Findings of Failure To Attain and Reclassification of Areas in Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, and Wisconsin as Serious for the 2015 Ozone National Ambient Air Quality Standards

<RULE> ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY <CFR>40 CFR Part 81</CFR> <DEPDOC>[EPA-R05-OAR-2024-0546; FRL-12410-01-R5]</DEPDOC> <SUBJECT>Findings of Failure To Attain and Reclassification of Areas in Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, and Wisconsin as Serious for the 2015 Ozone National Ambient Air Quality Standards</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Final determination. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is determining that the Allegan County, MI; Berrien County, MI; Chicago, IL-IN-WI; Cleveland, OH; Milwaukee, WI; Muskegon County, MI; Sheboygan County, WI; and Illinois portion of the St. Louis, MO-IL areas failed to attain the 2015 ozone National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) by the applicable attainment date. The effect of failing to attain by the applicable attainment date is that the areas will be reclassified by operation of law to “Serious” nonattainment for the 2015 ozone NAAQS on January 16, 2025, the effective date of this final rule. This action fulfills EPA's obligation under the Clean Air Act (CAA) to determine whether ozone nonattainment areas attained the NAAQS by the attainment date and to publish a document in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> identifying each area that is determined as having failed to attain and identifying the reclassification. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> This final rule is effective on January 16, 2025. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> EPA has established a docket for this action under Docket ID No. EPA-R05-OAR-2024-0546. 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">i.e.,</E> Confidential Business Information (CBI), Proprietary Business Information (PBI), 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 either through <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov</E> or at the Environmental Protection Agency, Region 5, Air and Radiation Division, 77 West Jackson Boulevard, Chicago, Illinois 60604. This facility is open from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., Monday through Friday, excluding Federal holidays. We recommend that you telephone Eric Svingen, Environmental Engineer, at (312) 353-4489 before visiting the Region 5 office. <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Eric Svingen, Air and Radiation Division (AR-18J), Environmental Protection Agency, Region 5, 77 West Jackson Boulevard, Chicago, Illinois 60604, (312) 353-4489, <E T="03">svingen.eric@epa.gov.</E> </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">I. Overview of Action</HD> EPA is required to determine whether areas designated nonattainment for an ozone NAAQS attained the standard by the applicable attainment date, and to take certain steps for areas that failed to attain (see CAA section 181(b)(2)). EPA's determination of attainment for the 2015 ozone NAAQS is based on a nonattainment area's design value (DV) as of the attainment date. <SU>1</SU> <FTREF/> <FTNT> <SU>1</SU>  A DV is a statistic used to compare data collected at an ambient air quality monitoring site to the applicable NAAQS to determine compliance with the standard. The data handling conventions for calculating DVs for the 2015 ozone NAAQS are specified in appendix U to 40 CFR part 50. The DV for the 2015 ozone NAAQS is the 3-year average of the annual fourth highest daily maximum 8-hour average ozone concentration. The DV is calculated for each air quality monitor in an area, and the DV for an area is the highest DV among the individual monitoring sites located in the area. </FTNT> The 2015 ozone NAAQS is met at an EPA regulatory monitoring site when the DV does not exceed 0.070 parts per million (ppm). For the Moderate nonattainment areas for the 2015 ozone NAAQS addressed in this action, the attainment date was August 3, 2024. Because the DV is based on the three most recent, complete calendar years of data, attainment must occur no later than December 31 of the year prior to the attainment date ( <E T="03">i.e.,</E> December 31, 2023, in the case of Moderate nonattainment areas for the 2015 ozone NAAQS). As such, EPA's determinations for each area are based upon the complete, quality-assured, and certified ozone monitoring data from calendar years 2021, 2022, and 2023. This action addresses eight areas in Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Missouri, Ohio, and Wisconsin that were classified as Moderate for the 2015 ozone NAAQS as of the Moderate area attainment date of August 3, 2024. EPA is addressing the remaining areas, including the Missouri portion of the St. Louis area, in separate actions. Table 1 provides a summary of the DVs and the EPA's air quality-based determinations for the eight Moderate areas addressed in this action. <GPOTABLE COLS="3" OPTS="L2,i1" CDEF="s50,12,xs80"> <TTITLE>Table 1—Summary of Nonattainment Areas in Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Missouri, Ohio, and Wisconsin Classified as Moderate for the 2015 Ozone NAAQS</TTITLE> <CHED H="1">Nonattainment area</CHED> <ENT>0.075</ENT> <ENT>Failed to attain.