Disapproval and Promulgation of Air Quality Implementation Plan; Nebraska; Regional Haze State Implementation Plan; Federal Implementation Plan for Regional Haze; Completion of Remand

ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY <CFR>40 CFR Part 52</CFR> <DEPDOC>[EPA-R07-OAR-2024-0224; FRL-11566-01-R7]</DEPDOC> <SUBJECT>Disapproval and Promulgation of Air Quality Implementation Plan; Nebraska; Regional Haze State Implementation Plan; Federal Implementation Plan for Regional Haze; Completion of Remand</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Environmental Protection Agency. <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Proposed rule. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> Pursuant to the Federal Clean Air Act (CAA or Act), the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is proposing this action to address the voluntary remand of a portion of a final rulemaking published in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> on July 6, 2012, addressing regional haze obligations for the first planning period in Nebraska. Specifically, we are revisiting and implementing a Federal Implementation Plan (FIP) applicable to the Gerald Gentleman Station, owned and operated by the Nebraska Public Power District (NPPD). In this action, the EPA is proposing a revised FIP that will limit sulfur dioxide (SO <E T="52">2</E> ) emissions at the Gerald Gentleman Station. The EPA proposes to determine that SO <E T="52">2</E> emission reductions are needed to make reasonable progress toward Congress' natural-visibility goal at Class I areas affected by visibility-impairing emissions from Nebraska. This proposal addresses only the remanded portion of the Nebraska FIP. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> Comments must be received on or before September 30, 2024. The EPA will hold an in-person public hearing in Nebraska and a separate virtual public hearing. For more information on the in-person and virtual public hearings, see <E T="02">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION</E> . </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> Submit your comments, identified by Docket ID No. EPA-R07-OAR-2024-0224, to the Federal eRulemaking Portal: <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov.</E> For additional submission methods, please contact the person identified in the <E T="02">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT</E> section. <E T="03">Docket:</E> The docket for this action is available electronically at <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov.</E> Some information in the docket may not be publicly available via the online docket due to docket file size restrictions, or content ( <E T="03">e.g.,</E> CBI). To request a copy of the files, please send a request via email to <E T="03">vit.wendy@epa.gov.</E> For questions about a document in the docket please contact individual listed in the <E T="02">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT</E> section. <E T="03">Confidential Business Information (CBI):</E> Do not submit information containing CBI to the EPA through <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov.</E> To submit information claimed as CBI, please contact the individual listed in the <E T="02">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT</E> section. Clearly mark the part or all of the information that you claim to be CBI. In addition to one complete version of the comments that includes information claimed as CBI, you must submit a copy of the comments that does not contain the information claimed as CBI directly to the public docket through the procedures outlined in Instructions earlier. Information not marked as CBI will be included in the public docket and the EPA's electronic public docket without prior notice. Information marked as CBI will not be disclosed except in accordance with procedures set forth in 40 Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) part 2. 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://www2.epa.gov/dockets/commenting-epa-dockets.</E> To pre-register to attend or speak at the virtual public hearing, please use the online registration form available at <E T="03">https://www.epa.gov/ne/state-nebraska</E> or contact us via email at <E T="03">wolkins.jed@epa.gov.</E> For more information on the virtual public hearing, see <E T="02">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION</E> . <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Jed D. Wolkins, Environmental Protection Agency, Air Planning and Development Branch, 11201 Renner Boulevard, Lenexa, Kansas 66219; telephone number: (913) 551-7588; email address: <E T="03">wolkins.jed@epa.gov.</E> </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> Throughout this document “we,” “us,” or “our” refer to the EPA. <E T="03">Virtual public hearing:</E> The EPA is holding a virtual public hearing to provide interested parties the opportunity to present data, views, or arguments concerning the proposal. The virtual public hearing will be on September 3, 2024 at 1:00 p.m. Central Time (CT) and will conclude at 5:00 p.m. CT or 15 minutes after the last pre-registered presenter in attendance has presented if there are no additional presenters. The EPA will begin pre-registering speakers and attendees for the hearing upon publication of this document in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> . To pre-register to attend or speak at the virtual public hearing, please use the online registration form available at <E T="03">https://www.epa.gov/ne/state-nebraska</E> or contact us via email at <E T="03">wolkins.jed@epa.gov.