Air Plan Approval; Wisconsin; Revised Format for Materials Incorporated by Reference

<RULE> ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY <CFR>40 CFR Part 52</CFR> <DEPDOC>[EPA-R05-OAR-2025-0059; FRL-12610-01-R5]</DEPDOC> <SUBJECT>Air Plan Approval; Wisconsin; Revised Format for Materials Incorporated by Reference</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Environmental Protection Agency. <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Final rule; administrative change. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is revising the format for materials that are made part of the Wisconsin State Implementation Plan (SIP) through the process of incorporation by reference (IBR). The regulations and materials affected by this format change have all been previously submitted by Wisconsin and approved by EPA as part of the SIP. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> This action is effective on April 22, 2025. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> The SIP materials for which incorporation by reference into 40 CFR part 52 is finalized through this action are available for inspection at the following locations: Environmental Protection Agency, Region 5, 77 West Jackson Boulevard, Chicago, Illinois 60604 and <E T="03">www.regulations.gov.</E> To view the materials at the Region 5 Office, EPA requests that you email the contact listed in the <E T="02">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT</E> section to schedule your inspection. The Regional Office's official hours of business are Monday through Friday 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., excluding Federal holidays. <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Christos Panos, Air and Radiation Division (AR-18J), Environmental Protection Agency, Region 5, 77 West Jackson Boulevard, Chicago, Illinois 60604, (312) 353-8328, <E T="03">panos.christos@epa.gov.</E> </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> Throughout this document, wherever “we,” “us” or “our” is used, it is intended to refer to EPA. <HD SOURCE="HD1">I. Background</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD2">A. Description of a SIP</HD> Each state has a SIP containing, among other things, the control measures and strategies used to attain and maintain the national ambient air quality standards (NAAQS). The SIP is extensive, containing such elements as air pollution control regulations, emission inventories, monitoring networks, attainment demonstrations, and enforcement mechanisms. <HD SOURCE="HD2">B. How EPA Enforces SIPs</HD> Each state must formally adopt the control measures and strategies to attain and maintain the NAAQS after the public has had an opportunity to comment on them and then the state must submit the proposed SIP revisions to EPA. Once these control measures and strategies are approved by EPA through notice and comment rulemaking, EPA uses the IBR process to make them part of the federally approved SIP. IBR is a method of incorporating material into EPA regulations in the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) by referencing the original document(s) without publishing the full text of the material. In this case, the SIP rules are identified in part 52 (Approval and Promulgation of Implementation Plans), title 40 of the CFR (40 CFR part 52). These rules are approved by EPA with a specific effective date, but are not reproduced in their entirety in 40 CFR part 52. This format allows both EPA and the public to identify which regulations are contained in a given SIP and to help determine whether the state is enforcing those regulations. This format also assists EPA and the public in taking enforcement action, should a state not enforce its SIP-approved regulations. <HD SOURCE="HD2">C. How the State and EPA Update the SIP</HD> The SIP is periodically revised as necessary to address the unique air pollution problems in the state. Therefore, EPA must periodically take action on state SIP submissions containing new and/or revised regulations and other materials; if approved, they become part of the SIP. On May 22, 1997 (62 FR 27968), EPA revised the formatting procedures of 40 CFR part 52 for incorporating by reference federally approved SIP revisions. These procedures include: (1) A revised SIP document for each state that would use the IBR process under the provisions of 1 CFR part 51; (2) a revised mechanism for announcing EPA approval of revisions to an applicable SIP and updating both the document that has gone through the IBR process and the CFR; and (3) a revised format of the “Identification of plan” sections for each applicable subpart in 40 CFR part 52 to reflect these revised IBR procedures. The description of the revised SIP document, IBR procedures, and “Identification of plan” format are discussed in further detail in the May 22, 1997, <E T="04">Federal Register</E> document. <HD SOURCE="HD2">D. How EPA Compiles the SIPs</HD> The federally-approved regulations, source-specific requirements, and nonregulatory provisions (entirely or portions of) submitted by each