Approval of Air Quality Implementation Plans; New Jersey; Permits and Certificates for Minor Facilities (and Major Facilities Without an Operating Permit), and Air Emission Control and Permitting Exemptions

ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY <CFR>40 CFR Part 52</CFR> <DEPDOC>[EPA-R02-OAR-2024-0573; FRL-12459-01-R2]</DEPDOC> <SUBJECT>Approval of Air Quality Implementation Plans; New Jersey; Permits and Certificates for Minor Facilities (and Major Facilities Without an Operating Permit), and Air Emission Control and Permitting Exemptions</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Environmental Protection Agency. <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Proposed rule. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is proposing to approve a revision to New Jersey's State Implementation Plan (SIP), submitted by the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (NJDEP), to incorporate regulations concerning permits and certificates for minor source facilities and major source facilities without an operating permit. The intended effect of the NJDEP's revisions to the SIP, is to regulate the construction and modification of stationary sources with adequate requirements to ensure that the National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) are satisfied. In addition, the NJDEP's revisions will strengthen the SIP by conforming it with the State regulations that were in effect at the time of the SIP submission. If the EPA finalizes this rulemaking as it is being proposed, the Federal air permitting program for New Jersey will be updated, which will better serve the regulated community and help to protect the quality of air in the State. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> Written comments must be received on or before January 16, 2025. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> Submit your comments, identified by Docket ID Number EPA-R02-OAR-2024-0573 at <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov</E> . Although listed in the index, some information is not publicly available, <E T="03">e.g.,</E> Controlled Unclassified Information (CUI) (formally referred to as 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 electronically through <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">Regulations.gov</E> . The EPA may publish any comment received to its public docket. Do not submit electronically any information you consider to be CUI 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, the full EPA public comment policy, information about CUI or multimedia submissions, and general guidance on making effective comments, please visit <E T="03">https://www.epa.gov/dockets/commenting-epa-dockets</E> . <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Nicholas Ferreira, Air Programs Branch, Environmental Protection Agency, Region 2, 290 Broadway, 25th Floor, New York, New York 10007-1866, (212) 637-3127, or by email at <E T="03">ferreira.nicholas@epa.gov</E> . </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <EXTRACT> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">I. Background</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">II. Summary of the SIP Revision and the EPA's Analysis</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">III. Environmental Justice Considerations</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">IV. The EPA's Proposed Action</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">V. Incorporation by Reference</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">VI. Statutory and Executive Order Reviews</FP> </EXTRACT> <HD SOURCE="HD1">I. Background</HD> On February 24, 2014, and as supplemented on August 23, 2018, the State of New Jersey, through the NJDEP, submitted to the EPA, revisions to the New Jersey SIP. The revisions consisted of new provisions and amendments to New Jersey Administrative Code ( <E T="03">i.e.,</E> N.J.A.C.), Title 7, Chapter 27 ( <E T="03">i.e.,</E> 7:27), subchapter 8, “Permits and Certificates for minor facilities (and major facilities without an operating permit).” The revisions submitted on February 24, 2014, and August 23, 2018, became State effective on September 19, 2011, and January 16, 2018, respectively. The last major EPA approval of subchapter 8 into the New Jersey SIP occurred in 1986, with further amendments to the rule approved into the SIP occurring in 1994, 1997, and 2023. The NJDEP's 2014 and 2018 submittals are intended to strengthen the SIP by conforming it with the subchapter 8 State regulations that the State had in effect at the time of submission to the EPA. Section 110(a)(2)(C) of the Clean Air Act (CAA) requires States to include in their SIPs, programs that regulate the construction and modification of stationary sources with adequate