Air Plan Approval; Michigan; Attainment Plan for the Detroit 2010 Sulfur Dioxide Nonattainment Area

<RULE> ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY <CFR>40 CFR Part 52</CFR> <DEPDOC>[EPA-R05-OAR-2022-0976; FRL-10788-02-R5]</DEPDOC> <SUBJECT>Air Plan Approval; Michigan; Attainment Plan for the Detroit 2010 Sulfur Dioxide Nonattainment Area</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 approving the State Implementation Plan (SIP) revision submitted by Michigan on December 20, 2022, and supplemented on February 21, 2023, December 14, 2023, and April 2, 2024, which amends a SIP submission previously submitted to EPA on May 31, 2016, and June 30, 2016, for attaining the 2010 sulfur dioxide (SO <E T="52">2</E> ) primary national ambient air quality standard (NAAQS) for the Detroit SO <E T="52">2</E> nonattainment area. This action follows a prior action which found that Michigan had satisfied emission inventory and new source review (NSR) requirements for this area but had not met requirements under the Clean Air Act (CAA) for the elements that EPA is approving here. This action also follows the promulgation of the 2022 Federal Implementation Plan (FIP) for the Detroit SO <E T="52">2</E> nonattainment area. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> This final rule is effective on June 18, 2025. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> EPA has established a docket for this action under Docket ID No. EPA-R05-OAR-2022-0976. 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">i.e.,</E> Confidential Business Information (CBI), Proprietary Business Information (PBI), 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 either through <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov</E> or at the Environmental Protection Agency, Region 5, Air and Radiation Division, 77 West Jackson Boulevard, Chicago, Illinois 60604. This facility is open from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., Monday through Friday, excluding Federal holidays. We recommend that you telephone Abigail Teener, Environmental Protection Specialist, at (312) 353-7314 before visiting the Region 5 office. <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Abigail Teener, Air and Radiation Division (AR18J), Environmental Protection Agency, Region 5, 77 West Jackson Boulevard, Chicago, Illinois 60604, (312) 353-7314, <E T="03">teener.abigail@epa.gov.</E> </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">I. Background Information</HD> On August 5, 2013 (78 FR 47191), EPA designated the Detroit area within the State of Michigan as nonattainment for the 2010 SO <E T="52">2</E> NAAQS, in conjunction with designating multiple areas in other states as nonattainment. On March 18, 2016 (81 FR 14736), EPA published an action finding that Michigan had failed to submit the required SO <E T="52">2</E> nonattainment plan by the submittal deadline. This finding initiated deadlines under CAA section 179(a) for the potential imposition of 2-to-1 NSR offset and Federal highway funding sanctions. Additionally, under CAA section 110(c), the finding triggered a requirement that EPA promulgate a FIP within two years of the finding unless, by that time, (a) the State had made the necessary complete submittal, and (b) EPA had approved the submittal as meeting applicable requirements. On May 31, 2016, Michigan submitted a Detroit SO <E T="52">2</E> attainment plan and on June 30, 2016, submitted associated final enforceable measures. Michigan's submission of a complete attainment plan terminated the deadlines for imposing sanctions, pursuant to 40 CFR 52.31(d)(5), but it did not terminate EPA's FIP obligation. On March 19, 2021 (86 FR 14827), EPA partially approved and partially disapproved Michigan's SO <E T="52">2</E> plan as submitted in 2016. EPA's March 19, 2021, action approved the enforceable control measures for two facilities, approved the base-year emissions inventory, and affirmed that the NSR requirements for the area had previously been met on December 16, 2013 (78 FR 76064). In the same March 19, 2021, action, EPA disapproved the attainment demonstration, as well as the requirements for meeting reasonable further progress (RFP) toward attainment of the NAAQS, reasonably available control measures/reasonably available control technology (RACM/RACT), and contingency measures. Additionally, EPA disapproved the plan's control measures for two facilities as insufficient to demonstrate attainment. These disapprovals started new sanctions clocks under CAA section 179(a). On January 28, 2022 (87 FR 4501), EPA issued a finding of failure to attain for the Detroit SO <E T="52">2</E> nonattainment area, determining that the area failed to attain the 2010 SO <E T="52">2</E> NAAQS by the applicable attainment date of