274 (May 9, 2019). Specifically, EPA's action fully approved sections 121.1, 129.96, 129.97, and 129.100 of Title 25 of the Pennsylvania Code (25 Pa. Code), and conditionally approved 25 Pa. Code sections 129.98 and 129.99 based upon Pennsylvania's commitment to submit additional SIP revisions addressing the deficiencies in the RACT II rule identified by EPA. Id. at 20290. Following EPA's approval, the Sierra Club filed a challenge to certain parts of EPA's approval of Pennsylvania's RACT II SIP in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. <E T="03">Sierra Club</E> v. <E T="03">EPA,</E> 972 F.3d 290 (3rd Cir. 2020) (“Sierra Club”). The appeal challenged EPA's approval of only that portion of the RACT II rule applicable to coal-fired EGUs equipped with SCR for control of NO <E T="52">X</E> . Specifically, the appeal challenged EPA's approval of the presumptive RACT NO <E T="52">X</E> limit for these EGUs of 0.12 pounds of NO <E T="52">X</E> per Million British Thermal Units (MMBtu) of heat input (lbs/MMBtu) when the inlet temperature to the SCR was 600 degrees Fahrenheit or above, found at 25 Pa. Code 129.97(g)(1)(viii); the application of the less stringent NO <E T="52">X</E> limits of 25 Pa. Code 129.97(g)(1)(vi) to EGUs with SCR when the inlet temperature to the SCR was below 600 degrees Fahrenheit; and the failure of the RACT II rule at 25 Pa. Code 129.100(d) to specifically require these EGUs to keep temperature data for the inlet temperature to the SCRs and report that data to PADEP. On August 27, 2020, the Third Circuit held unlawful and vacated EPA's approval as challenged by the Sierra Club. First, the Court found that EPA's record did not sufficiently explain why the EGUs equipped with SCR could not achieve a lower NO <E T="52">X</E> emission standard than the presumptive limits EPA approved into the SIP. Sierra Club, 972 F.3d at 299-303. Second, the Court held that Pennsylvania's standard acted as a loophole because it permitted unlimited operations without the use of SCR controls if exhaust gas temperature was kept below what the Court considered an arbitrary temperature threshold of 600 degrees Fahrenheit. Id. at 303-07. Third, the Court held that Pennsylvania's reporting requirements were not enforceable. Id. at 307-09. As a result, the Court vacated EPA's approval of this portion of the 2016 SIP and ordered EPA either to approve a revised, compliant SIP or promulgate a FIP within two years ( <E T="03">i.e.,</E> by August 27, 2022). Id. at 309. Following the Court's decision, PADEP worked to develop a SIP to address the deficiencies identified by the court within the specified time frame. EPA simultaneously worked on a FIP so that EPA could meet the Court's deadline to issue a FIP should it be necessary to do so. EPA published its proposed FIP on May 25, 2022 in order to be in a position to finalize a FIP by the Court's deadline. 87 FR 31798 at 31801. On May 26, 2022, PADEP submitted to EPA new SIP revisions containing title V permits setting case-by-case RACT limits and monitoring, recordkeeping and reporting requirements for Keystone, Conemaugh, and Homer City. Similarly, on June 9, 2022, PADEP submitted a new SIP revision containing a title V permit setting case-by-case RACT limits and monitoring, recordkeeping and reporting requirements for Montour as a SIP revision. In order to assure its authority to issue a FIP, on August 16, 2022, EPA also took final action to disapprove the vacated portions of the previously submitted RACT II SIP revision. 87 FR 50257. EPA's final FIP published ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 26k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━