Air Plan Approval; Delaware; Motor Vehicle Inspection and Maintenance Program

<RULE> ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY <CFR>40 CFR Part 52</CFR> <DEPDOC>[EPA-R03-OAR-2024-0016; FRL-12094-02-R3]</DEPDOC> <SUBJECT>Air Plan Approval; Delaware; Motor Vehicle Inspection and Maintenance Program</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 three state implementation plan (SIP) revisions submitted by the State of Delaware through the Delaware Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control (DNREC) on March 13, 2023. The revisions amend Delaware's emission inspection and maintenance (I/M) program statewide, for the purpose of updating the SIP to include several state rule revisions as amendments to the prior approved SIP. The purpose of these updates is to incorporate regulatory changes that are the result of state law changes, as well as to improve the I/M program and to harmonize the programs operated throughout the state. EPA finds that these revisions to the SIP comply with applicable requirements of the CAA and EPA regulations and that these revisions to the SIP will not interfere with attainment or maintenance of any national ambient air quality standards (NAAQS). EPA is approving these revisions to the Delaware SIP in accordance with the requirements of the Clean Air Act (CAA). </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> This final rule is effective December 4, 2024. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> EPA has established a docket for this action under Docket ID Number EPA-R03-OAR-2024-0016. All documents in the docket are listed on the <E T="03">www.regulations.gov</E> website. Although listed in the index, some information is not publicly available, <E T="03">e.g.,</E> confidential business information (CBI) 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 through <E T="03">www.regulations.gov,</E> or please contact the person identified in the <E T="02">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT</E> section for additional availability information. <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Brian Rehn, Planning & Implementation Branch (3AD30), Air & Radiation Division, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Region III, 1600 John F Kennedy Boulevard, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19103. The telephone number is (215) 814-2176. Mr. Rehn can also be reached via electronic mail at <E T="03">rehn.brian@epa.gov.</E> </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">I. Background</HD> On March 13, 2023, DNREC submitted to EPA three revisions to the Delaware SIP pertaining to Delaware's enhanced I/M program applicable to the Delaware portion of the Philadelphia-Wilmington-Atlantic City nonattainment area for the 2015 ozone NAAQS ( <E T="03">i.e.,</E> Kent and New Castle Counties) and the SIP-strengthening (akin to basic) I/M program applicable to Sussex County. On August 15, 2024 (89 FR 66295), EPA published a notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM) proposing to approve these three revisions to the Delaware SIP. In the NPRM, EPA proposed to approve state amendments to the prior SIP-approved versions of 7 DE Admin. Code 31, now recodified at 7 DE Admin Code 1131 (pertaining to the enhanced I/M program in Kent and New Castle Counties) and to 7 DE Code 1126 (pertaining to Sussex County), as well as Delaware's <E T="03">Plan for Implementation (PFI) for 7 DE Admin Code 1126 and 7 DE Admin. Code 1131.</E> The PFI contains additional supporting materials for inclusion into the SIP that is related to I/M program implementation, enforcement, and other non-regulatory program requirements to satisfy Federal I/M requirements set forth at 40 CFR part 51, subpart S not addressed by the revised Regulations 1126 and 1131. These SIP revisions apply to both the federally mandated enhanced I/M program applicable to Kent and New Castle Counties that comprise Delaware's portion of the Philadelphia-Wilmington-Atlantic City, PA-NJ-MD-DE ozone nonattainment area, and also to the Sussex County program, where I/M is not federally required but where Delaware has a prior approved, SIP strengthening I/M program (similar in design to a basic I/M program, as defined by the Clean Air Act and EPA's I/M program rules). The SIP revisions to Delaware's I/M program being approved herein include: a change in program coverage to expand exemptions for new vehicles to seven years (from five years); the addition of vehicle on-board diagnostic (OBD) testing requirements in the Sussex County program; expanded vehicle coverage to include vehicles weighing between 8,501 to 14,000 pounds gross vehicle weight rating (GVWR), for those vehicles model year 2008-and-newer; harmonization of I/M test requirements applicable to older vehicles to include curb idle exhaust and gas cap pressure tests for vehicles 