October 4, 2018, and established a requirement that Michigan submit a revised SIP by January 30, 2023, that provides for expeditious attainment of the NAAQS within the time period specified in CAA sections 179(d)(3) and 172(a)(2). On October 12, 2022 (87 FR 61514), EPA promulgated a FIP for the Detroit SO <E T="52">2</E> nonattainment area, which satisfied EPA's duty to promulgate a FIP for the area under CAA section 110(c) that resulted from the March 18, 2016, finding of failure to submit. While EPA's FIP for the Detroit area met the requirements for SO <E T="52">2</E> nonattainment area plans, the FIP did not relieve Michigan of the previously discussed CAA requirement to submit a plan that provides for attainment of the 2010 SO <E T="52">2</E> NAAQS for the Detroit nonattainment area. On December 20, 2022, Michigan submitted a revised attainment plan for the Detroit SO <E T="52">2</E> nonattainment area mirroring EPA's FIP in order to remedy Michigan's 2016 plan deficiencies specified in EPA's March 19, 2021, rulemaking partially approving and partially disapproving Michigan's SIP. Michigan's revised plan, as submitted on December 20, 2022, depended, in part, upon permits that had not yet been issued but would include limits and associated requirements for the United States Steel Corporation (U.S. Steel), EES Coke Battery (EES Coke), and Dearborn Industrial Generation (DIG) facilities that are no less stringent than those set forth in EPA's FIP, codified at 40 CFR 52.1189. On February 21, 2023, Michigan submitted a clarification letter committing to submit the necessary permits by April 30, 2024. On March 23, 2023 (88 FR 17488), EPA proposed to conditionally approve Michigan's plan, conditioned upon the issuance of and submission for incorporation into the SIP the applicable permits for the U.S. Steel, EES Coke, and DIG facilities. Also on March 23, 2023 (88 FR 17376), EPA issued an interim final determination to stay and defer sanctions in the Detroit SO <E T="52">2</E> nonattainment area based on EPA's proposed conditional approval. In this final action, EPA is finalizing the determination that the conditions articulated in 40 CFR 52.31(d) have been met, thereby terminating the sanctions clocks resulting from EPA's March 19, 2021, partial disapproval of the prior SIP. On December 14, 2023, the State submitted three applicable permits for the U.S. Steel, EES Coke, and DIG facilities. On April 2, 2024, the State submitted the final applicable permit for the DIG facility, along with a request that EPA approve its revised plan. On April 29, 2024, EPA issued a completeness letter, included in the docket for this action, determining that Michigan's submittal had satisfied the completeness criteria set forth at 40 CFR part 51, appendix V and met the requirement for a SIP submittal that provides for expeditious attainment set forth in EPA's January 28, 2022, finding of failure to attain. EPA published a notice of proposed rulemaking on October 3, 2024 (89 FR 80439), proposing to approve Michigan's revised SIP submission, which the State submitted to EPA on December 20, 2022, and supplemented on February 21, 2023, December 14, 2023, and April 2, 2024, for attaining the 2010 SO <E T="52">2</E> NAAQS for the Detroit area and for meeting other nonattainment area planning requirements of CAA sections 110, 172, 179 and 192. EPA proposed approval of Michigan's demonstration that these requirements provide for attainment of the 2010 SO <E T="52">2</E> NAAQS in Detroit. Finally, EPA proposed approval of the other applicable requirements for nonattainment areas, including requirements for RACM/RACT, RFP, and contingency measures. The proposal followed a previous action in which EPA approved emissions inventories for the Detroit area and nonattainment area NSR. <HD SOURCE="HD1">II. Public Comments</HD> EPA received one adverse comment and one partially adverse comment during the comment period on the proposed action. The adverse comments are summarized below along with EPA's responses. <E T="03">Comment:</E> The commenter expresses concern with the compliance timelines, particularly for the U.S. Steel Boilerhouse 2 stack construction, and urges EPA and Michigan to accelerate the timelines. <E T="03">Response:</E> All compliance dates included in Michigan's plan have passed. The latest compliance date was for U.S. Steel Boilerhouse 2 on November 14, 2024, which allowed 90 days for the owner or operator to submit a construction permit application to the State of Michigan, as well as time for the State of Michigan to issue the permit, the owner or operator to send out requests for proposal and award a construction contract and proc ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 31k characters. 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