Air Plan Approval; Delaware; Motor Vehicle Inspection and Maintenance Program

ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY <CFR>40 CFR Part 52</CFR> <DEPDOC>[EPA-R03-OAR-2024-0016; FRL-12094-01-R3]</DEPDOC> <SUBJECT>Air Plan Approval; Delaware; Motor Vehicle Inspection and Maintenance Program</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 three State implementation plan (SIP) revisions submitted by the State of Delaware to amend Delaware's motor vehicle emissions inspection and maintenance (I/M) programs, Statewide. Delaware has made several State regulatory amendments to its prior SIP-approved I/M program regulations, to both improve the program and to harmonize its two State I/M program regulations so that the entire State is subject to similar I/M requirements. These SIP revisions apply to both the federally mandated enhanced I/M program applicable to Kent and New Castle Counties that comprise Delaware's portion of the Philadelphia-Wilmington-Atlantic City, PA-NJ-MD-DE ozone nonattainment area, and also to the Sussex County program, where I/M is not federally required but where Delaware has a prior approved, SIP strengthening I/M program (similar in design to a basic I/M program). The amendments to Delaware's I/M programs include: a change in program coverage to expand exemptions for new vehicles to seven years; addition of vehicle on-board diagnostic (OBD) testing requirements in the Sussex County program; expanded vehicle coverage to include vehicles weighing between 8,501 to 14,000 pounds gross vehicle weight rating (GVWR), for those vehicles model year 2008-and-newer; harmonization of I/M test requirements applicable to older vehicles to include curb idle exhaust and gas cap pressure tests for vehicles 1995-and-older (replacing existing two-speed idle tests on those vehicles previously performed in Kent and New Castle Counties); phase-in of increased minimum repair cost thresholds for obtaining a repair waiver in Sussex County; and the addition of a Statewide prohibition on tampering-related repairs in qualifying for an emissions repair waiver. EPA's proposed action is in compliance with the Clean Air Act (CAA) because these SIP revisions comply with applicable requirements of the CAA and EPA regulations, and because this proposed revision of the SIP will not interfere with attainment or maintenance of any national ambient air quality standards (NAAQS). The intended effect of this action is to update the approved Delaware SIP to maintain consistency between the State-adopted I/M program rules and the federally approved SIP. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> Written comments must be received on or before September 16, 2024. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> Submit your comments, identified by Docket ID No. EPA-R03-OAR-2024-0016 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> Brian Rehn, 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) 814-2176. Mr. Rehn can also be reached via electronic mail at <E T="03">rehn.brian@epa.gov</E> . </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Table of Contents</HD> <EXTRACT> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">I. Background</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">A. Clean Air Act Requirements for I/M Programs</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">B. Background on the History of the Ozone NAAQS and Resulting Delaware Area Ozone Nonattainment Designations and I/M Program Requirements</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">1. Delaware Nonattainment Area Designations and I/M Program Requirements Under the 1979 1-Hour Ozone NAAQS</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">2. Delaware Nonattainment Area Designations and I/M Program Requirements Under the 1997 8-Hour Ozone NAAQS</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">3. Delaware Nonattainment Area Designations and I/M Program Requirements Under the 2008 8-Hour Ozone NAAQS</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">4. Delaware Nonattainment Area Designations and I/M Program Requirements Under the 2015 8-Hour Ozone NAAQS</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">II. Summary of Delaware's March 2023 I/M SIP Revisions and EPA's Analysis</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">A. Overview of Delaware's March 13, 2023 SIP Submissions</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">B. Review of Delaware's March 2023 SIP Revisions for Compliance With EPA Requirements</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">1. Compliance With EPA's Enhanced I/M Performance Standard Requirements</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">2. Demonstrating Noninterference of the Revised SIP Under CAA Section 110(l) With Attainment, Reasonable Further Progress, or Any Other CAA Applicable Requirement</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">C. EPA's Evaluation of Delaware's SIP Revisions</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">III. Proposed Action</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">IV. Incorporation by Reference</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">V. Statutory and Executive Order Reviews</FP> </EXTRACT> </SUPLINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> On March 13, 2023, the Delaware Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control (DNREC) submitted three SIP revisions to EPA to amend its prior SIP-approved motor vehicle inspection and maintenance (I/M) programs applicable to all counties in Delaware. <HD SOURCE="HD1">I. Background</HD> This section provides background for EPA's proposed actions on Delaware's three March 2023 I/M program-related SIP revisions. To provide context, herein we also provide background on the ozone national ambient air quality standard (NAAQS, or “standard”) and on Delaware area designations under the ozone NAAQS, which are the pretext for the Federal mandate for CAA I/M program requirements. Finally, we discuss herein EPA requirements for I/M programs for affected ozone nonattainment areas. <HD SOURCE="HD2">A. Clean Air Act Requirements for I/M Programs</HD> As a control measure to reduce air pollutant emissions from in-use motor vehicles, the CAA requires states with areas designated as moderate, serious, severe, or extreme ozone nonattainment areas, or those lying within an ozone transport region (OTR) (and having a population exceeding designated population thresholds), to establish a motor vehicle I/M program, to inspect motor vehicles' emissions and, if necessary, to require maintenance or repairs to reduce in-use emissions from vehicles that fail such testing. <SU>1</SU> <FTREF/> This emissions testing ensures that vehicles are well-maintained and operate as designed and that they do not exceed established vehicle pollutant limits. <FTNT> <SU>1</SU>   <E T="03">See</E> CAA sections 182(b)(4), (c)(3). </FTNT> Under the CAA, a “basic” I/M program is required for any area classified as a moderate ozone nonattainment area and having a 1990 Census-defined urbanized area with a population exceeding 200,000 persons. <SU>2</SU> <FTREF/> A more stringent, “enhanced” I/M program is required in the Census-defined urbanized area of any ozone nonattainment area classified as serious or worse, where the 1980 Census-defined urbanized area population exceeds 200,000. <SU>3</SU> <FTREF/> Additionally, in order to prevent transport of air pollution, states or areas within a CAA-defined OTR shall implement “enhanced” I/M within any metropolitan statistical area (MSA) where the 1990 population exceeds 100,000 persons—regardless of the area's nonattainment designation or classification. <SU>4</SU> <FTREF/> <FTNT> <SU>2</SU>   <E T="03">See</E> CAA 182(b)(4) and 40 CFR 51.350(a)(4) and (6). </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>3</SU>   <E T="03">See</E> CAA 182(c)(3) and 40 CFR 51.350(a)(2) and (7). </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>4</SU>   <E T="03">See</E> CAA 184(b)(1) and 40 CFR 51.350(a)(1). </FTNT> <HD SOURCE="HD2">B. Background on the History of the Ozone NAAQS and Resulting Delaware Area Ozone Nonattainment Designations and I/M Program Requirements</HD> In 1970, Congress enacted the CAA and authorized the EPA to establish NAAQS for criteria pollutants shown to threaten human health, welfare, and the environment—including ozone. In January 1983, Delaware implemented its first I/M program under Title 7 Natural Resources & Environmental Control of the Delaware Administrative Code, Regulation 26 (7 DE Admin. Code 26) applicable to New Castle County, as a control measure in its SIP. Delaware later recodified this regulatory chapter to Regulation 1126. <SU>5</SU> <FTREF/> <FTNT> <SU>5</SU>  Delaware's Regulation 1126 applies to the Sussex County SIP-str ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 69k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━