Air Plan Approval; New Jersey; NOX SIP Call and Removal of CAIR

ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY <CFR>40 CFR Part 52</CFR> <DEPDOC>[EPA-R02-OAR-2024-0110, FRL-12093-01-R2]</DEPDOC> <SUBJECT> Air Plan Approval; New Jersey; NO <E T="0735">X</E> SIP Call and Removal of CAIR </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 <E T="03">the removal of the</E> New Jersey <E T="03">Clean Air Interstate Rule</E> (CAIR nitrogen oxides (NO <E T="52">X</E> ) Trading Program regulations from the New Jersey State Implementation Plan (SIP) and is proposing to conditionally approve the removal of the New Jersey NO <E T="52">X</E> Budget Program regulations from the New Jersey SIP. On August 23, 2018, the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (NJDEP) submitted a SIP revision requesting the removal of the State's CAIR NO <E T="52">X</E> Trading Program and NO <E T="52">X</E> Budget Program regulations from the New Jersey SIP. NJDEP submitted a supplement to the revision on May 31, 2024, that commits NJDEP to develop a Memorandum of Agreement with the EPA that indicates how the State of New Jersey will maintain compliance with the State's NO <E T="52">X</E> SIP Call obligations for the types of large non-electricity generating units (non-EGUs) that were previously regulated under the New Jersey NO <E T="52">X</E> Budget Program. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> Written comments must be received on or before August 19, 2024. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> Submit your comments, identified by Docket ID Number EPA-R02-OAR-2024-0110, 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> Controlled Unclassified Information (CUI) (formally referred to as 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 CUI 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 CUI 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> Fausto Taveras, Environmental Protection Agency, Region 2, Air Programs Branch, 290 Broadway, New York, New York 10007-1866, at (212) 637-3378, or by email at <E T="03">Taveras.Fausto@epa.gov.</E> </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> The <E T="02">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION</E> section is arranged as follows: <EXTRACT> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">I. Background</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">II. EPA's Evaluation and Proposed Action</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">III. Environmental Justice Considerations</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">IV. Statutory and Executive Order Reviews </FP> </EXTRACT> <HD SOURCE="HD1">I. Background</HD> Under Clean Air Act (CAA or Act) section 110(a)(2)(D)(i)(I), also called the good neighbor provision, States are required to address the interstate transport of air pollution. Specifically, the good neighbor provision requires that each state's implementation plan contain adequate provisions to prohibit air pollutant emissions from within the state that will significantly contribute to nonattainment of the national ambient air quality standards (NAAQS), or that will interfere with maintenance of the NAAQS, in any other state. In October 1998 (63 FR 57356), the EPA finalized the “Finding of Significant Contribution and Rulemaking for Certain States in the Ozone Transport Assessment Group Region for Purposes of Reducing Regional Transport of Ozone” (NO <E T="52">X</E> SIP Call). <SU>1</SU> <FTREF/> The NO <E T="52">X</E> SIP Call required Eastern States, including New Jersey, to submit SIPs that prohibit excessive emissions of ozone season NO <E T="52">X</E> by implementing statewide emissions budgets. The NO <E T="52">X</E> SIP Call addressed the good neighbor provision for the 1979 ozone NAAQS and was designed to mitigate the impact of transported NO <E T="52">X</E> emissions, one of the precursors of ozone. <SU>2</SU> <FTREF/> To help implement the NO <E T="52">X</E> SIP Call, EPA developed the NO <E T="52">X</E> Budget Trading Program, a regional allowance trading program. States could meet most of their obligations under the NO <E T="52">X</E> SIP Call by requiring certain types of sources to participate in this trading program: generally, EGUs with capacity greater than 25 megawatts (MW)  <SU>3</SU> <FTREF/> and large non-EGUs, such