California State Motor Vehicle and Engine and Nonroad Engine Pollution Control Standards; The “Omnibus” Low NOX Regulation; Waiver of Preemption; Notice of Decision

<NOTICE> ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY <DEPDOC>[EPA-HQ-OAR-2022-0332; FRL-9902-02-OAR]</DEPDOC> <SUBJECT> California State Motor Vehicle and Engine and Nonroad Engine Pollution Control Standards; The “Omnibus” Low NO <E T="0735">X</E> Regulation; Waiver of Preemption; Notice of Decision </SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Notice of decision. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> The Environmental Protection Agency (“EPA”) is providing notice of its decision to grant the California Air Resources Board's (“CARB”) request for a waiver of Clean Air Act (CAA) preemption for its Heavy-Duty Vehicle and Engine “Omnibus” Low NO <E T="52">X</E> Regulations (“Omnibus Low NO <E T="52">X</E> program”). EPA's decision also includes an authorization for portions of the Omnibus Low NO <E T="52">X</E> program that pertain to off-road diesel engines. This decision was issued under the authority of the Clean Air Act (“CAA” or “Act”) section 209. </SUM> <DATES> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> Petitions for review must be filed by March 7, 2025. </DATES> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> EPA has established a docket for this action under Docket ID EPA-HQ-OAR-2022-0332. All documents relied upon in making this decision, including those submitted to EPA by CARB, are contained in the public docket. Publicly available docket materials are available either electronically through <E T="03">www.regulations.gov</E> or in hard copy at the EPA Docket Center, WJC West Building, Room 3334, 1301 Constitution Avenue NW, Washington, DC 20004. The Docket Center's hours of operation are 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.; generally, it is open Monday through Friday, except Federal holidays. The electronic mail (email) address for the EPA Docket is: <E T="03">a-and-r-Docket@epa.gov.</E> An electronic version of the public docket is available through the Federal government's electronic public docket and comment system. You may access EPA dockets at <E T="03">http://www.regulations.gov.</E> After opening the <E T="03">www.regulations.gov</E> website, enter EPA-HQ-OAR-2022-0332 in the “Enter Keyword or ID” fill-in box to view documents in the record. Although a part of the official docket, the public docket does not include Confidential Business Information (“CBI”) or other information whose disclosure is restricted by statute. EPA's Office of Transportation and Air Quality (“OTAQ”) maintains a web page that contains general information on its review of California waiver and authorization requests. Included on that page are links to prior waiver <E T="04">Federal Register</E> notices, some of which are cited in this notice; the page can be accessed at: <E T="03">https://www.epa.gov/state-and-local-transportation/vehicle-emissions-california-waivers-and-authorizations.</E> <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Brian Nelson, Office of Transportation and Air Quality, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, 2000 Traverwood Drive, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48105. Telephone: 734-214-4278. Email: <E T="03">California-Waivers-and-Authorizations@epa.gov.</E> </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> On June 13, 2022, EPA published a <E T="04">Federal Register</E> notice announcing its receipt of California's waiver request. In that notice, EPA invited public comment on California's waiver request and an opportunity to present testimony at a public hearing. <SU>1</SU> <FTREF/> EPA held a public hearing on June 29 and June 30, 2022; EPA has considered all comments submitted, including those submitted after the close of the comment period. <SU>2</SU> <FTREF/> <FTNT> <SU>1</SU>  87 FR 35765 (June 13, 2022). </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>2</SU>  A transcript for each day of the hearing (June 29th and 30th, 2022) can be found in the docket: June 29th Hearing Transcript, Docket No. EPA-HQ-OAR-2022-0332-0035; June 30th Hearing Transcript, Docket No. EPA-HQ-OAR-2022-0332-0036. All written comments are also located at <E T="03">regulations.gov</E> at EPA-HQ-OAR-2022-0332. </FTNT> On December 17, 2024, I signed a Decision Document granting California a waiver of preemption pursuant to section 209(b) of the CAA, as amended, 42 U.S.C. 7543(b), for regulations applicable to new 2024 and subsequent model year (MY) California on-road heavy-duty vehicles and engines, hereafter the Omnibus Low NO <E T="52">X</E> regulations. <SU>3</SU> <FTREF/> The Omnibus Low NO <E T="52">X</E> program includes requirements for revised heavy-duty emission standards, test procedures, regulatory useful life, and emissions warranty. As part of my decision, I have also decided to grant an authorization pursuant to section 209(e) of the CAA, as amended, 42 U.S.C. 7543(e) for portions of the Omnibus Low NO <E T="52">X</E> program regarding