Air Plan Approval; OR; Permitting Rule Revisions

<RULE> ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY <CFR>40 CFR Part 52</CFR> <DEPDOC>[EPA-R10-OAR-2023-0438, FRL-11366-02-R10]</DEPDOC> <SUBJECT>Air Plan Approval; OR; Permitting Rule Revisions</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Final rule. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is approving revisions to the Oregon State Implementation Plan (SIP) submitted on March 27, 2023. The submitted changes are designed to strengthen the stationary source permitting rules by eliminating generic plant site emission limits in favor of source-specific and source-category specific limits, updating construction notification requirements, clarifying the use of modeling and monitoring for compliance assurance, and streamlining the application process. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> This final rule is effective August 22, 2024. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> The EPA has established a docket for this action under Docket ID No. EPA-R10-OAR-2023-0438. All documents in the docket are listed on the <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov</E> website. Although listed in the index, some information is not publicly available, <E T="03">e.g.,</E> Confidential Business Information or other information the disclosure of which 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 at <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov,</E> or please contact the person listed in the <E T="02">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT</E> section for additional availability information. <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Kristin Hall, EPA Region 10, 1200 Sixth Avenue, Suite 155, Seattle, WA 98101, at (206) 553-6357 or <E T="03">hall.kristin@epa.gov.</E> </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> Throughout this document, wherever “we” or “our” is used, it means the EPA. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Table of Contents</HD> <EXTRACT> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">I. Background</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">II. Comments and Responses</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">III. Final Action</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">IV. Incorporation by Reference</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">V. Statutory and Executive Order Reviews</FP> </EXTRACT> <HD SOURCE="HD1">I. Background</HD> On April 1, 2024, the EPA proposed to approve revisions to the Oregon SIP to strengthen and streamline the stationary source permitting rules (89 FR 22363). The reasons for our proposed action are included in the proposal and will not be restated here. The public comment period closed on May 1, 2024. We received four comments from members of the public. The full text of the comments may be found in the docket for this action. We have summarized the comments and provided our responses in section II. of this preamble. <HD SOURCE="HD1">II. Comments and Responses</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD2">Comment 1 and EPA Responses</HD> The first commenter conveyed overall support for the EPA's proposed action to approve the submitted revisions to the Oregon SIP. The EPA acknowledges the commenter's support for the EPA's approval of Oregon's SIP submission. However, the same commenter also expressed concern about two specific items in our proposed action. First, the commenter speculated about the potential impact to the permitting program and its transparency if the permit fee table (listing the specific dollar amounts charged to facility owners and operators for various types of permit actions) were removed from the SIP. The permit fee table in question is table 2 of Oregon Administrative Rules (OAR) 340-216-8020. In response to the comment, the EPA reiterates what was stated in the proposed action  <SU>1</SU> <FTREF/> and further elaborates. In the March 27, 2023, submission, Oregon requested to remove the permit fee table from the SIP. The table codifies in State regulation the specific amounts to be charged by the State of Oregon to facility owners and operators for various types of permit actions. This table is revised periodically by the State to account for inflation and State-initiated revenue adjustments. However, there is no Clean Air Act requirement to include this itemized list in the SIP. States may decide to maintain such provisions as State-only regulations. Importantly, the requirement to pay pre-construction permit fees remains in the SIP, consistent with Clean Air Act section 110(a)(2)(L). <SU>2</SU> <FTREF/> Therefore, the EPA's position remains that the SIP submission meets Clean Air Act requirements. <FTNT> <SU>1</SU>  See 89 FR 22363, April 1, 2024, at page 22367. </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>2</SU>  OAR-340-216-8020(1). </FTNT> With respect to transparency, the table of permit fees remains codified as a matter of State law in the OAR and is readily available to the public and regulated entities on the Oregon Secretary of State website. <SU>3</SU> <FTREF/> The Oregon Department of Environmental Quality continues to implement the permitting program and charge the associated fees listed in the permit fee table, as required. Therefore, we find that there is no anticipated impact to transparency. <FTNT> <SU>3</SU>   <E T="03">https://www.sos.oregon.gov/archives.