Air Quality Designations; KY; Redesignation of the Kentucky Portion of the Louisville, KY-IN 2015 8-Hour Ozone Nonattainment Area to Attainment

ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY <CFR>40 CFR Part 81</CFR> <DEPDOC>[EPA-R04-OAR-2022-0789; FRL-10888-03-R4]</DEPDOC> <SUBJECT>Air Quality Designations; KY; Redesignation of the Kentucky Portion of the Louisville, KY-IN 2015 8-Hour Ozone Nonattainment Area to Attainment</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 withdrawing its proposed approval of the request to redesignate the Kentucky portion of the Louisville, Kentucky-Indiana, 2015 8-hour ozone nonattainment area (hereinafter referred to as the “Louisville, KY-IN Area” or “Area”) to attainment for the 2015 8-hour ozone National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS or standards). EPA is withdrawing its April 18, 2023, proposed approval and is now proposing to deny Kentucky's request to redesignate the Kentucky portion of the Area from nonattainment to attainment, based on the Area's violation of the NAAQS. EPA is taking no action at this time on Kentucky's maintenance plan, including the regional motor vehicle emission budgets for nitrogen oxides (NO <E T="52">X</E> ) and volatile organic compounds (VOC) for the years of 2019 and 2035, submitted with Kentucky's redesignation request for the Louisville, KY-IN Area. The redesignation request and maintenance plan state implementation plan (SIP) revision were submitted by the Commonwealth of Kentucky, through the Kentucky Energy and Environment Cabinet (Cabinet), Division of Air Quality (DAQ), on September 6, 2022. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> Comments must be received on or before February 3, 2025. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> Submit your comments, identified by Docket ID No. EPA-R04-OAR-2022-0789 at <E T="03">http://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> 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. 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 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> <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Sarah LaRocca, Air Planning and Implementation Branch, Air and Radiation Division, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Region 4, 61 Forsyth Street SW, Atlanta, Georgia 30303-8960. The telephone number is (404) 562-8994. Ms. Sarah LaRocca can also be reached via electronic mail at <E T="03">larocca.sarah@epa.gov.</E> </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">I. Background</HD> On September 6, 2022, Kentucky submitted a request to redesignate the Kentucky portion of the Louisville, KY-IN 2015 8-hour ozone nonattainment area from nonattainment to attainment. Accompanying Kentucky's request for redesignation under Clean Air Act (CAA or Act) section 107(d)(3)(D) was a SIP revision containing a maintenance plan for the Area, as is required by CAA sections 107(d)(3)(E)(iv) and 175A in order for EPA to redesignate an area from nonattainment to attainment. On April 18, 2023, EPA proposed to take the following separate but related actions addressing the September 6, 2022, submittal: (1) to approve Kentucky's plan for maintaining the 2015 ozone NAAQS (maintenance plan), including the associated motor vehicle emissions budgets (budgets) for the Louisville, KY-IN Area, and incorporate the plan into the SIP, and (2) to redesignate the Kentucky portion of the Area to attainment for the 2015 8-hour ozone NAAQS. EPA also notified the public of the status of EPA's adequacy determination for the budgets for the Area. The Louisville, KY-IN Area is composed of Bullitt, Jefferson, and Oldham Counties in Kentucky, and Clark and Floyd Counties in Indiana. These proposed actions are summarized below and described in greater detail in the notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM) published on April 18, 2023. <E T="03">See</E> 88 FR 23598. <HD SOURCE="HD1">II. Criteria for Redesignation</HD> The CAA provides the requirements for redesignating a nonattainment area to attainment. Specifically, section 107(d)(3)(E) of the CAA prohibits the redesignation of such an area unless: (1) the EPA Administrator determines that the area has attained the applicable NAAQS; (2) the Administrator has fully approved the applicable implementation plan for the area under section 110(k); (3) the Administrator determines that the improvement in air quality is due to permanent and enforceable reductions in emissions resulting from implementation of the applicable SIP and applicable Federal air pollutant control regulations and