Approval and Promulgation of Implementation Plans; California; California Mobile Source Regulations

ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY <CFR>40 CFR Part 52</CFR> <DEPDOC>[EPA-R09-OAR-2024-0370; FRL-12152-01-R9]</DEPDOC> <SUBJECT>Approval and Promulgation of Implementation Plans; California; California Mobile Source Regulations</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 a revision to the California State Implementation Plan (SIP) consisting of California regulations and related test procedures that were adopted as part of California's Advanced Clean Cars I program and that establish standards and other requirements relating to the control of emissions of greenhouse gases from new passenger cars, light-duty trucks, and medium-duty vehicles. The standards and other requirements relate to 2017 and subsequent model-year passenger cars, light-duty trucks, and medium-duty vehicles. The EPA is proposing to approve the SIP revision because the regulations and related test procedures meet the applicable requirements of the Clean Air Act. If finalized, approval of the regulations and related test procedures as part of the California SIP will make them federally enforceable. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> Comments must be received on or before November 12, 2024. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> Submit your comments, identified by Docket ID No. EPA-R09-OAR-2024-0370 at <E T="03">https://www.regulations.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> . 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, 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">https://www.epa.gov/dockets/commenting-epa-dockets.</E> If you need assistance in a language other than English or if you are a person with a disability who needs a reasonable accommodation at no cost to you, please contact the person identified in the <E T="02">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT</E> section. <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Jeffrey Buss, EPA Region IX, 75 Hawthorne St., San Francisco, CA 94105. By phone: (415) 947-4152 or by email at <E T="03">buss.jeffrey@epa.gov.</E> </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> Throughout this document, “we,” “us” and “our” refer to the EPA. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Table of Contents </HD> <EXTRACT> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">I. Background</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">II. The State's Submission</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">A. What regulations did the State submit?</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">B. Would these regulations be new to the SIP?</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">C. What is the purpose of the submitted regulations?</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">III. EPA's Evaluation and Proposed Action</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">A. How is the EPA evaluating the regulations?</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">B. Do the State regulations meet CAA SIP evaluation criteria?</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">C. Proposed Action and Public Comment.</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">IV. Incorporation by Reference</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">V. Statutory and Executive Order Reviews</FP> </EXTRACT> <HD SOURCE="HD1">I. Background</HD> Under the Clean Air Act (CAA or “Act”), the EPA establishes national ambient air quality standards (NAAQS) to protect public health and welfare. The EPA has established NAAQS for a number of pervasive air pollutants including ozone, carbon monoxide, nitrogen dioxide, sulfur dioxide, lead and particulate matter, which are referred to as “criteria air pollutants.” Under section 110(a)(1) of the CAA, states must submit plans that provide for the implementation, maintenance, and enforcement of the NAAQS within each state. Such plans are referred to as State Implementation Plans (SIPs) and revisions to those plans are referred to as SIP revisions. Section 110(a)(2) of the CAA sets forth the content requirements for SIPs. Among the various requirements, SIPs must include enforceable emission limitations and other control measures, means, or techniques that may be necessary or appropriate to meet the applicable requirements of the CAA. <E T="03">See</E> CAA section 110(a)(2)(A). Emissions sources contributing to ambient air pollution levels can be divided into two basic categories: Stationary emissions sources and mobile emissions sources. With certain exceptions, such as the EPA's authorities under CAA sections 111 and 112, the CAA assigns stationary source regulation to the states through title I of the Act and assigns mobile source regulation to the EPA through title II of the Act. In so doing, the CAA preempts various types of state regulation of mobile sources as set forth in section 209(a) (preemption of state emissions standards for new motor vehicles and engines) and section 209(e) (preemption of state emissions standards for new and non-new nonroad vehicles and engines). <SU>1</SU> <FTREF/> <FTNT> <SU>1</SU>  EPA regulations refer to “nonroad” vehicles and engines whereas California regulations refer to “off-road” vehicles and engines. These terms refer to the same types of vehicles and engines. </FTNT> Under California law, the California Air Resources Board (CARB) is the State agency responsible for adopting and submitting the California SIP and SIP revisions to the EPA for approval. Over the years, CARB has submitted, and the EPA has approved, many county and regional air district rules regulating stationary source emissions as part of the California SIP. <E T="03">See generally</E> 40 CFR 52.220(c). With respect to mobile sources that are specifically preempted under the CAA, CARB must request a waiver (for motor vehicles and engines) or authorization (for nonroad engines and vehicles) in order to enforce standards relating to the control of emissions and accompanying enforcement procedures for these types of mobile sources. <E T="03">See</E> CAA sections 209(b) (new motor vehicles) and 209(e)(2) (most categories of new and non-new nonroad engines and vehicle vehicles). Over the years, CARB has submitted many requests for waiver or authorization of its standards and other requirements relating to the control of emissions from new motor vehicles and engines and new and non-new nonroad vehicles and engines, and the EPA has granted many such requests. <SU>2</SU> <FTREF/> <FTNT> <SU>2</SU>  For example, the EPA has granted waivers for CARB's Advanced Clean Cars I program (this program includes California's Low Emission Vehicle (LEV III) criteria and greenhouse gas pollutant standards for light- and medium-duty vehicles, and a ZEV sales mandate). <E T="03">See</E> 78 FR 2112 (January 9, 2013) (Advanced Clean Cars program); 84 FR 51310 (September 27, 2019) (partial withdrawal of 2013 waiver for Advanced Clean Cars program); 87 FR 14332 (March 14, 2022) (reinstatement of 2013 waiver for Advanced Clean Cars program). </FTNT> Once the EPA grants the request for waiver or authorization, CARB may enforce the corresponding mobile source regulations. In recent years, CARB has submitted as revisions to the California SIP, and the EPA has approved, various CARB mobile source regulations that establish standards and other requirements for the control of emissions from new motor vehicles and engines and new and non-new nonroad vehicles and engines for which the EPA has issued waivers or authorizations. <SU>3</SU> <FTREF/> <FTNT> <SU>3</SU>  81 FR 39424 (June 16, 2016), 82 FR 14446 (March 21, 2017), and 83 FR 23232 (May 18, 2018). The Advanced Clean Cars I program includes LEV III criteria pollutant and greenhouse gas emissions standards for light- and medium-duty vehicles and a Zero-Emission Vehicle (ZEV) sales mandate. The EPA's June 16, 2016 SIP approval included the LEV III criteria pollutant emissions standards, and the ZEV sales mandate, but not the LEV III greenhouse gas emissions standards. We are proposing approval of the LEV III greenhouse gas emissions standards in this document. </FTNT> CARB and the air districts rely on these county, regional, and State stationary and mobile source regulations to meet various CAA requirements and include the corresponding emissions reductions of criteria air pollutants or their precursors in the various regional air quality plans developed to attain and maintain the NAAQS. Precursors for criteria air pollutants include oxides of nitrogen (NO <E T="52">X</E> ) and volatile organic compounds (VOCs) for ozone and particulate matter (PM). The EPA generally allows California to take credit for the corresponding emissions reductions relied upon in the various regional air quality plans because, among other reasons, the regulations are approved as part of the SIP and are thereby federally enforceable as required under CAA section 110(a)(2)(A). One of the SIP revisions that included CARB mobile source regulations for which the EPA has granted waivers or authorizations under CAA section 209 was ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 53k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━