</E> The last day to preregister to speak at the hearing will be August 26, 2024. The EPA will post a general agenda for the hearing that will list pre-registered speakers in approximate order at <E T="03">https://www.epa.gov/ne/state-nebraska.</E> Additionally, requests to speak will be taken on the day of the hearing as time allows. The EPA will make every effort to follow the schedule as closely as possible on the day of the hearing; however, please plan for the hearing to run either ahead of schedule or behind schedule. Each commenter will have approximately 3 to 5 minutes to provide oral testimony. The EPA encourages commenters to provide the EPA with a written copy of their oral testimony electronically by emailing it to <E T="03">wolkins.jed@epa.gov.</E> The EPA may ask clarifying questions during the oral presentations but will not respond to the presentations at that time. Written statements and supporting information submitted during the comment period will be considered with the same weight as oral comments and supporting information presented at the virtual public hearing. A transcript of the virtual public hearing, as well as written copies of oral presentations submitted to the EPA, will be included in the docket for this action. The EPA is asking all hearing attendees to pre-register, even those who do not intend to speak. The EPA will send information on how to join the public hearing to pre-registered attendees and speakers. Please note that any updates made to any aspect of the hearing will be posted online at <E T="03">https://www.epa.gov/ne/state-nebraska.</E> While the EPA expects the hearing to go forward as set forth above, please monitor our website or contact us via email at <E T="03">wolkins.jed@epa.gov</E> to determine if there are any updates. The EPA does not intend to publish a document in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> announcing updates. If you require the services of a translator or a special accommodation such as audio description/closed captioning, please pre-register for the hearing and describe your needs by August 8, 2024. The EPA may not be able to arrange accommodations without advance notice. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Table of Contents</HD> <EXTRACT> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">I. Executive Summary</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">II. Background</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">A. Regional Haze</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">1. Determination of Baseline, Natural, and Current Visibility Conditions</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">2. Reasonable Progress and Long-Term Strategy (LTS)</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">3. Federal Land Manager (FLM) Consultation</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">B. Previous Actions Related to Nebraska Regional Haze Long-Term Strategy Requirements for the First Planning Period</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">C. Prior Litigation and EPA's Motion for Voluntary Remand</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">III. Overview of Proposed Action</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">IV. Legal Authority for This Action</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">V. EPA's Review of the 2012 Federal Implementation Plan on Remand</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">A. Factor 1—The Costs of Compliance</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">1. EPA's Evaluation of Costs for BART in the 2012 Proposed and Final Rule</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">2. EPA's Updated Cost Evaluation</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">B. Factor 2—The Time Necessary for Compliance</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2"> C. Factor 3—The Energy and Non-Air Quality Environmental Impacts of Compliance </FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">D. Factor 4—The Remaining Useful Life of the Source</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">E. Evaluation of Potential Visibility Impacts and Improvements</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">VI. Amending the FIP on Remand—Long-Term Strategy Determination for Gerald Gentleman Station</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">VII. The EPA's FLM Consultation</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">VIII. Proposed Action</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">IX. Environmental Justice Considerations</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">X. Statutory and Executive Order Reviews</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">A. Executive Order 12866: Regulatory Planning and Review and Executive Order 14094: Modernizing Regulatory Review</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">B. Paperwork Reduction Act</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">C. Regulatory Flexibility Act</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">D. Unfunded Mandates Reform Act (UMRA)</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">E. Executive Order 13132: Federalism</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">F. Executive Order 13175: Coordination With Indian Tribal Governments</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">G. Executive Order 13045: Protection of Children From Environmental Health and Safety Risks</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 127k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━