Outer Continental Shelf Air Regulations Update To Include New Jersey State Requirements

<RULE> ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY <CFR>40 CFR Part 55</CFR> <DEPDOC>[EPA-R02-OAR-2024-0277; FRL 12035-02-R2]</DEPDOC> <SUBJECT>Outer Continental Shelf Air Regulations Update To Include New Jersey State Requirements</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Environmental Protection Agency. <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Final rule. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is finalizing an update of a portion of the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) air regulations proposed in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> on July 16, 2024. Requirements applying to OCS sources located within 25 miles of States' seaward boundaries must be updated periodically to remain consistent with the requirements of the corresponding onshore area (COA), as mandated by the Clean Air Act (CAA). The portion of the OCS air regulations that is being updated here pertains to the requirements for OCS sources for which the State of New Jersey is the COA. The intended effect of approving the OCS requirements for the State of New Jersey is to regulate emissions from OCS sources in accordance with the requirements onshore. The requirements discussed below are proposed to be incorporated by reference into the Code of Federal Regulations and listed in the appendix to the OCS air regulations. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> This final rule is effective on November 29, 2024. The incorporation by reference of a certain publication listed in this rule is approved by the Director of the Federal Register as of November 29, 2024. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> EPA has established a docket for this action under Docket ID Number EPA-R02-OAR-2024-0277. All documents in the docket are available at <E T="03">www.regulations.gov.</E> <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Viorica Petriman, Air Programs Branch, Permitting Section, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Region 2, 290 Broadway, New York, New York 10007, (212) 637-4021, <E T="03">petriman.viorica@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 is the background for this action?</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">II. What comments were received in response to EPA's proposed action?</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">III. What action is EPA taking?</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">IV. Incorporation by Reference</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">V. Statutory and Executive Order Reviews</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">VI. Judicial Review</FP> </EXTRACT> <HD SOURCE="HD1">I. What is the background for this action?</HD> On July 16, 2024, EPA proposed to incorporate by reference into the OCS air regulations at 40 CFR part 55 (“Part 55”)  <SU>1</SU> <FTREF/> updated requirements pertaining to the State of New Jersey. <E T="03">See</E> 89 FR 57828. The action that EPA is taking today in this rule is to finalize those proposed updates. <FTNT> <SU>1</SU>  For more information and background on the OCS regulations generally, the reader may refer to the Proposed Rulemaking, December 5, 1991 (56 FR 63774), and the final rule promulgated September 4, 1992 (57 FR 40792). </FTNT> Section 328(a) of the CAA requires that for such OCS sources located within 25 miles of a State's seaward boundary, the requirements shall be the same as would be applicable if the sources were located in the corresponding onshore area (COA). Because the OCS requirements are based on onshore requirements, and onshore requirements may change, CAA section 328(a)(1) requires that EPA update the OCS requirements as necessary to maintain consistency with onshore requirements. To comply with this statutory mandate, EPA must incorporate by reference into part 55 all relevant State rules in effect for onshore sources, so they can be applied to OCS sources located offshore. This limits EPA's flexibility in deciding which requirements will be incorporated into 40 CFR part 55 and prevents EPA from making substantive changes to the requirements it incorporates. As a result, EPA may be incorporating rules into 40 CFR part 55 that do not conform to all of EPA's State implementation plan (SIP) guidance or certain requirements of the CAA. Inclusion in the OCS rule does not imply that a rule meets the requirements of the CAA for SIP approval, nor does it imply that the rule will be approved by EPA for inclusion in the SIP. 40 CFR 55.12 specifies certain times at which part 55's incorporation by reference of a State's rules must be updated. One time such a “consistency update” must occur is when any OCS source applicant submits a Notice of Intent (NOI) under 40 CFR 55.4 for a new or a modified OCS source. 