Air Plan Approval; IA; Regional Haze State Implementation Plan for the Second Implementation Period

<RULE> ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY <CFR>40 CFR Part 52</CFR> <DEPDOC>[EPA-R07-OAR-2024-0313; FRL-12096-02-R7]</DEPDOC> <SUBJECT>Air Plan Approval; IA; Regional Haze State Implementation Plan for the Second Implementation Period</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 the Regional Haze State Implementation Plan (SIP) for the State of Iowa as satisfying applicable requirements under the Clean Air Act (CAA) and EPA's Regional Haze Rule (RHR) for the program's second implementation period. Iowa's SIP submission addresses the requirement that states must periodically revise their long-term strategies for making reasonable progress towards the national goal of preventing any future, and remedying any existing, anthropogenic impairment of visibility, including regional haze, in mandatory Class I Federal areas. The SIP submission also addresses other applicable requirements for the second implementation period of the regional haze program. The EPA is taking this action pursuant to the CAA. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> This final rule is effective on September 4, 2025. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> The EPA has established a docket for this action under Docket ID No. EPA-R07-OAR-2024-0313. 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) 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 information. <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Bethany Olson, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Region 7 Office, Air Permitting and Planning Branch, 11201 Renner Boulevard, Lenexa, Kansas 66219; telephone number: (913) 551-7905; email address: <E T="03">olson.bethany@epa.gov.</E> </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> Throughout this document “we,” “us,” and “our” refer to EPA. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Table of Contents</HD> <EXTRACT> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">I. What is being addressed in this document?</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">II. Background</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">III. EPA's Response to Comments</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">IV. What action is EPA taking?</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">V. Incorporation by Reference</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">VI. Statutory and Executive Order Reviews</FP> </EXTRACT> <HD SOURCE="HD1">I. What is being addressed in this document?</HD> The EPA is approving Iowa's Regional Haze plan for the second planning period and adding three Iowa source-specific permits into the Iowa SIP submitted on August 15, 2023. The Iowa Department of Natural Resources (IDNR) submitted the plan to satisfy the regional haze program requirements pursuant to CAA sections 169A and 169B and 40 Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) 51.308. As required by section 169A of the CAA, the federal RHR calls for state and federal agencies to work together to improve visibility in 156 national parks and wilderness areas. The rule requires the states, in coordination with the EPA, the National Parks Service (NPS), the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS), the U.S. Forest Service (USFS), and other interested parties, to develop and implement air quality protection plans to reduce the pollution that causes visibility impairment. Visibility impairing pollutants include fine and coarse particulate matter (PM) ( <E T="03">e.g.,</E> sulfates, nitrates, organic carbon, elemental carbon, and soil dust) and their precursors ( <E T="03">e.g.,</E> sulfur dioxide (SO <E T="52">2</E> ), nitrogen oxides (NO <E T="52">X</E> ), and, in some cases, volatile organic compounds (VOC) and ammonia (NH <E T="52">3</E> )). As discussed in further detail in our Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) the EPA finds that Iowa has submitted a Regional Haze plan that meets the Regional Haze requirements for the second planning period. The State's submission and NPRM can be found in the docket for this action. <HD SOURCE="HD1">II. Background</HD> On August 15, 2023, IDNR submitted a revision to the Iowa SIP to address its regional haze obligations for the second implementation period, which runs through 2028. The long-term strategy for Iowa's Regional Haze plan includes emission limits contained in three air construction permits issued to three sources owned by MidAmerican Energy Company (MidAmerican) and submitted by Iowa for incorporation into the SIP in 40 CFR 52.820(d) <E T="03">EPA approved state source-specific requirements.