Air Plan Approval; North Carolina; Mecklenburg Emission Control Standards

<RULE> ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY <CFR>40 CFR Part 52</CFR> <DEPDOC>[EPA-R04-OAR-2021-0264; FRL-8980-02-R4]</DEPDOC> <SUBJECT>Air Plan Approval; North Carolina; Mecklenburg Emission Control Standards</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 a State Implementation Plan (SIP) revision to the Mecklenburg County portion of the North Carolina SIP, hereinafter referred to as the Mecklenburg Local Implementation Plan (LIP). The revision was submitted by the State of North Carolina, through the North Carolina Division of Air Quality (NCDAQ), on behalf of Mecklenburg County Air Quality (MCAQ) via a letter dated April 24, 2020. The revision includes updates to various emission control standards contained in the Mecklenburg County Air Pollution Control Ordinance (MCAPCO) incorporated into the LIP. EPA is approving these changes pursuant to the Clean Air Act (CAA or Act). </SUM> <DATES> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> This rule is effective October 30, 2024. </DATES> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> EPA has established a docket for this action under Docket Identification No. EPA-R04-OAR-2021-0264. All documents in the docket are listed on the <E T="03">regulations.gov</E> website. Although listed in the index, some information may not be publicly available, i.e., Confidential Business Information 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 either electronically through <E T="03">www.regulations.gov</E> or in hard copy at the Air Regulatory Management Section, Air Planning and Implementation Branch, Air and Radiation Division, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Region 4, 61 Forsyth Street SW, Atlanta, Georgia 30303-8960. EPA requests that if at all possible, you contact the person listed in the <E T="02">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT</E> section to schedule your inspection. The Regional Office's official hours of business are Monday through Friday 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., excluding Federal holidays. <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Josue Ortiz Borrero, Air Regulatory Management Section, Air Planning and Implementation Branch, Air and Radiation Division, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Region 4, 61 Forsyth Street SW, Atlanta, Georgia 30303-8960. The telephone number is (404) 562-8085. Mr. Ortiz Borrero can also be reached via electronic mail at <E T="03">ortizborrero.josue@epa.gov.</E> </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">I. Background</HD> The original Mecklenburg County LIP was submitted to EPA on June 14, 1990, and EPA approved the plan on May 2, 1991. <E T="03">See</E> 56 FR 20140. Mecklenburg County prepared three submittals to modify the LIP for, among other things, general consistency with the North Carolina SIP. <SU>1</SU> <FTREF/> The three submittals were submitted as follows: NCDAQ transmitted the October 25, 2017, submittal to EPA but later withdrew it from review through a letter dated February 15, 2019. On April 24, 2020, NCDAQ resubmitted the October 25, 2017, update to EPA and also submitted the January 21, 2016, and January 14, 2019, updates. Due to an inconsistency with public notice at the local level, these submittals were withdrawn from EPA through a letter dated February 15, 2019. Mecklenburg County corrected this error, and NCDAQ submitted the updates to EPA in a submittal dated April 24, 2020. <SU>2</SU> <FTREF/> <FTNT> <SU>1</SU>  The Mecklenburg County, North Carolina revision that is dated April 24, 2020, and received by EPA on June 19, 2020, is comprised of three previous submittals—one dated January 21, 2016; one dated October 25, 2017; and one dated January 14, 2019. </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>2</SU>  EPA notes that the April 24, 2020, submission was received by EPA on June 19, 2020. For clarity, throughout this document EPA will refer to the June 19, 2020, submission by its cover letter date of April 24, 2020. </FTNT> The April 24, 2020, submittal includes changes and updates to the following rules to align them more closely with their analogous SIP-approved North Carolina regulations: MCAPCO Rules 2.0502, <E T="03">Purpose</E> ; 2.0507, <E T="03">Particulates from Chemical Fertilizer Manufacturing Plants</E> ; 2.0508, <E T="03">Particulates from Pulp and Paper Mills</E> ; 2.0513, <E T="03">Particulates from Portland Cement Plants</E> ; 2.0514, <E T="03">Particulates from Ferrous Jobbing Foundries</E> ; 2.0515, <E T="03">Particulates from Miscellaneous Industrial Processes</E> ; and 2.0533, <E T="03">Stack Height.