Revisions to the Federal Implementation Plan for the Billings/Laurel, Montana, Sulfur Dioxide Area

ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY <CFR>40 CFR Part 52</CFR> <DEPDOC>[EPA-R08-OAR-2023-0587; FRL-11571-01-R8]</DEPDOC> <SUBJECT>Revisions to the Federal Implementation Plan for the Billings/Laurel, Montana, Sulfur Dioxide Area</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 revise a Federal Implementation Plan (FIP) applicable to sulfur dioxide (SO <E T="52">2</E> ) emissions from several sources located in Billings and Laurel, Montana. Specifically, the EPA is proposing to revise a portion of the FIP promulgated by the EPA in 2008 (2008 Billings/Laurel SO <E T="52">2</E> FIP) by removing a provision which contained an affirmative defense for exceedances of flare emission limits during malfunctions, startups, and shutdowns. The EPA is proposing this action pursuant to the Clean Air Act (CAA). </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> Written comments must be received on or before December 16, 2024. <E T="03">Public hearing:</E> If anyone contacts us requesting a public hearing on or before October 30, 2024, we will hold a hearing. Additional information about the hearing, if requested, will be published in a subsequent <E T="04">Federal Register</E> document. Contact Adam Clark at <E T="03">clark.adam@epa.gov,</E> to request a hearing or to determine if a hearing will be held. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> Submit your comments, identified by Docket ID No. EPA-R08-OAR-2023-0587, to the Federal Rulemaking Portal: <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, 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://www2.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> Adam Clark, Air and Radiation Division, EPA, Region 8, Mail code 8ARD-IO, 1595 Wynkoop Street, Denver, Colorado 80202-1129, telephone number: (303) 312-7104, email address: <E T="03">clark.adam@epa.gov.</E> </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> Throughout this document wherever “we,” “us,” or “our” is used, we mean the EPA. <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</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2"> A. Billings/Laurel SO <E T="52">2</E> Area History </FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2"> B. Billings/Laurel SO <E T="52">2</E> FIP </FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">C. Affirmative Defense Provision Policy History</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">III. The EPA's Proposed Action</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">IV. Environmental Justice Considerations</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">V. Statutory and Executive Order Reviews</FP> </EXTRACT> <HD SOURCE="HD1">I. What action is the EPA proposing?</HD> The EPA is proposing to revise the portion of the 2008 Billings/Laurel SO <E T="52">2</E> FIP found at 40 CFR 52.1392(i), titled “Affirmative defense provisions for exceedances of flare emission limits during malfunctions, startups, and shutdowns.” This includes proposed withdrawal of all of the subsections under 40 CFR 52.1392(i), including § 52.1392(i)(1) and subsections therein, and § 52.1392(i)(2) and (3). The rationale for this proposed action is described in the following sections. <HD SOURCE="HD1">II. Background</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD2"> A. Billings/Laurel SO <E T="54">2</E> Area History </HD> On March 3, 1978 (43 FR 8962), the Laurel, Montana area was designated as nonattainment for the 1971 primary SO <E T="52">2</E> national ambient air quality standards (NAAQS). <E T="03">See</E> 40 CFR 81.327. The nonattainment area consists of an area with a two-kilometer radius around the CHS Laurel Refinery. This designation was based on monitored and modeled violations of the NAAQS. The EPA reaffirmed this nonattainment designation on September 11, 1978 (43 FR 40412). The 1990 CAA Amendments, enacted November 15, 1990, again reaffirmed the nonattainment designation of Laurel with respect to the 1971 primary SO <E T="52">2</E> NAAQS. Since the Laurel nonattainment area had a fully approved CAA title I part D plan, the State was not required to submit a revised plan for the area under the 1990 Amendments ( <E T="03">see</E> sections 191 and 192 of the CAA). On March 3, 1978 (43 FR 8962), those areas in the State that were meeting the 1971 SO <E T="52">2</E> NAAQS were designated as “Better Than National Standards.” The Billings area was in the portion of the State that was designated as “Better Than National Standards.” The CAA requires States to submit to the EPA a plan, termed a State Implementation Plan (SIP), to assure that the NAAQS are attained and maintained. Air quality modeling completed in 1991 and 1993 for the Billings/Laurel area predicted that the SO <E T="52">2</E> NAAQS were not being attained, including outside of the existing nonattainment area and in Billings. <SU>1</SU> <FTREF/> As a result, the EPA (pursuant to sections 110(a)(2)(H) and 110(k)(5) of the CAA) sent a letter to the Governor of Montana, dated March 4, 1993, <SU>2</SU> <FTREF/> finding the SIP was substantially inadequate to attain or maintain the NAAQS (known as a “SIP Call”) and requested the State of Montana revise its previously approved SIP for the Billings/Laurel area. In the request letter, we declared that the SIP Call would become final agency action when we made a final determination regarding the State of Montana's response to the SIP Call. In response, the State submitted revisions to the SIP on September 6, 1995, August 27, 1996, April 2, 1997, July 29, 1998, and May 4, 2000. We made a final determination regarding the SIP Call when we partially and limitedly approved and partially and limitedly disapproved the Billings/Laurel SO <E T="52">2</E> SIP revisions submitted by the State in response to the request letter (67 FR 22168, 22173, May 2, 2002). On May 22, 2003 (68 FR 27908), <SU>3</SU> <FTREF/> we partially approved and partially disapproved provisions of the Billings/Laurel SO <E T="52">2</E> SIP. Montana Sulfur and Chemical Company filed a petition for review challenging the EPA's 2002 partial SIP disapproval. That petition was held in abeyance pending the EPA's promulgation of a FIP to remedy the disapproved portions of the Billings/Laurel SO <E T="52">2</E> SIP. <FTNT> <SU>1</SU>  As stated in the proposed FIP, “Laurel is located within the Yellowstone Valley approximately 15 miles southwest of Billings. . . . Although Laurel and Billings are 15 miles apart, the industries in Billings have some impact on the air quality in Laurel and the industry in Laurel has some impact on the air quality in Billings.” 79 FR 39260-39261, July 12, 2006. </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>2</SU>  EPA published this letter in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> on August 4, 1993 (58 FR 41430). </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>3</SU>   <E T="03">See</E> also June 2, 2003, correction document (68 FR 32799). </FTNT> <HD SOURCE="HD2"> B. Billings/Laurel SO <E T="54">2</E> FIP </HD> On April 21, 2008, the EPA promulgated a FIP applicable to several sources located in Billings and Laurel, Montana, hereon referred to as the “2008 Billings/Laurel SO <E T="52">2</E> FIP” (73 FR 21418). The EPA promulgated the 2008 Billings/Laurel SO <E T="52">2</E> FIP because of our previous partial and limited disapprovals of the Billings/Laurel SO <E T="52">2</E> SIP. The intended effect of this action was to assure attainment of the 1971 SO <E T="52">2</E> NAAQS in the Billings/Laurel, Montana area. The 2008 Billings/Laurel SO <E T="52">2</E> FIP did not replace the SIP entirely, but instead replaced elements of, or filled gaps in, the disapproved portion of the SIP. Montana Sulfur and Chemical Company filed a petition for review challenging the EPA's 2008 FIP, at which point the previous litigation challenging the 2002 SIP disapproval was reactivated. The court ultimately issued a single ruling affirming the EPA's action on the SIP Call, 2002 SIP disapproval, and FIP. <SU>4</SU> <FTREF/> <FTNT> <SU>4</SU>   <E T="03">See Montana Sulphur and Ch ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 38k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━