as industrial boilers and combustion turbines, with a rated heat input greater than 250 million British thermal units per hour (MMBtu/hr). <FTNT> <SU>1</SU>  The EPA issued subsequent technical amendments to the NO <E T="52">X</E> SIP Call in May 1999 (64 FR 26298) and March 2000 (65 FR 11222). </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>2</SU>  As originally promulgated, the NO <E T="52">X</E> SIP Call also addressed good neighbor obligations under the 1997 8-hour ozone NAAQS, but EPA subsequently stayed and later rescinded the rule's provisions with respect to that standard. See 65 FR 56245 (September 18, 2000); 84 FR 8422 (March 8, 2019). </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>3</SU>  In some States, EGUs smaller than 25 MW were also part of EPA's NO <E T="52">X</E> Budget Trading Program. </FTNT> NJDEP submitted a SIP revision including amendments to the regulation N.J.A.C. 7:27-31 (otherwise known as subchapter 31), “NO <E T="52">X</E> Budget Program”, on December 10, 1999, <SU>4</SU> <FTREF/> to comply with the NO <E T="52">X</E> SIP Call requirements. The EPA approved the revision as meeting the requirements of the NO <E T="52">X</E> SIP Call in 2001. See 66 FR 28063 (May 22, 2001). The approved revision required EGUs with capacity greater than 15 MW and large non-EGUs in the State to participate in the State's NO <E T="52">X</E> Budget Program beginning in 2003. <FTNT> <SU>4</SU>  The SIP revision was further supplemented by New Jersey on July 31, 2000. </FTNT> In 2005, EPA published CAIR, which required Eastern States, including New Jersey, to submit SIPs that prohibited emissions consistent with revised ozone season (and annual) NO <E T="52">X</E> budgets. See 70 FR 25162 (May 12, 2005); see also 71 FR 25328 (April 28, 2006). CAIR addressed the good neighbor provision for the 1997 ozone NAAQS and the 1997 fine particulate matter (PM <E T="52">2.5</E> ) NAAQS and was designed to mitigate the impact of transported NO <E T="52">X</E> emissions with respect to ozone and PM <E T="52">2.5</E> . CAIR established several trading programs that States could join through SIPs or that EPA would implement through Federal implementation plans (FIPs) for EGUs greater than 25 MW in each affected state; States also retained the option to submit SIPs that achieved the required emission reductions from other types of sources. <SU>5</SU> <FTREF/> When the CAIR trading program for ozone season NO <E T="52">X</E> was implemented beginning on January 1, 2009, the EPA discontinued administration of the NO <E T="52">X</E> Budget Trading Program; however, the requirements of the NO <E T="52">X</E> SIP Call continued to apply. For large non-EGUs that would have been covered under the NO <E T="52">X</E> Budget Trading Program, States were allowed, but not obligated, to achieve the required emissions reductions from these types of units by including the units in the CAIR trading program for ozone season NO <E T="52">X</E> . <FTNT> <SU>5</SU>  CAIR had separate trading programs for annual sulfur dioxide emissions, seasonal NO <E T="52">X</E> emissions, and annual NO <E T="52">X</E> emissions. </FTNT> On October 1, 2007, the EPA approved revisions to New Jersey's SIP that used the CAIR FIP trading program for ozone season NO <E T="52">X</E> to address the State's obligations under the NO <E T="52">X</E> SIP Call related to EGUs. Consistent with CAIR's requirements, EPA approved a SIP revision in which New Jersey regulations: (1) adopted State rule provisions modifying the allowance allocation provisions of the CAIR FIP applicable to New Jersey, and (2) sunset New Jersey's NO <E T="52">X</E> Budget Program requirements. See 72 FR 55672. Specifically, New Jersey adopted under N.J.A.C. 7:27-30 (otherwise known as subchapter 30), the CAIR NO <E T="52">X</E> Trading Program, provisions for allocating allowances under the CAIR FIP NO <E T="52">X</E> annual and ozone season trading programs. <SU>6</SU> <FTREF/> Additionally, New Jersey adopted at N.J.A.C. 7:27-31.23, a sunset provision, which established that the Federal CAIR NO <E T="52">X</E> Ozone Season Trading Program as modified by New Jersey's SIP revision would replace New Jersey's NO <E T="52">X< ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 45k characters. 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