other permanent and enforceable reductions; (4) the Administrator has fully approved a maintenance plan for the area as meeting the requirements of section 175A; and (5) the state containing such area has met all requirements applicable to the area for purposes of redesignation under section 110 and part D of the CAA. <SU>1</SU> <FTREF/> <FTNT> <SU>1</SU>  EPA provided guidance on redesignations in the General Preamble for the Implementation of title I of the CAA Amendments of 1990 on April 16, 1992 ( <E T="03">see</E> 57 FR 13498) and supplemented that guidance on April 28, 1992 ( <E T="03">see</E> 57 FR 18070). EPA has provided further guidance on processing redesignation requests in the following documents: 1. “Ozone and Carbon Monoxide Design Value Calculations,” Memorandum from Bill Laxton, Director, Technical Support Division, June 18, 1990; 2. “Maintenance Plans for Redesignation of Ozone and Carbon Monoxide Nonattainment Areas,” Memorandum from G.T. Helms, Chief, Ozone/Carbon Monoxide Programs Branch, April 30, 1992; 3. “Contingency Measures for Ozone and Carbon Monoxide (CO) Redesignations,” Memorandum from G.T. Helms, Chief, Ozone/Carbon Monoxide Programs Branch, June 1, 1992; 4. “Procedures for Processing Requests to Redesignate Areas to Attainment,” Memorandum from John Calcagni, Director, Air Quality Management Division, September 4, 1992 (hereinafter referred to as the “Calcagni Memorandum”); 5. “State Implementation Plan (SIP) Actions Submitted in Response to Clean Air Act (CAA) Deadlines,” Memorandum from John Calcagni, Director, Air Quality Management Division, October 28, 1992; 6. “Technical Support Documents (TSDs) for Redesignation of Ozone and Carbon Monoxide (CO) Nonattainment Areas,” Memorandum from G.T. Helms, Chief, Ozone/Carbon Monoxide Programs Branch, August 17, 1993; 7. “State Implementation Plan (SIP) Requirements for Areas Submitting Requests for Redesignation to Attainment of the Ozone and Carbon Monoxide (CO) National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) On or After November 15, 1992,” Memorandum from Michael H. Shapiro, Acting Assistant Administrator for Air and Radiation, September 17, 1993 (hereinafter referred to as the “Shapiro Memorandum”); 8. “Use of Actual Emissions in Maintenance Demonstrations for Ozone and CO Nonattainment Areas,” Memorandum from D. Kent Berry, Acting Director, Air Quality Management Division, November 30, 1993; 9. “Part D New Source Review (Part D NSR) Requirements for Areas Requesting Redesignation to Attainment,” Memorandum from Mary D. Nichols, Assistant Administrator for Air and Radiation, October 14, 1994 (hereinafter referred to as the “Nichols Memorandum”); and 10. “Reasonable Further Progress, Attainment Demonstration, and Related Requirements for Ozone Nonattainment Areas Meeting the Ozone National Ambient Air Quality Standard,” Memorandum from John S. Seitz, Director, Office of Air Quality Planning and Standards, May 10, 1995. </FTNT> Regarding the first criterion's requirement that the area “has attained” the relevant NAAQS, since the passage of the 1990 Amendments to the CAA, EPA has consistently read that provision to require continued attainment until EPA's action redesignating the area, and to prohibit redesignation where an area violates the standard during the pendency of the Agency's review of the state's request. <E T="03">See</E> Calcagni Memorandum at 5 (“Regions should advise States of the practical planning consequences if EPA disapproves the redesignation request <E T="03">or if the request is invalidated because of violations recorded during the EPA's review.”</E> ) (emphasis added). The Agency's interpretation of that provision is supported by the Act's definition of attainment and nonattainment areas in CAA section 107(d)(1)(A), which defines a nonattainment area as “any area that does not meet” the NAAQS (CAA section 107(d)(1)(A)(i)) and an attainment area as “any area that meets” the NAAQS. The use of the present tense in CAA section 107(d)(1)(A) is consistent with the use of the present perfect tense in CAA section 107(d)(3)(E)(i), which tasks EPA with determining that an area “has attained” the NAAQS, as opposed to attaining at some previous time ( <E T="03">e.g.,</E> “had attained) with subsequent violations. <E T="03">See</E> 62 FR 49154 (September 19, 1997) (laying out statutory analysis supporting EPA's interpretation of CAA section 107(d)(3)(E)(i) in denial of the Birmingham, AL 1-hour ozone redesignation request) ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 27k characters. 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