requirements to ensure that the National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) are achieved. New Jersey submitted the February 24, 2014, and August 23, 2018, SIP revisions to fulfill this requirement of the CAA as it applies to minor stationary sources and major source facilities without an operating permit. In accordance with section 110(a) of the CAA, SIP rules must be enforceable, and the EPA must not approve a revision that interferes with any applicable requirement concerning attainment and reasonable further progress (see CAA section 110(l)). The EPA evaluates minor new source review programs included as SIP submittals based on the criteria in subpart I of 40 CFR part 51 and new major sources and major modifications under 40 CFR 51.165 and 51.166 and part C and D of title I of the CAA. The EPA has determined that the rule revisions that New Jersey submitted, are mostly consistent with the relevant policy and guidance regarding the enforceability of the revisions. Additionally, the EPA has determined that the rule revisions comply with the requirement under CAA section 110(l), that the EPA may not approve a revision that could interfere with any applicable requirement concerning attainment and reasonable further progress and meet the criteria in subpart I of 40 CFR part 51, §§ 51.160 through 51.164. For the reasons herein stated, apart from five provisions related to odor (which the NJDEP acknowledged within its February 24, 2014, cover letter that was included with the SIP submittal would not be incorporated by the EPA into the federally enforceable SIP) and one provision related to affirmative defense (which was withdrawn by the NJDEP after the February 24, 2014, and August 23, 2018, submittals) the EPA proposes to approve the amendments submitted by New Jersey to strengthen the State's SIP. <HD SOURCE="HD1">II. Summary of the SIP Revision and the EPA's Analysis</HD> On February 24, 2014, and as supplemented on August 23, 2018, New Jersey, through the NJDEP, submitted revisions to its SIP, consisting of new provisions and amendments to N.J.A.C. 7:27-8, “Permits and Certificates for minor facilities (and major facilities without an operating permit).” Specifics on the amendments to the current SIP-approved subchapter 8 provisions are provided in further detail under this section of the preamble. The NJDEP's submission included supplemental materials such as documentation of the: public hearing, public comment period, and the State's responses to public comments. These materials are in the EPA's docket for this proposal. <HD SOURCE="HD2">Subchapter 8.1, “Definitions”</HD> The EPA finalized the amendments to the definitions for terms under N.J.A.C. 7:27-8.1, “Definitions,” on November 28, 2023. <E T="03">See</E> 88 FR 83036. As a result, the EPA will not be proposing to approve any revisions to N.J.A.C. 7:27-8.1 with this proposed rulemaking. <HD SOURCE="HD2">Subchapter 8.2, “Applicability”</HD> N.J.A.C. 7:27-8.2, “Applicability,” lists the sources of air contaminant emissions, including pieces of equipment, operations, and/or processes, for which the procurement of a permit and operating certificate are required. The EPA last approved N.J.A.C. 7:27-8.2, “Permits and certificates required,” into New Jersey's SIP on August 7, 1997, <SU>1</SU> <FTREF/> and is now proposing to approve revisions that have since been made to N.J.A.C. 7:27-8.2, including the renaming of this subsection. <FTNT> <SU>1</SU>   <E T="03">See</E> 62 FR 42412. </FTNT> Per N.J.A.C. 7:27-8.2(a), a source that is required to have a permit and certificate under N.J.A.C. 7:27-8 ( <E T="03">i.e.,</E> “subchapter 8”) is a “significant source,” and a source that is not required to have a permit and certificate under subchapter 8 is considered an “insignificant source.” As clarified in N.J.A.C. 7:27-8.2(b), a significant source that is located at a facility with an operating permit subject to N.J.A.C. 7:27-22, “Operating permits,” is not subject to the requirements of subchapter 8. However, in accordance with N.J.A.C. 7:27-8.2(b)(1) through (3), a source located at a facility with an operating permit will still remain subject to the requirements of subchapter 8: (1) While awaiting an operating permit to be issued, (2) if it is a new source and it elects to obtain a preconstruction permit and certificate per N.J.A.C. 7:27-22.5(g), or (3) if a portion of the operating permit facility is not subject to N.J.A.C. 7:27-22 requirements, then that portion remains subject to subchapter 8. A significant source includes any equipment or source of operation that may emit one or more air contaminants directly or indirectly into the outdoor air and belongs to one of the categori ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 91k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━