1995-and-older (replacing existing two-speed idle tests on those vehicles previously performed in Kent and New Castle Counties); the phase-in of increased minimum repair cost thresholds for obtaining a repair waiver in Sussex County; and the addition of a statewide prohibition on tampering-related repairs in qualifying for an emissions repair waiver. <HD SOURCE="HD1">II. Summary of Delaware's March 2023 SIP Revisions and EPA's Analysis</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD2">A. Overview of Delaware's March 13, 2023 SIP Revisions</HD> Delaware submitted three SIP revisions on March 13, 2023, serving to update the Delaware SIP to harmonize with amendments made to the state I/M program regulations and plan for implementation. These March 2023 SIP revisions pertain to both of Delaware's I/M programs—the enhanced I/M program applicable to Kent and New Castle Counties and the SIP-strengthening (akin to basic) I/M program in Sussex County. The first of these SIP revisions is an amendment to 7 DE Admin. Code 1131, pertaining to the low enhanced I/M program operated in Kent and New Castle Counties (referred to as the “Wilmington I/M program” or as the “Regulation 1131” I/M program). The second of the March 2023 SIP submittals amends 7 DE Admin. Code 1126 pertaining to the SIP-strengthening I/M program applicable to Sussex County (referred to as the “Sussex County I/M program” or “Regulation 1126” program). DNREC revised Regulations 1126 and 1131 to optimize the I/M programs and to harmonize the requirements of the two programs, as well as to align Delaware's regulations with a change in state law ( <E T="03">i.e.,</E> House Bill 246 of the 2017 Delaware General Assembly legislative session), which altered subject vehicle applicability of the program by changing the exemption for new vehicles from five to seven years. <SU>1</SU> <FTREF/> <FTNT> <SU>1</SU>   <E T="03">See</E> 21 Delaware Code 2143. </FTNT> Delaware's third March 2023 SIP submittal serves to correct an error made by the state in a 2012 state regulatory action, which inadvertently incorporated <E T="03">Delaware's Plan for Implementation (PFI) for 7 DE Admin Code 1126 and 7 DE Admin. Code 1131</E> into Regulation 31. <SU>2</SU> <FTREF/> Delaware never requested that EPA incorporate the 2012 version of Regulation 1131 into the SIP, so that error did not translate to the SIP. However, Delaware's March 2023 SIP revision requests that EPA incorporate the now non-regulatory PFI as additional supporting materials for inclusion into the SIP, for the purpose of meeting Federal I/M requirements at 40 CFR part 51, subpart S not addressed by the revised Regulations 1126 and 1131. <FTNT> <SU>2</SU>  Delaware revised its Regulation 31 on June 12, 2012, but did not request that EPA revise the SIP at the time to incorporate those amended provisions. Among those rule changes was a change in state rule format, changing the Regulation number from 31 to 1131. The March 2023 SIP revision incorporated state rule amendments made in January 2023 that build on those 2012 state rule amendments. EPA is taking final action on the March 2023 SIP revision, inclusive of prior state rule amendments made since the last update to Chapter 31. </FTNT> In accordance with requirements of 1 CFR 51.5, EPA is incorporating by reference Delaware's revised Title 7, Regulation 1126 entitled “Motor Vehicle Emissions Inspection Program—Sussex County,” as published as a final rule in the Delaware Register on January 1, 2023 (effective January 11, 2023). This revised 7 DE Admin Code Regulation 1126 takes the place of the prior SIP-approved version of Regulation 1126 in its entirety. The effect is to incorporate by reference amended sections of Regulation 1126, including sections 1.0 (including 1.1 through 1.6), 2.0 (including revised definitions  <SU>3</SU> <FTREF/> ), 4.0 (including 4.1 through 4.5), 5.0 (including 5.1 through 5.4), 6.0 (including 6.1 through 6.2), 7.0 (including 7.1 and 7.2), 8.0 (including 8.1 through 8.4), and 9.0 (including 9.1 through 9.3). Section 3.0 of Regulation 1126 and Technical Memorandum 1 and 2 to Regulation 1126 are removed and reserved, as these sections were removed as part of Delaware's January 1, 2023 state rule revisions. <FTNT> <SU>3</SU>  EPA's final action updates definitions under 7 DE Admin Code 1126, section 2.0, adding definitions for the terms: “alternative fuel vehicle,” “ASE L1,” “certified emission repair technician,” “carbon dioxide (CO <E T="52">2</E> ),” “carbon monoxide (CO),” “curb-idle test,” “director,” “dual fuel vehicle,” “exhaust emission test,” “evaporative system integrity,” “farm vehicles,” “flexible fuel vehicle,” “gross vehicle weight,” “high emitting vehicle,” “hybrid electric vehicle,” “hydrocarbon,” “inspection period,” “ ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 33k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━