</E> EPA is approving the incorporation of these rules into the Mecklenburg LIP. <SU>3</SU> <FTREF/> <FTNT> <SU>3</SU>  EPA has previously taken action on portions of the April 24, 2020, submittal. The April 24, 2020, submittal contains changes to other Mecklenburg LIP-approved rules that are not addressed in this document. EPA will be acting on those rules in separate actions. </FTNT> In a notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM) published on July 25, 2024 (89 FR 60339), EPA proposed to approve the April 24, 2020, SIP revision. The details of North Carolina's submittal and the rationale for EPA's action are explained further in the July 25, 2024, NPRM. Comments on the NPRM were due on or before August 26, 2024. EPA received three sets of comments on the July 25, 2024, NPRM. One set of comments is not relevant to this action and two sets of comments are substantively identical. The two substantively identical comment sets are addressed below. All three comment sets are available in the docket for this action. <HD SOURCE="HD1">II. Response to Comments</HD> EPA received two substantively identical sets of comments on the July 25, 2024, NPRM from Clean Future (Commenter). EPA has summarized and responded to the comments below. <E T="03">Comments:</E> The Commenter generally supports EPA's action and states that this SIP revision is “an important step toward improving air quality management in the region.” The Commenter provides generalized suggestions regarding the LIP and implementation of the LIP, including a request for a requirement that “actively gets updates and statements of facilities,” a request for regular assessments to ensure the regulations are being properly implemented, and a recommendation that EPA establish a mechanism for periodic review and adjustment of the regulations to incorporate new developments and address any unforeseen challenges. The Commenter also notes that there should be monitoring and enforcement and “effective mechanisms and reporting,” notes the importance of reviewing how these updated standards compare with current federal and State guidelines and notes the importance of assessing the effectiveness of these regulations to reduce emissions. <E T="03">Response:</E> EPA appreciates the Commenter's support for this action. Due to the general nature of the Commenter's requests and suggestions, EPA is only able to provide general responses. The scope of EPA's review in evaluating SIP revisions is limited to the process in CAA section 110 and EPA's implementing regulations codified at 40 CFR part 51. Under CAA section 110, States have broad discretion to choose the mix of emission limitations and other control measures, means, or techniques that they will implement (or update) through a SIP to provide for attainment and maintenance of national ambient air quality standards (NAAQS). EPA's role, with respect to a SIP revision, is focused on reviewing the submission to determine whether it meets the minimum criteria of the CAA. These minimum criteria include CAA section 110(l), which prohibits EPA from approving a SIP revision that would interfere with any applicable requirement concerning attainment and reasonable further progress (as defined in section 171), or any other applicable requirement of the Act. Where a SIP revision meets the minimum CAA criteria, EPA must approve the submission. When approving a SIP revision, the Agency is not establishing its own requirements for the State to implement. If, at any time, EPA finds that a SIP is inadequate to attain or maintain the relevant NAAQS or otherwise does not comply with the CAA, EPA has the authority under CAA section 110(k)(5) to require the State to revise its SIP to correct such inadequacies. In general, the Act addresses monitoring, reporting, and enforcement in SIPs (as well as LIPs). <E T="03">See, e.g.,</E> CAA section 110(a)(2)(A) (requiring “enforceable emission limitations and other control measures, means, or techniques”); CAA section 110(a)(2)(B)(i) (requiring the “establishment and operation of devices . . . to . . . monitor, compile, and analyze data on ambient air quality”); CAA section 110(a)(2)(C) (requiring “a program to provide for the enforcement” of such measures); CAA section 110(a)(2)(F) (addressing reporting). The LIP revisions at issue here are narrow and only include updates to emission standards in MCAPCO 2.0502, <E T="03">Purpose</E> ; 2.0507, <E T="03">Particulates from Chemical Fertilizer Manufacturing Plants</E> ; 2.0508, <E T="03">Particulates from Pulp and Paper Mills</E> ; 2.0513, <E T="03">Particulates from Portland Cement Plants</E> ; 2.0514, <E T="03">Particulates from Ferrous Jobbing Foundries</E> ; 2.0515, <E T="03">Particulates from Miscellaneous Industrial Processes</E> ; and 2.0533, <E T="03">Stack Height.</E> The revision does not alter any existing LIP-approved monitoring, enforcement, or reporting requirements, remove any such requ ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 23k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━