off-road diesel engines. The Omnibus Low NO <E T="52">X</E> program includes new PM emission standards for off-road diesel-fueled auxiliary power units. A comprehensive description of California's Omnibus Low NO <E T="52">X</E> program can be found in the Decision Document for this waiver and in materials submitted to the Docket by the California Air Resources Board (CARB). <SU>4</SU> <FTREF/> <FTNT> <SU>3</SU>  EPA's Decision Document is located at EPA-HQ-OAR-2022-0332. EPA's waiver decision includes the Omnibus Low NO <E T="52">X</E> Regulation which was adopted by the California Air Resources Board on August 27, 2020 by Resolution 20-23, and includes amendments approved by the CARB Executive Officer on September 9, 2021 under CARB Order No. R-21-007. The Omnibus Low NO <E T="52">X</E> Regulation is comprised of new title 13, California Code of Regulations (Cal. Code Regs.) sections 2139.5, and 2169.1 through 2169.8; amendments to title 13, Cal. Code Regs., sections 1900, 1956.8, 1961.2, 1965, 1968.2, 1971.1, 1971.5, 2035, 2036, 2111, 2112, 2113, 2114, 2115, 2116, 2117, 2118, 2119, 2121, 2123, 2125, 2126, 2127, 2128, 2129, 2130, 2131, 2133, 2137, 2139, 2140, 2141, 2142, 2143, 2144, 2145, 2146, 2147, 2148, 2149, 2166, 2166.1, 2167, 2168, 2169, 2170, 2423, and 2485; and amendments to title 17 Cal. Code Regs. sections 95662 and 95663. EPA's waiver decision also includes the 2023 Targeted Amendments to Omnibus which were adopted on December 28, 2023 by CARB Executive Order No. R-23-006. The 2023 Targeted Amendments are comprised of title 13, California Code of Regulations (Cal. Code Regs.) sections 1956.8, 1971.1, and 1971.5. </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>4</SU>  The Decision Document can be found at EPA-HQ-OAR-2022-0332. </FTNT> For the portions of the Omnibus Low NO <E T="52">X</E> program that pertain to on-road emission standards, section 209(b) of the Act provides that the Administrator, after notice and opportunity for public hearing, shall waive Federal preemption for California to enforce new motor vehicle emission standards and accompanying enforcement procedures unless certain criteria are met. The criteria of denying such a waiver include consideration of whether California arbitrarily and capriciously determined that its standards are, in the aggregate, at least as protective of public health and welfare as the applicable Federal standards; whether California does not need such State standards to meet compelling and extraordinary conditions; and whether such State standards and accompanying enforcement procedures are not consistent with section 202(a) of the Act. For the portions of the Omnibus Low NO <E T="52">X</E> program that pertain to nonroad emission standards, section 209(e)(1) of the Act permanently preempts any state, or political subdivision thereof, from adopting or attempting to enforce any standard or other requirement relating to the control of emissions for certain new nonroad engines or vehicles. <SU>5</SU> <FTREF/> For all other nonroad engines (including “non-new” engines), states generally are preempted from adopting and enforcing standards and other requirements relating to the control of emissions, except that section 209(e)(2)(A) of the Act requires EPA, after notice and opportunity for public hearing, to authorize California to adopt and enforce such regulations unless EPA makes one of three enumerated findings. Specifically, EPA must deny authorization if the Administrator finds that (1) California's protectiveness determination ( <E T="03">i.e.,</E> that California standards will be, in the aggregate, as protective of public health and welfare as applicable federal standards) is arbitrary and capricious, (2) California does not need such standards to meet compelling and extraordinary conditions, or (3) the California standards and accompanying enforcement procedures are not consistent with section 209 of the Act. <FTNT> <SU>5</SU>  States are expressly preempted from adopting or attempting to enforce any standard or other requirement relating to the control of emissions from new nonroad engines which are used in construction equipment or vehicles or used in farm equipment or vehicles and which are smaller than 175 horsepower. Such express preemption under section 209(e)(1) of the Act also applies to new locomotives or new engines used in locomotives. </FTNT> On July 20, 1994, EPA promulgated a rule interpreting the three criteria set forth in section 209(e)(2)(A) that EPA must consider before granting any California authorization request for nonroad engine or vehicle emission standards. <SU>6</SU> <FTREF/> EPA revised these regulations in 1997. <SU>7</SU> <FTREF/> As stated in the preamble to the 1994 rule, EPA has interpreted the consistency inquiry under the third criterion, outlined above and set forth in section 209(e)(2)(A)(iii), to require, at minimum, that California standards and enforcement procedures be consistent with section 209(a), secti ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 15k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━