Finding of Failure To Submit State Implementation Plan Submissions for the 2008 and 2015 Ozone National Ambient Air Quality Standards; California; San Diego County Area

<RULE> ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY <CFR>40 CFR Part 52</CFR> <DEPDOC>[EPA-R09-OAR-2024-0369; FRL-12352-01-R9]</DEPDOC> <SUBJECT>Finding of Failure To Submit State Implementation Plan Submissions for the 2008 and 2015 Ozone National Ambient Air Quality Standards; California; San Diego County Area</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Final action. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is taking final action to find that California has failed to submit State Implementation Plan (SIP) elements required under the Clean Air Act (CAA or the “Act”) for the 2008 and 2015 8-hour ozone national ambient air quality standards (NAAQS) in the San Diego County nonattainment area. California was required to submit a SIP submission demonstrating that reasonably available control technology (RACT) requirements are implemented at the “Serious” nonattainment area classification for the 2008 and 2015 ozone NAAQS. The State submitted the required RACT demonstrations on December 28, 2020, but subsequently withdrew portions of its submission on August 23, 2024. If the EPA has not affirmatively found that the State has submitted a complete SIP for the withdrawn RACT element requirements within 18 months of this finding, the offset sanction will apply in the area. If within six additional months the EPA has still not affirmatively determined that the State has submitted a complete SIP for the withdrawn RACT element requirements, the highway funding sanction will apply in the area. No later than two years after the EPA makes this finding, if the State has not submitted and the EPA has not approved each of the required RACT elements, the EPA must promulgate a federal implementation plan (FIP) to address the remaining requirements. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> This action is effective January 13, 2025. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> The EPA has established a docket for this action under Docket ID No. EPA-R09-OAR-2024-0369. All documents in the docket are listed on the <E T="03">https://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">https://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. 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> Eugene Chen, EPA Region IX, 75 Hawthorne St., San Francisco, CA 94105. By phone: (415) 947-4304 or by email at <E T="03">chen.eugene@epa.gov.</E> </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> Section 553 of the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), U.S.C. 553(b)(B), provides that an agency may issue a rule without providing notice and an opportunity for public comment when that agency finds for good cause that notice and public procedure are impracticable, unnecessary, or contrary to public interest. The EPA has determined that there is a good cause for issuing this finding without prior proposal and opportunity for comment because there is little or no judgment involved for the EPA to make a finding of failure to submit SIPs or elements of SIPs required by the CAA, where states have not submitted a required SIP revision, made incomplete submissions, or, as in this case, withdrawn an existing submission. In such circumstances, the EPA finds that notice and public procedures are unnecessary and that this constitutes good cause under 5 U.S.C 553(b)(B). 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. Consequences of Findings of Failure To Submit</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">III. Final Action</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">IV. Statutory and Executive Order Reviews</FP> </EXTRACT> <HD SOURCE="HD1">I. Background</HD> Emissions of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and oxides of nitrogen (NO <E T="52">X</E> ) contribute to the production of ground-level ozone, smog, and particulate matter (PM), which harm human health and the environment. Section 110(a) of the CAA requires states to submit regulations that control VOC and NO <E T="52">X</E> emissions. Sections 182(b)(2) and (f) require that SIPs for ozone nonattainment areas that are classified as Moderate or above implement RACT for any source covered by a Control Techniques Guidelines (CTG) document and for any major source of VOCs or NO <E T="52">X</E> . Section III.D of the preamble to the EPA's final rule to implement the 2008 ozone NAAQS further discusses RACT requirements. <SU>1</SU> <FTREF/> Section III.D states, in part, that RACT SIPs must contain adopted RACT regulations, certifications that existing