Partial Approval and Partial Disapproval of Air Quality State Implementation Plans; New Jersey; 2015 Ozone Infrastructure

<RULE> ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY <CFR>40 CFR Part 52</CFR> <DEPDOC>[EPA-R02-OAR-2022-0631; FRL-10786-02-R2]</DEPDOC> <SUBJECT>Partial Approval and Partial Disapproval of Air Quality State Implementation Plans; New Jersey; 2015 Ozone Infrastructure</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 partially approving and partially disapproving certain elements of a State Implementation Plan (SIP) submission from New Jersey regarding the infrastructure requirements of the Clean Air Act (CAA) for the 2015 8-hour Ozone National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS). The infrastructure requirements are designed to ensure that the structural components of each State's air quality management program are adequate to meet the State's responsibilities under the CAA. Except as noted, this SIP revision satisfies the infrastructure requirements of the CAA for the 2015 ozone NAAQS. The disapproval portion of this action does not begin a new Federal Implementation Plan (FIP) clock, because the FIPs are already in place. EPA proposed to approve this action on Friday, April 12, 2024 and received no adverse comments. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> This final rule is effective on September 9, 2024. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> The EPA has established a docket for this action under Docket ID Number EPA-R02-OAR-2022-0631. 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> 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> <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Ysabel Banon, Air Programs Branch, Environmental Protection Agency, 290 Broadway, New York, New York 10007-1866, at (212) 637-3382, or by email at <E T="03">banon.ysabel@epa.gov.</E> </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Table of Contents</HD> <EXTRACT> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">I. What is the background for this action?</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">II. What comments were received in response to the EPA's proposed action?</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">III. What action is the EPA taking?</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">IV. Statutory and Executive Order Reviews</FP> </EXTRACT> <HD SOURCE="HD1">I. What is the background for this action?</HD> Under sections 110(a)(1) and (2) of the Clean Air Act (CAA), each State is required to submit a SIP that provides for the implementation, maintenance, and enforcement of a revised primary or secondary NAAQS or standard. CAA sections 110(a)(1) and (2) require each State to make a new SIP submission within three years after the EPA promulgates a new or revised NAAQS for approval into the existing federally approved SIP to assure that the SIP meets the applicable requirements for such new and revised NAAQS. On April 12, 2024 (89 FR 25841), the EPA proposed to approve most elements of a submission from the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (NJDEP) submitted on May 13, 2019, as fully meeting the infrastructure requirements for the 2015 8-hour ozone NAAQS (89 FR 25841) for the following section 110(a)(2) elements and sub-elements: (A), (B), (C) (enforcement program only), (D)(i)(II) prong 4 (visibility), (E), (F), (G), (H), (J) (consultation and public notification only), (K), (L), and (M) of the CAA. EPA is proposing to disapprove the portion of the submission that relates to prevention of significant deterioration (PSD). An explanation of the CAA requirements, a detailed analysis of the revisions, and EPA's reasons for proposing approval were provided in the notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM) and will not be restated here. <HD SOURCE="HD1">II. What comments were received in response to the EPA's proposed action?</HD> In response to the EPA's April 12, 2024, proposed rulemaking on New Jersey's SIP revisions, the EPA received three comments during the 30-day public comment period that ended on May 13, 2024. The specific comments may be viewed under Docket ID Number EPA-R02-OAR-2022-0631 on the <E T="03">https://regulations.gov</E> website. <HD SOURCE="HD2">Comments 1 & 2</HD> Two public comments were submitted that support the EPA's action. <HD SOURCE="HD2">Response 1 & 2</HD> The EPA acknowledges the commenters' support of the EPA's proposed rule. <HD SOURCE="HD2">Comment 3</HD> A third comment asked about the establishment of infrastructure requirements for cannabis dispensaries. Specifically, the commenter believes that these requirements should be imposed on dispensaries and their owners rather than on taxpayers. <HD SOURCE="HD2">Response 3</HD> After reviewing the comment, EPA has determined that the comment is outside the scope of our proposed action or fails to identify any material issue necessitating a response. The comment does not raise issues germane or relevant to the EPA's proposed action. The comment lacks the required specificity to the proposed SIP revision and the relevant requirements of CAA section 110. Moreover, the comment does not address a specific regulation or provision in question or recommend a different action on the SIP submission from what EPA proposed, and therefore is not adverse to this action. For this reason, the EPA will not provide a specific response to the comment. <HD SOURCE="HD1">III. What action is the EPA taking?