Air Plan Revisions; California; California Mobile Source Regulations

ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY <CFR>40 CFR Part 52</CFR> <DEPDOC>[EPA-R09-OAR-2024-0588; FRL-12486-01-R9]</DEPDOC> <SUBJECT>Air Plan Revisions; California; California Mobile Source Regulations</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Proposed rule. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is proposing to approve all or portions of two submissions by the State of California (“State”) to revise its State Implementation Plan (SIP). The submissions consist of State regulations establishing standards and other requirements relating to the control of emissions from certain new on-road vehicles and engines. The EPA is proposing to approve the SIP revision because the regulations meet the applicable requirements of the Clean Air Act. If finalized, approval of the regulations as part of the California SIP will make them Federally enforceable. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> Comments must be received on or before January 21, 2025. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> Submit your comments, identified by Docket ID No. EPA-R09-OAR-2024-0588 at <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov.</E> For comments submitted at <E T="03">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 Confidential Business Information (CBI) 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, please contact the person identified in the <E T="02">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT</E> section. For the full EPA public comment policy, information about CBI or multimedia submissions, and general guidance on making effective comments, please visit <E T="03">https://www.epa.gov/dockets/commenting-epa-dockets.</E> 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> Rory Mays, EPA Region IX, 75 Hawthorne St., San Francisco, CA 94105; phone: (415) 972-3227; email: <E T="03">mays.rory@epa.gov.</E> </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> 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. The State's Submissions</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">A. What regulations did the State submit?</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">B. Are there other versions of these regulations in the SIP?</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">C. What is the purpose of the submitted regulations?</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">D. What requirements do the regulations establish?</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">III. EPA's Evaluation and Proposed Action</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">A. How is the EPA evaluating the regulations?</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">B. Do the State's regulations meet CAA SIP evaluation criteria?</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">C. Proposed Action and Public Comment</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">IV. Environmental Justice Considerations</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> Under the Clean Air Act (CAA or “Act”), the EPA establishes national ambient air quality standards (NAAQS) to protect public health and welfare. The EPA has established NAAQS for certain pervasive air pollutants including ozone, carbon monoxide, nitrogen dioxide, sulfur dioxide, lead, and particulate matter. Under section 110(a)(1) of the CAA, states must submit plans that provide for the implementation, maintenance, and enforcement of the NAAQS within each State. Such plans are referred to as SIPs, and revisions to those plans are referred to as SIP revisions. Section 110(a)(2) of the CAA sets forth the content requirements for SIPs. Among the various requirements, SIPs must include enforceable emission limitations and other control measures, means, or techniques as may be necessary or appropriate to meet the applicable requirements of the CAA. See CAA section 110(a)(2)(A). Emissions sources contributing to ambient air pollution levels can be divided into two basic categories: stationary emissions sources and mobile emissions sources. As a general matter, the CAA assigns stationary source regulation and SIP development responsibilities to the States through title I of the Act and assigns mobile source regulation to the EPA through title II of the Act. In so doing, the CAA preempts various types of State regulation of mobile sources as set forth in section 209(a) (preemption of State emissions standards for new motor vehicles and engines), section 209(e) (preemption of State emissions standards for new and in-use off-road vehicles and engines), <SU>1</SU> <FTREF/> and section 211(c)(4)(A) (preemption of State fuel requirements for motor vehicle emission control other than California's motor vehicle fuel requirements for motor vehicle emission control as authorized by section 211(c)(4)(B)). <FTNT> <SU>1</SU>  EPA regulations refer to “nonroad” vehicles and engines whereas California Air Resources Board (CARB) regulations refer to “off-road” vehicles and engines. These terms refer to the same types of vehicles and engines, and for the purposes of this action, we will be using CARB's chosen term, “off-road,” to refer to such vehicles and engines. </FTNT> Under California law, the California Air Resources Board (CARB) is the State agency responsible for adopting and submitting the California SIP and SIP revisions to the EPA for approval. Over the years, CARB has submitted, and the EPA has approved, many county and regional air district rules regulating stationary source emissions as part of the California SIP. See generally 40 CFR 52.220(c). With respect to regulation of mobile sources not specifically preempted by the CAA, CARB has submitted, and the EPA has approved, certain specific State regulatory programs or regulations, such as the various fuels regulations, the inspection and maintenance program for light-duty and other vehicles (also known as the “Smog Check” program), the Heavy Duty Vehicle Inspection Program (HDVIP)/Periodic Smoke Inspection Program (PSIP), and the Innovative Clean Transit Regulation. <SU>2</SU> <FTREF/> See generally 40 CFR 52.220a(c). <FTNT> <SU>2</SU>  See 75 FR 26653 (May 12, 2010) (revisions to California on-road reformulated gasoline and diesel fuel regulations), 75 FR 38023 (July 1, 2010) (revisions to California Smog Check program), 87 FR 27949 (May 10, 2022) (HDVIP/PSIP), and 88 FR 10049 (February 16, 2023) (Innovative Clean Transit Regulation). </FTNT> CARB and the California air districts rely on these county, regional, and State stationary and mobile source regulations to meet various CAA requirements and account for the corresponding emissions reductions in the various regional air quality plans developed to attain and maintain the NAAQS. The EPA generally allows California to take credit for the corresponding emissions reductions relied upon in the various regional air quality plans because, among other reasons, the regulations are approved as part of the SIP and are thereby Federally enforceable as required under CAA section 110(a)(2)(A). With respect to mobile sources that are specifically preempted under the CAA, CARB must request a waiver (for motor vehicles) or authorization (for off-road engines and equipment) from the EPA in order to enforce standards relating to the control of emissions from these types of mobile sources. See CAA sections 209(b) (new motor vehicles) and 209(e)(2) (most categories of new and in-use off-road vehicles). Over the years, CARB has submitted many requests for waiver or authorization of its standards and other requirements relating to the control of emissions from new on-road and new and in-use off-road vehicles and engines, and the EPA has granted many such requests. Once the EPA grants the request for waiver or authorization, CARB may enforce the corresponding mobile source regulations and may rely on the related emissions reductions to meet CAA requirements, and until 2015, the EPA had approved California air quality plans that took credit for emissions reductions from such regulations, notwithstanding the fact that California had not submitted these particular regulations as part of the California SIP. The EPA's longstanding practice of approving California plans that rely on emissions reductions from such “waiver measures,” notwithstanding the lack of approval as part of the SIP, was challenged in several petitions filed in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. In a 2015 decision, the Ninth Circuit held in favor of the petitioners on this issue and concluded that CAA section 110(a)(2)(A) requires that all State and local control measures on which SIPs rely to attain the NAAQS be included in the SIP, including the “waiver measures,” and thereby subject to enforcement by the EPA and members of the general public. See <E T="03">Committee for a Better Arvin</E> v. <E T="03">EPA,</E> 786 F.3d 1169 (9th Cir. 2015). In response to the decision in ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 59k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━