provisions meet the RACT requirement (where appropriate), and/or negative declarations that no sources in the nonattainment area are covered by a specific CTG. <SU>2</SU> <FTREF/> It also provides that states must submit appropriate supporting information for their RACT submissions as described in the EPA's implementation rule for the 1997 ozone NAAQS. <SU>3</SU> <FTREF/> <FTNT> <SU>1</SU>  80 FR 12264 (March 6, 2015). Per 83 FR 62998 (December 6, 2018), these provisions were retained without significant revision for purposes of implementing the 2015 ozone NAAQS. </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>2</SU>  Id. at 12278. </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>3</SU>  Id.; 70 FR 71612, 71652 (November 29, 2005). </FTNT> The San Diego County ozone nonattainment area is classified as “Severe” nonattainment for the 2008 and 2015 ozone standards. <SU>4</SU> <FTREF/> On March 27, 2008, the EPA finalized an action to revise the 8-hour ozone NAAQS to 0.075 parts per million (ppm). <SU>5</SU> <FTREF/> San Diego County was originally designated as a “Marginal” nonattainment area and has subsequently been reclassified to a Severe nonattainment area for the 2008 8-hour ozone NAAQS. <SU>6</SU> <FTREF/> On October 26, 2015, the EPA finalized an action to revise the 8-hour ozone NAAQS to 0.070 ppm. <SU>7</SU> <FTREF/> San Diego County was originally designated as a “Moderate” nonattainment area, and has subsequently been reclassified to a Severe nonattainment area for the 2015 8-hour ozone NAAQS. <SU>8</SU> <FTREF/> <FTNT> <SU>4</SU>  40 CFR 81.305. </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>5</SU>  73 FR 16435. </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>6</SU>  77 FR 30088 (May 21, 2012, Marginal), 81 FR 26697 (May 4, 2016, Moderate), 84 FR 44238 (August 23, 2019, Serious), 86 FR 29522 (June 2, 2021, Severe). </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>7</SU>  80 FR 65292. </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>8</SU>  83 FR 28776 (June 4, 2018, Moderate), 86 FR 29522 (June 2, 2021, Severe). SDCAPCD voluntarily requested reclassification from Moderate to Severe nonattainment. The applicable attainment date would be as expeditious as practicable but no later than August 3, 2033 for the 2015 ozone NAAQS. </FTNT> The San Diego County Air Pollution Control District (SDCAPCD or “District”) has jurisdiction over the entirety of San Diego County, and as a result of the area's Severe classification for the 2008 and 2015 ozone standards, SDCAPCD must, at a minimum, adopt RACT-level controls for all sources covered by a CTG document and for all major non-CTG sources of VOCs or NO <E T="52">X</E> within the nonattainment area. Any stationary source that emits or has the potential to emit at least 25 tons per year (tpy) of VOCs or NO <E T="52">X</E> is a major stationary source in a Severe ozone nonattainment area. <SU>9</SU> <FTREF/> <FTNT> <SU>9</SU>  CAA sections 182(d) and (f) and 302(j). </FTNT> On October 14, 2020, the District adopted a SIP revision containing an analysis of its compliance with the CAA section 182 RACT requirements for the 2008 and 2015 8-hour ozone standards (“2020 RACT SIP”). Specifically, the 2020 RACT SIP contained a RACT demonstration for the 2015 8-hour ozone standard, an updated RACT demonstration for the 2008 8-hour ozone standard following the area's reclassification to a Severe ozone nonattainment area, as well as updated information for certain RACT elements for the 2008 8-hour standard at the Moderate classification. The California Air Resources Board (CARB) submitted the District's 2020 RACT SIP to the EPA on December 28, 2020. <SU>10</SU> <FTREF/> The EPA subsequently took final action to approve all elements of the 2020 RACT SIP related to the 2008 ozone standard at the Moderate classification. In addition, while the EPA took final action to approve the negative declarations for certain elements of the 2020 RACT SIP related to the 2015 ozone standard and 2008 ozone standard at the Severe classification, we have not acted upon the majority of the other elements related to the two standards. <SU>11</SU> <FTREF/> <FTNT> <SU>10</SU>  See Docket Item A-01. Letter dated December 28, 2020, from Richard W. Corey, Executive Director, CARB, to John W. Busterud, Regional Administrator, EPA Region IX. </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>11</SU>  87 FR 38665 (June 29, 2022) </FTNT> On August 23, 2024, CARB submitted a letter to the EPA from SDCAPCD that withdrew a majority of the 2020 RACT SIP because it was no longer deemed appropria ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 28k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━