</HD> The EPA is approving NJDEP's SIP revision submitted on May 13, 2019, for the 2015 ozone NAAQS for the following section 110(a)(2) elements and sub-elements: (A), (B), (C) (enforcement program only), (D)(i)(II) prong 4 (visibility), (E), (F), (G), (H), (J) (consultation and public notification only), (K), (L), and (M). New Jersey has elected to comply with the Federal PSD requirements by accepting delegation of the Federal rules and has been successfully implementing this program for many years. However, EPA does not recognize a delegated PSD program as satisfying the Infrastructure SIP requirements. Therefore, as discussed in the proposed approval, 89 FR 2584, EPA is disapproving New Jersey's submittal for the 2015 8-hour ozone NAAQS section 110(a)(2) sub-elements: (C), prong 3 of (D)(i)(II), and (J), as they relate to the State's lack of a State adopted PSD program, as well as (D)(ii), which relates to interstate and international pollution abatement and PSD. However, these disapprovals will not trigger any sanctions or additional Federal Implementation Plan obligation since a PSD Federal Implementation Plan is already in place. <HD SOURCE="HD1">IV. Statutory and Executive Order Reviews</HD> Additional information about these statutes and Executive orders can be found at <E T="03">https://www.epa.gov/lawsregulations/laws-and-executive-orders.</E> <HD SOURCE="HD2">A. Executive Order 12866: Regulatory Planning and Review, Executive Order 13563: Improving Regulation and Regulatory Review, and Executive Order 14094: Modernizing Regulatory Review</HD> This action is not a significant regulatory action as defined in Executive Order 12866, as amended by Executive Order 14094, and was therefore not submitted to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for review. <HD SOURCE="HD2">B. Paperwork Reduction Act (PRA)</HD> This action does not impose an information collection burden under the PRA because this action does not impose additional requirements beyond those imposed by State law. <HD SOURCE="HD2">C. Regulatory Flexibility Act (RFA)</HD> I certify that this action will not have a significant economic impact on a substantial number of small entities under the RFA. This action will not impose any requirements on small entities beyond those imposed by State law. <HD SOURCE="HD2">D. Unfunded Mandates Reform Act (UMRA)</HD> This action does not contain any unfunded mandate as described in UMRA, 2 U.S.C. 1531-1538, and does not significantly or uniquely affect small governments. This action does not impose additional requirements beyond those imposed by State law. Accordingly, no additional costs to State, local, or Tribal governments, or to the private sector, will result from this action. <HD SOURCE="HD2">E. Executive Order 13132: Federalism</HD> This action does not have federalism implications. It will not have substantial direct effects on the States, on the relationship between the National Government and the States, or on the distribution of power and responsibilities among the various levels of government. <HD SOURCE="HD2">F. Executive Order 13175: Coordination With Indian Tribal Governments</HD> This action does not have Tribal implications, as specified in Executive Order 13175, because the SIP is not approved to apply on any Indian reservation land or in any other area where the EPA or an Indian Tribe has demonstrated that a Tribe has jurisdiction and will not impose substantial direct costs on Tribal governments or preempt Tribal law. Thus, Executive Order 13175 does not apply to this action. <HD SOURCE="HD2">G. Executive Order 13045: Protection of Children From Environmental Health Risks and Safety Risks</HD> The EPA interprets Executive Order 13045 as applying only to those regulatory actions that concern environmental health or safety risks that the EPA has reason to believe may disproportionately affect children, per the definition of “covered regulatory action” in section 2-202 of the Execut ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 17k characters. 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