state agency have been compiled by EPA into a “SIP compilation.” The SIP compilation contains the updated regulations, source-specific requirements, and nonregulatory provisions approved by EPA through previous rulemaking actions in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> . <HD SOURCE="HD2">E. How EPA Organizes the SIP Compilation</HD> Each SIP compilation contains three parts. Part one contains the regulations, part two contains the source-specific requirements, and part three contains nonregulatory provisions. Each state's SIP compilation contains a table for each of the three parts that identifies each SIP-approved regulation, source-specific requirement, and nonregulatory provision. In this action, EPA is publishing the SIP compilation tables that summarize the applicable SIP requirements for Wisconsin and that will be codified at 40 CFR 52.2570. The effective dates in the table indicate the date of the most recent revision to an approved regulation. EPA Regional Offices have the primary responsibility for updating the state SIP compilations and ensuring their accuracy. <HD SOURCE="HD2">F. Where You Can Find a Copy of the SIP Compilation</HD> EPA Region 5 has developed and will maintain the SIP compilation for Wisconsin. A copy of the full text of Wisconsin's regulatory and source-specific SIP compilation will also be maintained at the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA). <HD SOURCE="HD2">G. The Format of the New Identification of Plan Section</HD> In order to better serve the public, EPA revised the organization of the section titled “Identification of plan” at 40 CFR 52.2570 and included additional information to clarify the enforceable elements of the SIP. The revised format does not affect Federal enforceability of the SIP and is consistent with the requirements of section 110(h)(1) of the Clean Air Act (CAA) concerning comprehensive SIP publication. The revised “Identification of plan” section contains five subsections: 1. Purpose and scope 2. Incorporation by reference 3. EPA approved regulations 4. EPA approved source specific requirements 5. EPA approved nonregulatory and quasi-regulatory provisions. <HD SOURCE="HD2">H. When a SIP Revision Becomes Federally Enforceable</HD> All new requirements and revisions to the applicable SIP become federally enforceable as of the effective date of the revisions to paragraph (c), (d), or (e) of the applicable “Identification of plan” section found in each subpart of 40 CFR part 52. <HD SOURCE="HD2">I. The Historical Record of SIP Revision Approvals</HD> To facilitate enforcement of previously approved SIP provisions and provide a smooth transition to the new SIP processing system, EPA will retain the original “Identification of plan” section, previously appearing in the CFR as the first or second section of part 52 for each state subpart. The original Identification of plan section will be moved to § 52.2594 of part 52 for Wisconsin. <HD SOURCE="HD1">II. What EPA Is Doing in This Action</HD> We are revising the format of 40 CFR part 52 “Identification of plan” section for Wisconsin regarding incorporation by reference, by adding § 52.2570(c), (d), and (e), to be consistent with the format described above and in 62 FR 27968 (May 22, 1997). We are adding § 52.2570(b)(1) to further clarify that all SIP revisions listed in § 52.2570(c) and (d), regardless of inclusion in the most recent “update to the SIP compilation,” are federally enforceable under sections 110 and 113 of the CAA as of the effective date of the final rulemaking in which EPA approved the SIP revision. We are adding § 52.2570(b)(2) to certify that the materials provided by EPA at the addresses in paragraph (b)(3) are an exact duplicate of the official state rules/regulations. We are adding § 52.2570(b)(3) to update address and contact information. This action constitutes a recordkeeping and organizational exercise to ensure that all revisions to the state programs that have occurred are accurately reflected in 40 CFR part 52. State SIP revisions are controlled by EPA regulations at 40 CFR part 51. EPA has determined that this action falls under the “good cause” exemption in sections 553(b)(3)(B) and 553(d)(3) of the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) which, upon finding “good cause,” authorizes agencies to dispense with public participation and allows an agency to make a rule effective immediately, thereby avoiding the 30-day delayed effective date otherwise provided for in the APA. This action simply reformats and codifies provisions which are already in effect as a matter of law in Federal and approved state programs. Under section 553(b)(3)(B) of the APA, an agency may find good cause where notice and public procedure are “impractical, unnecessary, or contrary to the public interest.” Public comment is unnecessary for this action because EPA is merely reformatting and codifying existing law. Immediate notice in the CFR benefits the public by removing ou ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 151k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━