Air Plan Partial Approval and Partial Disapproval; Utah; Regional Haze State Implementation Plan for the Second Implementation Period; Air Plan Disapproval; Utah; Interstate Transport of Air Pollution for the 2015 8-Hour Ozone National Ambient Air Quality Standards

ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY <CFR>40 CFR Part 52</CFR> <DEPDOC>[EPA-R08-OAR-2024-0389; FRL-12173-01-R8]</DEPDOC> <SUBJECT>Air Plan Partial Approval and Partial Disapproval; Utah; Regional Haze State Implementation Plan for the Second Implementation Period; Air Plan Disapproval; Utah; Interstate Transport of Air Pollution for the 2015 8-Hour Ozone National Ambient Air Quality Standards</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Proposed rule. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> In this notice of proposed rulemaking, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is proposing to act on two Utah State implementation plan (SIP) submissions related to visibility protection. First, we are proposing to partially approve and partially disapprove a regional haze SIP submission for the second implementation period that Utah submitted on August 2, 2022. The regional haze SIP submission addresses the requirement that states revise their long-term strategies every implementation period to make reasonable progress towards the national goal of preventing any future, and remedying any existing, anthropogenic impairment of visibility, including regional haze, in mandatory Class I Federal areas. Utah's regional haze SIP submission also addresses other applicable requirements for the second implementation period of the regional haze program. The EPA is taking this action on Utah's regional haze SIP submission pursuant to the Clean Air Act (CAA or the Act). Second, the EPA is proposing to disapprove a portion of Utah's infrastructure SIP submission submitted on January 9, 2020, to address the applicable requirements of CAA section 110(a)(2) for the 2015 Ozone National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS). Our proposed disapproval is based on CAA section 110(a)(2)(D)(i)(II)'s requirement that a state's SIP contain adequate provisions prohibiting emissions that will interfere with measures to protect visibility required to be included in any other state's SIP (known as interstate transport “prong 4”). The EPA is taking this action on Utah's infrastructure SIP submission pursuant to section 110 of the CAA. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> Written comments must be received on or before September 18, 2024. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> Submit your comments, identified by Docket ID No. EPA-R08-OAR-2024-0389 at <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">https://www.regulations.gov.</E> The 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. 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 public comment policy of the EPA, information about CBI or multimedia submissions, and general guidance on making effective comments, please visit <E T="03">https://www.epa.gov/dockets/commenting-epa-dockets.</E> <E T="03">Docket:</E> All documents in the docket are listed in the <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov</E> index. Although listed in the index, some information is not publicly available, <E T="03">e.g.,</E> CBI or other information whose disclosure is restricted by statute. Certain other material, such as copyrighted material, will be publicly available only in hard copy. Publicly available docket materials are available electronically in <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov.</E> Please email or call the person listed in the <E T="02">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT</E> section if you need to make alternative arrangements for access to the docket. <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Clayton Bean, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Region 8, Air and Radiation Division; 1595 Wynkoop Street, Denver, Colorado 80202-1129; telephone: (303) 312-6143; email address: <E T="03">bean.clayton@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 action is the EPA proposing?</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">II. Background and Requirements for Regional Haze Plans</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">A. Regional Haze Background</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">B. Roles of Agencies in Addressing Regional Haze</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">C. Background on Utah's First Implementation Period SIP</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">D. Utah's Second Implementation Period SIP Submission</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">III. Requirements for Regional Haze Plans for the Second Implementation Period</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">A. Identification of Class I Areas</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">B. Calculations of Baseline, Current, and Natural Visibility Conditions; Progress to Date; and the Uniform Rate of Progress</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">C. Long-Term Strategy for Regional Haze</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">D. Reasonable Progress Goals</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">E. Monitoring Strategy and Other State Implementation Plan Requirements</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">F. Requirements for Periodic Reports Describing Progress Towards the Reasonable Progress Goals</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">G. Requirements for State and Federal Land Manager Coordination</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">IV. The EPA's Evaluation of Utah's Regional Haze Submission for the Second Implementation Period</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">A. Identification of Class I Areas</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">B. Calculations of Baseline, Current, and Natural Visibility Conditions; Progress to Date; and the Uniform Rate of Progress</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">C. Long-Term Strategy</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">D. Reasonable Progress Goals</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">E. Reasonably Attributable Visibility Impairment</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">F. Monitoring Strategy and Other State Implementation Plan Requirements</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">G. Requirements for Periodic Reports Describing Progress Towards the Reasonable Progress Goals</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">H. Requirements for State and Federal Land Manager Coordination</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">V. Interstate Transport Prong 4 (Visibility) for the 2015 Ozone NAAQS Infrastructure SIP</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">A. Infrastructure SIPs</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">B. Prong 4 Requirements</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">C. Utah's Prong 4 Elements</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">D. The EPA's Evaluation of Utah's Submittal</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">VI. Proposed Action</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">VII. Environmental Justice</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">VIII. Statutory and Executive Order Reviews</FP> </EXTRACT> <HD SOURCE="HD1">I. What action is the EPA proposing?</HD> In this notice of proposed rulemaking, the EPA is proposing to take action on two Utah SIP submissions related to visibility protection. First, as detailed in section IV., the EPA's Evaluation of Utah's Regional Haze Submission for the Second Implementation Period, we are proposing to partially approve and partially disapprove Utah's regional haze second implementation period SIP submission. Second, as a consequence of our proposed partial disapproval of the regional haze SIP submission and as detailed in section V. of this document, we are proposing to disapprove a portion of Utah's infrastructure SIP for the 2015 ozone NAAQS. On August 2, 2022, the Utah Department of Environmental Quality's Division of Air Quality (DAQ) submitted a SIP submission to the EPA to address regional haze for the second implementation period. Utah made this SIP submission to satisfy the requirements of the CAA's regional haze program pursuant to CAA sections 169A and 169B and 40 CFR 51.308(f). The EPA is proposing to approve the portions of Utah's Regional Haze SIP submission relating to 40 CFR 51.308(f)(1): calculations of baseline, current, and natural visibility conditions, progress to date, and the uniform rate of progress; (f)(4): reasonably attributable visibility impairment; (f)(5) and (g): progress report requirements; and (f)(6): monitoring strategy and other implementation plan requirements. The EPA is proposing disapproval for the portions of Utah's regional haze SIP submission relating to 40 CFR 51.308(f)(2): long-term strategy; (f)(3): reasonable progress goals; and (i): FLM consultation. Consistent with section 110(k)(3) of the CAA, the EPA may partially approve portions of a SIP submittal if those elements meet all applicable requirements and may disapprove the remainder so long as the elements are fully separable. Additionally, the EPA proposes to disapprove a portion of Utah's January 9, 2020 infrastructure SIP submission for the 2015 ozone NAAQS that addresses interstate transport of visibility impairing pollutants. Utah submitted this SIP submission to address the applicable requirements of CAA section 110(a)(2) for the 2015 ozone NAAQS. We propose to disapprove the portion of the infrastructure SIP submission addressing interstate transport of visibility impairing pollutants for not meeting the requirements of CAA section 110(a)(2)(D)(i)(II). <HD SOURCE="HD1">II. Background and Requirements for Regional Haze Plans</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD2">A. Regional Haze Background</HD> In the 1977 CAA amendments, Congress created a program for protecting visibility in the nation's mandatory Class I Federal areas, which include certain national parks and wilderness areas. <SU>1</SU> <FTREF/> CAA section 169A. The CAA establishes as a national goal the “prevention of any futu ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 275k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━