Air Plan Revisions; California; Feather River Air Quality Management District

<RULE> ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY <CFR>40 CFR Part 52</CFR> <DEPDOC>[EPA-R09-OAR-2023-0649; FRL-11647-02-R9]</DEPDOC> <SUBJECT>Air Plan Revisions; California; Feather River Air Quality Management District</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Final rule. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is taking final action to approve a revision to the Feather River Air Quality Management District (FRAQMD) portion of the California State Implementation Plan (SIP). This revision concerns a rule submitted to address section 185 of the Clean Air Act (CAA or “Act”). </SUM> <DATES> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> This rule is effective January 30, 2025. </DATES> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> The EPA has established a docket for this action under Docket ID No. EPA-R09-OAR-2023-0649. 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> Mae Wang, EPA Region IX, 75 Hawthorne St., San Francisco, CA 94105; phone: (415) 947-4137; email: <E T="03">wang.mae@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. Proposed Action</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">II. Public Comments and EPA Responses</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">III. EPA Action</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">IV. Incorporation by Reference</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">V. Statutory and Executive Order Reviews</FP> </EXTRACT> <HD SOURCE="HD1">I. Proposed Action</HD> On February 12, 2024 (89 FR 9813), the EPA proposed to approve the following rule into the California SIP. <GPOTABLE COLS="5" OPTS="L2,tp0,i1" CDEF="xs40,10,r50,10,10"> <TTITLE> </TTITLE> <CHED H="1">Local agency</CHED> <CHED H="1">Rule No.</CHED> <CHED H="1">Rule title</CHED> <CHED H="1">Amended</CHED> <CHED H="1">Submitted</CHED> <ROW> <ENT I="01">FRAQMD</ENT> <ENT>7.15</ENT> <ENT>Clean Air Act Nonattainment Fees</ENT> <ENT>04/04/2022</ENT> <ENT>07/05/2022</ENT> </ROW> </GPOTABLE> We proposed to approve this rule because we determined that it complies with the relevant CAA requirements. Our proposed action contains more information on the rule and our evaluation. <HD SOURCE="HD1">II. Public Comments and EPA Responses</HD> The EPA's proposed action provided a 30-day public comment period. During this period, we received five comments. Three of these comments were supportive of our proposed action, one was not germane to the action, and one stated that the rule submittal is not approvable. All the comments can be found in the docket for this rulemaking. We thank the commenters for their input. One of these commenters in support of the proposed action asked why there was no mention of California and COVID-19. FRAQMD Rule 7.15 was adopted and submitted to address the CAA section 185 fee program for Federal ozone nonattainment areas. Because COVID-19 does not bear on whether or not the submitted rule fulfills the requirements of section 185 of the CAA, we do not consider COVID-19 relevant to this rulemaking. The comment in opposition to our proposed action was submitted from Air Law for All, Ltd., on behalf of the Center for Biological Diversity (the commenter from here on referred to as “ALFA” or “the commenter”). We have summarized below the substance of the comments from ALFA, identifying discrete points made by the commenter, and responding to each in turn. Before responding to the issues raised by the commenter, we will first correct two factual misstatements in the comment letter. In the Background section of ALFA's comment letter, the commenter states that “In 2012, EPA determined that the area had met the 1-hour standards by the applicable attainment date for those standards.” The reference cited was an EPA action on October 18, 2012 (77 FR 64036). In that action, the EPA determined that complete, quality-assured, and certified air quality data for the Sacramento Metro 1-hour ozone nonattainment area show continuous attainment for the 1-hour ozone national ambient air quality standards (NAAQS) since 2009. We would like to clarify that this clean data finding was not a determination that the area had attained the NAAQS by the applicable attainment date, but instead a finding that the area had achieved attaining levels of air quality for the 2009-2011 period, which was after the applicable attainment date. The commenter also incorrectly stated, “For the 2008 8-hour standards, the applicable