40 CFR 55.4(a) requires that any OCS source applicant must submit to EPA an NOI before performing any physical change or change in method of operation that results in an increase in emissions if the OCS source is located within 25 miles of a State's seaward boundaries. EPA must conduct any necessary consistency update when it receives an NOI, and prior to receiving any application for a preconstruction permit from the OCS source applicant. 40 CFR 55.6(b)(2) and 55.12(f). On May 10, 2024, EPA received a NOI from Atlantic Shores Offshore Wind Project 3, LLC to submit an OCS permit application for the construction of a new OCS source (a wind energy project) about 7.3 nautical miles offshore New Jersey. EPA reviewed the New Jersey State Department of Environmental Protection (“NJDEP”) air rules currently in effect, to ensure that they are rationally related to the attainment or maintenance of Federal and State ambient air quality standards (AAQS) or part C of title I of the CAA, that they are not designed expressly to prevent exploration and development of the OCS, and that they are applicable to OCS sources. <E T="03">See</E> 40 CFR 55.1. EPA has also evaluated the rules to ensure they are not arbitrary and capricious. <E T="03">See</E> 40 CFR 55.12(e). EPA has excluded New Jersey's administrative or procedural rules, <SU>2</SU> <FTREF/> and requirements that regulate toxics which are not related to the attainment and maintenance of Federal and State AAQS. <FTNT> <SU>2</SU>  Each COA which has been delegated the authority to implement and enforce part 55 will use its administrative and procedural rules as onshore. However, in those instances where EPA has not delegated authority to implement and enforce part 55, as is the case in New Jersey, EPA will use its own administrative and procedural requirements to implement the substantive requirements. <E T="03">See</E> 40 CFR 55.14(c)(4). </FTNT> <HD SOURCE="HD1">II. What comments were received in response to EPA's proposed action?</HD> EPA's proposed action provided a 30-day public comment period, which closed on August 15, 2024. During this period, we received one comment  <SU>3</SU> <FTREF/> that supports and acknowledges the importance of EPA's proposed action to update a portion of part 55 that pertains to the requirements for OCS sources for which the State of New Jersey is the COA, so that those requirements could then be applied to the respective OCS sources. <FTNT> <SU>3</SU>  The comment received reads as follows: “This is in regard to Docket number: EPA_FR DOC_0001, regarding the outer continental shelf air regulations update, to include New Jersey State requirements. A part of the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) Air Regulations needs to be updated, in accordance to the proposal made by the Environment Protection Agency (EPA). The Clean Air Act (CAA) mandates that requirements for OCS sources located within 25 miles of a State's seaward boundary be updated on a regular basis to ensure compliance with the standards of the corresponding onshore region (COA). Emissions from OCS sources will be regulated in line with onshore regulations as a result of the State of New Jersey's OCS requirements being approved. Air pollution has been an increasing problem in recent times. The atmosphere has been massively impacted by air pollution, leading to changes in the climate. This proposed rule would allow more control over air pollution from OCS sources, maintaining Federal and State ambient air quality standards (AAQS). As we look to find solutions for air pollution in our environment, we need to work with OCS to make sure their regulations are up to standards with the Federal program.” </FTNT> <HD SOURCE="HD1">III. What action is EPA taking?</HD> EPA is taking final action to incorporate by reference relevant New Jersey air pollution control rules that are currently in effect into 40 CFR 55.14 and to update the “New Jersey” section of appendix A to 40 CFR part 55, which lists those rules. EPA is approving this action under section 328(a) of the CAA, 42 U.S.C. 7627(a). Section 328(a) of the CAA requires that EPA establish requirements to control air pollution from OCS sources located within 25 miles of a States' seaward boundaries that are the same as onshore requirements. To comply with this statutory mandate, EPA must incorporate applicable onshore rules into 40 CFR part 55 as they exist onshore. <HD SOURCE="HD1">IV. Incorporation by Reference</HD> In this rule, EPA is finalizing regulatory text that includes incorporation by reference as described in sections I and II of this preamble. In accordance with the requirements of 1 CFR 51.5, EPA is finalizing the incorporation by reference of “State of New Jersey Requirements Applicable to OCS Sources”, which provides the New Jersey air rules in effect as of June 6, 2024, that would apply to OCS sources. EPA has made, and will continue to make, this material available through <E T="03">www.regulations.gov</E> and at EPA Region 2 Office (please contact the person identified in the <E T="02">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT</E> section of this preamble for more information). <HD SOU ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 39k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━