</E> </FTNT> Second, the same commenter expressed concern about removing text from the SIP-approved Oregon rules that historically tightened opacity limits related to visible emissions. While the commenter did not cite to the specific regulation change, we infer that the commenter was referring to the changes to OAR 340-208-0110. In response to this comment, the EPA believes the commenter has misunderstood Oregon's rule revisions and the basis of the EPA's proposed action. As part of the March 27, 2023 SIP submission, Oregon submitted revisions to OAR 340-208-0110. The revisions removed obsolete text that, in the past, phased in tighter, 20 percent opacity limits starting on January 1, 2020. These tighter, 20 percent opacity limits have been fully phased in and are now widely applicable. Therefore, the text that allowed greater than 20 percent opacity prior to January 1, 2020, is obsolete. Removing this obsolete text from the SIP makes the rules clearer and easier to implement and has no substantive impact on the opacity standards in Oregon's SIP. Therefore, approval of this revision is appropriate. <HD SOURCE="HD2">Comment 2 and EPA Responses</HD> The second commenter stated that they do not feel Oregon does enough to protect the public from air pollution and that the efforts the State does make are not equitable or fair. As an example, the commenter referenced the motor vehicle inspection and maintenance program that requires emissions testing in Portland and other metropolitan areas, but does not require such testing statewide. The EPA acknowledges the comment, however, the commenter does not indicate with specificity why approval of Oregon's revisions to its SIP-approved permitting rules is inconsistent with the Clean Air Act or otherwise inappropriate. In addition, the EPA does not consider comments on the SIP-approved Oregon motor vehicle inspection and maintenance program to be within the scope of this action. Revisions to the inspection and maintenance program requirements of Division 256 in the OAR were most recently approved by the EPA on July 12, 2022 and we are not in this action revisiting our prior decision (87 FR 41256). Likewise, comments on potential future changes to the SIP-approved motor vehicle inspection and maintenance program that have not been submitted to the EPA for SIP approval are outside the scope of this action. <HD SOURCE="HD2">Comment 3 and EPA Responses</HD> The third commenter expressed concern about air emissions from cannabis farms and urged that Federal charges be reestablished. The commenter pointed to studies of the potential for volatile organic compound emissions from cannabis farms to contribute to ozone formation. The EPA acknowledges the comment, however, the comment is outside the scope of this action and does not indicate that the EPA's approval of the SIP submission is inconsistent with the CAA. Federal oversight of cannabis farms is unrelated to this action. This action addresses changes to the Oregon regulations governing stationary source permitting in the State, including changes to eliminate generic plant site emission limits, update construction notification requirements, clarify the use of modeling and monitoring for compliance assurance, and streamline the permit application process. <HD SOURCE="HD2">Comment 4 and EPA Responses</HD> The fourth commenter appears to support the EPA's proposed action. The EPA acknowledges the commenter's support of the EPA's approval of Oregon's SIP submission. For the reasons stated in our proposed action (89 FR 22363, April 1, 2024) and in section II. of this preamble, the EPA is finalizing its action as proposed. <HD SOURCE="HD1">III. Final Action</HD> The EPA is approving revisions to the Oregon SIP submitted on March 27, 2023. <SU>4</SU> <FTREF/> The following paragraphs detail our incorporations by reference. <FTNT> <SU>4</SU>  We are deferring action on the submitted changes to OAR-340-214-0330, because we intend to address the changes in a separate, future action. </FTNT> <HD SOURCE="HD2">A. Rule Sections To Be Incorporated by Reference</HD> The EPA is incorporating specific OAR sections by reference into the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR). Upon the effective date of this action, the regulatory portion of the Oregon SIP at 40 CFR 52.1970(c) will include the following provisions, State effective March 1, 2023: • OAR 340-200-0020 General Air Quality Definitions (defining terms used in the Oregon air quality regulation ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 46k characters. 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