</E> Louisa Generating Station (LGS) permit #05-A-031-P6 contains a SO <E T="52">2</E> emission limit of 800 lb/hr based on a 30-day rolling average for the main boiler. Walter Scott Jr. Energy Center unit 3 (WSEC-3) permit #75-A-357-P9 contains a SO <E T="52">2</E> emission limit of 770 lb/hr based on a 30-day rolling average. Walter Scott Jr. Energy Center unit 4 (WSEC-4) permit #03-A-425-P4 contains a SO <E T="52">2</E> emission limit of 0.1 lb/MMBtu and a NO <E T="52">X</E> emission limit of 0.07 lb/MMBtu. The state's SIP submission requested that the EPA not act on Condition 11 of the permits for LGS and WSEC-3 nor Condition 6 of the permit for WSEC-4, and accordingly those conditions are not included in this action. The full permits are included in appendix E of the state submission in the docket for this action. The State's submission met the public notice requirements in accordance with 40 CFR 51.102. The submission also satisfied the completeness criteria of 40 CFR part 51, appendix V. Iowa made its 2023 Regional Haze SIP submission available for public comment from February 13, 2023, through March 16, 2023. IDNR received and responded to public comments and included the comments and responses to those comments in its submission. On August 2, 2024 (89 FR 63258), the EPA published the NPRM proposing approval of Iowa's SIP submission as satisfying the regional haze requirements for the second planning period contained in the CAA and 40 CFR 51.308. The EPA is now determining that the Iowa Regional Haze SIP submission for the second RHR planning period meets the applicable statutory and regulatory requirements in CAA section 169A and 40 CFR 51.308 and is thus approving Iowa's submission into its SIP. <HD SOURCE="HD1">III. EPA's Response to Comments</HD> The public comment period on the EPA's proposed rule opened August 2, 2024, the date of its publication in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> and closed on September 3, 2024. During this period, the EPA received four sets of comments. One set of comments originated from a group of six conservation organizations: the Sierra Club, National Parks Conservation Association, Coalition to Protect America's National Parks, Interfaith Power and Light, Environmental Law and Policy Center, and Iowa Environmental Council (collectively referred to as “the Conservation Groups” throughout this document). A second set of 88 nearly identical comment letters were submitted from Iowa Sierra Club members (collectively referred to as “Sierra Club members” throughout this document). The remaining two sets of comments were submitted from individual organizations. All the public comments are available in the docket for this final action via Docket ID Number EPA-R07-OAR-2024-0313 on the <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov</E> website. We determined that one comment was not germane to our action, for the following reasons. One commenter expressed opposition to the cultivation of cannabis, asserting general air pollution concerns. The commenter did not provide any tangible connection to the regional haze requirements or the Iowa submission. The EPA acknowledges the commenter's concerns; however, the comment is outside the scope of this action and does not indicate that the EPA's approval of the SIP submission is inconsistent with the CAA. Oversight of cannabis farms is unrelated to this regional haze action. In the rest of this section, the EPA has summarized and provided responses to the adverse comments received on the NPRM. EPA has also considered the comments received in support of the NPRM. Having done so, the EPA is finalizing its approval of the Iowa SIP submission for the RHR second planning period. <E T="03">Comment 1:</E> Iowa Sierra Club Members comment that Iowa is not taking adequate steps to control air pollution from the LGS, WSEC-3, WSEC-4, George Neal North (GNN), and George Neal South (GNS) coal plants. The comments state that under the RHR, IDNR must require cost-effective controls at these plants for both SO <E T="52">2</E> and NO <E T="52">X</E> . The commenters request that the EPA reject Iowa's SIP and promptly issue a strong Federal Implementation Plan (FIP) that will curb haze-causing pollution at its source. The commenters conclude that haze-causing pollutants cause health impacts. <E T="03">Response 1:</E> The EPA disagrees that Iowa has not taken adequate steps to limit haze-causing pollution and that Iowa's second planning period SIP submission must include additional SO <E T="52">2</E> and NO <E T="52">X</E> controls at LGS, WSEC-3, WSEC-4, GNN, and GNS. The CAA and the RHR require states to evaluate and determine the emission reduction measures that are necessary to make reasonable progress towards natural visibility conditions in Class I areas by consid ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 111k characters. 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