attainment date is December 31, 2027.” The applicable attainment date for the Sacramento Metro ozone nonattainment area for the 2008 8-hour ozone NAAQS is July 20, 2027. <E T="03">See</E> 40 CFR 51.1103(a) Table 1, 77 FR 30160 (May 21, 2012) and 80 FR 12264 (March 6, 2015). <E T="03">Comment #1:</E> The commenter states that the EPA has not carried out its duty to determine whether the Sacramento Metro nonattainment area has attained the 1997 8-hour NAAQS by the June 15, 2019 attainment date. The commenter states that “[t]his information is germane to EPA's action, as the failure to attain would trigger the ozone fee requirement, for which the public and the regulated community must receive notice.” Therefore, the commenter claims that “EPA's proposal notice is insufficient, because it gives no notice of the legal consequences of EPA's approval.” <E T="03">Response #1:</E> It is not clear in what manner the commenter is alleging that the proposal notice is insufficient regarding the lack of notice of the “legal consequences” of the EPA's approval. As an initial matter, the commenter is correct that, as of the time of this action, the EPA has not made a determination as to whether the Sacramento Metro ozone nonattainment area attained the 1997 8-hour ozone NAAQS by the applicable attainment date. The commenter appears to be asserting that the approvability of a CAA section 185 rule submission depends in some way on whether or not the EPA has made such a finding, and because the EPA has not yet done so, the proposed rule did not sufficiently detail the legal consequences of approving Rule 7.15 into the SIP. The approvability of a section 185 rule submission does not depend on whether or not the EPA has previously made a finding that the area has failed to attain the relevant NAAQS. In some instances, the EPA has approved section 185 programs after making a finding that the area has failed to attain by the applicable attainment date. <SU>1</SU> <FTREF/> In other instances, the EPA has approved a section 185 program prior to determining whether an area has attained the standard by the applicable attainment date. <SU>2</SU> <FTREF/> The legal consequences of approving FRAQMD Rule 7.15 into the SIP are clear. Rule 7.15 section C.1 provides that fees will be assessed for emissions in the previous calendar year, beginning the year after the effective date of an EPA finding published in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> that the area has not attained an ozone NAAQS by the attainment date. The fact that the EPA has not made such a finding at the time the rule was adopted, submitted, or approved into the SIP is not relevant to the approvability of Rule 7.15. If the EPA in a future rulemaking proposes to find that the area failed to attain the 1997 ozone NAAQS by the applicable attainment date, or that it did attain the 1997 ozone NAAQS by the applicable attainment date, such finding would itself be subject to notice and comment via a separate <E T="04">Federal Register</E> notice at that time. Should the EPA finalize a finding that the area failed to attain by the applicable attainment date, then pursuant to Rule 7.15 section C.1, fees would be assessed for emissions in the previous calendar year. Accordingly, the EPA disagrees with the commenters' assertion that the EPA's notice does not give sufficient notice of the legal consequences of approving Rule 7.15 into the California SIP. <FTNT> <SU>1</SU>  See, <E T="03">e.g.,</E> 76 FR 82133, December 30, 2011 (finding that the Los Angeles-South Coast Air Basin Area and the San Joaquin Valley Area did not attain the 1-hour ozone NAAQS by the applicable attainment date); 77 FR 50021, August 20, 2012 (approving the section 185 rule for the 1-hour ozone NAAQS applicable to the San Joaquin Valley Area); and 77 FR 74372, December 14, 2012 (approving the section 185 rule for the 1-hour ozone NAAQS applicable to the South Coast Air Basin). </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>2</SU>  See, <E T="03">e.g.,</E> 69 FR 77909, December 29, 2004 (approving the section 185 rule for the 1-hour ozone NAAQS applicable to the Virginia portion of the Metropolitan Washington DC Severe Ozone Nonattainment Area); and 73 FR 43360, July 25, 2008 (determining that the Metropolitan Washington DC nonattainment area attained the 1-hour ozone NAAQS by the applicable attainment date). </FTNT> <E T="03 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 28k characters. 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