</ENT> </ROW> <ROW> <ENT I="01">Berrien County, MI</ENT> <ENT>0.073</ENT> <ENT>Failed to attain.</ENT> </ROW> <ROW> <ENT I="01">Chicago, IL-IN-WI</ENT> <ENT>0.077</ENT> <ENT>Failed to attain.</ENT> </ROW> <ROW> <ENT I="01">Cleveland, OH</ENT> <ENT>0.073</ENT> <ENT>Failed to attain.</ENT> </ROW> <ROW> <ENT I="01">Milwaukee, WI</ENT> <ENT>0.074</ENT> <ENT>Failed to attain.</ENT> </ROW> <ROW> <ENT I="01">Muskegon County, MI</ENT> <ENT>0.077</ENT> <ENT>Failed to attain.</ENT> </ROW> <ROW> <ENT I="01">Sheboygan County, WI</ENT> <ENT>0.077</ENT> <ENT>Failed to attain.</ENT> </ROW> <ROW> <ENT I="01">St. Louis, MO-IL</ENT> <ENT>0.074</ENT> <ENT>Failed to attain.</ENT> </ROW> </GPOTABLE> EPA is finding that the eight Moderate areas in Table 1 did not attain by their attainment dates, because their 2021-2023 DVs are greater than 0.070 ppm. If EPA determines that a nonattainment area classified as Moderate failed to attain by the attainment date, CAA section 181(b)(2)(B) requires EPA to publish a determination in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> , no later than 6 months following the attainment date, identifying each such area and identifying the applicable reclassification. Under CAA section 181(b)(2)(A), the effect of this determination is that these eight areas will be reclassified by operation of law as Serious on the effective date of this final rule. The reclassified areas will then be subject to the Serious area requirement to attain the 2015 ozone NAAQS as expeditiously as practicable, but not later than August 3, 2027. Once reclassified as Serious, the relevant States must submit to EPA the SIP revisions for these areas that satisfy the statutory and regulatory requirements applicable to Serious areas established in CAA section 182(c) and in the 2015 Ozone NAAQS SIP Requirements Rule (see 83 FR 62998, December 6, 2018). EPA is establishing deadlines for submitting SIP revisions for these reclassified areas in a separate action. <HD SOURCE="HD1">II. What is the background for this action?</HD> On October 26, 2015, EPA issued its final action to revise the NAAQS for ozone to establish a new 8-hour standard ( <E T="03">see</E> 80 FR 65452, October 26, 2015). In that action, EPA promulgated identical tighter primary and secondary ozone standards designed to protect public health and welfare that specified an 8-hour ozone level of 0.070 ppm. Specifically, the standards require that the 3-year average of the annual fourth highest daily maximum 8-hour average ozone concentration may not exceed 0.070 ppm. Effective on August 3, 2018, EPA designated 52 areas throughout the country as nonattainment for the 2015 ozone NAAQS (see 83 FR 25776, June 4, 2018). In a separate action, EPA assigned classification thresholds and attainment dates based on the severity of an area's ozone problem, determined by the area's DV (see 83 FR 10376, May 8, 2018). EPA established the attainment date for Marginal, Moderate, and Serious nonattainment areas as 3 years, 6 years, and 9 years, respectively, from the effective date of the final designations. Thus, the attainment date for Marginal nonattainment areas for the 2015 ozone NAAQS was August 3, 2021, the attainment date for Moderate areas was August 3, 2024, and the attainment date for Serious areas is August 3, 2027. On October 7, 2022 (87 FR 60897), EPA determined that 22 areas, including the eight areas addressed in this action, did not attain the standards by the Marginal attainment date, and these areas were reclassified as Moderate by operation of law. <HD SOURCE="HD1">III. What is the statutory authority for this action?</HD> The statutory authority for these determinations is provided by the CAA, as amended (42 U.S.C. 7401 <E T="03">et seq.</E> ). Relevant portions of the CAA include, but are not necessarily limited to, sections 181 and 182. CAA section 107(d) provides that when the EPA establishes or revises a NAAQS, the agency must designate areas of the country as nonattainment, attainment, or unclassifiable based on whether an area is not meeting (or is contributing to air quality in a nearby area that is not meeting) the NAAQS, meeting the NAAQS, or cannot be classified as meeting or not meeting the NAAQS, respectively. Subpart 2 of part D of title I of the CAA governs the classification, State planning, and emissions control requirements for any areas designated as nonattainment for a revised ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 53k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━