Air Plan Approval; Ohio; 2015 Ozone Moderate Reasonably Available Control Technology SIP

ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY <CFR>40 CFR Part 52</CFR> <DEPDOC>[EPA-R05-OAR-2022-0352; EPA-R05-OAR-2023-0093; FRL-9995-01-R5]</DEPDOC> <SUBJECT>Air Plan Approval; Ohio; 2015 Ozone Moderate Reasonably Available Control Technology SIP</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 proposing to approve revisions to Ohio Administrative Code (OAC) Chapters 3745-21 and 3745-110 into the Ohio State Implementation Plan (SIP). The Ohio Environmental Protection Agency (“Ohio” or “Ohio EPA”) submitted these revisions on March 30, 2022, and supplemented the submittal on February 1, 2023, and August 28, 2023. EPA is proposing to approve parts of OAC Chapters 3745-21 and 3745-110 as satisfying some of the Moderate Volatile Organic Compound (VOC) Reasonably Available Control Technology (RACT) and Nitrogen Oxide (NO <E T="52">x</E> ) RACT requirements for the Cleveland, OH nonattainment area (Cuyahoga, Geauga, Lake, Lorain, Medina, Portage, and Summit counties) under the 2015 ozone National Ambient Air Quality Standard (“NAAQS” or “standard”). Finally, EPA is proposing to approve OAC rule 3745-15-03, submitted by Ohio on February 9, 2023, and supplemented on December 1, 2023, and December 30, 2024. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> Comments must be received on or before September 29, 2025. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> Submit your comments, identified by Docket ID No. EPA-R05-OAR-2022-0352 and EPA-R05-OAR-2023-0093 at <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov,</E> or via email to <E T="03">arra.sarah@epa.gov.</E> For comments submitted at <E T="03">Regulations.gov</E> , follow the online instructions for submitting comments. Once submitted, comments cannot be edited or removed from the docket. EPA may publish any comment received to its public docket. Do not submit to EPA's docket at <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov</E> any information you consider to be Confidential Business Information (CBI), Proprietary Business Information (PBI), 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, please contact the person identified in the <E T="02">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT</E> section. For the full EPA public comment policy, information about CBI, PBI, 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> Katie Mullen, Air and Radiation Division (AR-18J), Environmental Protection Agency, Region 5, 77 West Jackson Boulevard, Chicago, Illinois 60604, (312) 353-3490, <E T="03">mullen.kathleen@epa.gov.</E> The EPA Region 5 office is open from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., Monday through Friday, excluding Federal holidays. </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> Throughout this document whenever “we,” “us,” or “our” is used, we mean EPA. <HD SOURCE="HD1">I. What is EPA proposing?</HD> EPA is proposing to approve parts of OAC Chapters 3745-21 and 3745-110 as satisfying some of the Moderate VOC RACT requirements of 182(b)(2) and NO <E T="52">X</E> RACT requirements of 182(f) of the Clean Air Act (CAA), respectively, for the Cleveland, OH nonattainment area under the 2015 ozone standard. EPA is also proposing to approve OAC 3745-21-11 and 3745-110-03(J) as SIP strengthening measures for the Cleveland nonattainment area. EPA is proposing to approve OAC Chapter 3745-21 and 3745-110-03(J) as SIP strengthening for Ashtabula County and the Ohio portion of the Cincinnati, OH-KY maintenance area (Butler, Clermont, Hamilton, and Warren counties) under the 2015 ozone standard. Ohio submitted these SIP revisions to the EPA on March 30, 2022, and supplemented the submittal on February 1, 2023, and August 28, 2023. Finally, EPA is proposing to approve OAC rule 3745-15-03, submitted as part of Ohio's SIP revision on February 9, 2023, and supplemented on December 1, 2023, and December 30, 2024. <HD SOURCE="HD1">II. What is the background for this action?</HD> VOCs and NO <E T="52">X</E> contribute to the production of ground-level ozone, or smog, which harms human health and the environment. EPA defines RACT as the lowest emission limit that a particular source is capable of meeting by the application of control technology that is reasonably available considering technological and economic feasibility. Sections 182(b)(2) and 182(f) of the CAA require States to implement RACT in ozone nonattainment areas classified as Moderate (and higher). Specifically, these areas are required to implement RACT for all major sources of VOC and NO <E T="52">X</E> and for all VOC sources covered by a Control Techniques Guideline (CTG). A CTG provides recommendations to inform State, local, and tribal air agencies as to what constitutes RACT for categories of VOC sources. Air agencies can use the recommendations in the CTG to inform their own determination as to what constitutes RACT. If there are no sources covered by a certain CTG within a nonattainment area, a State may submit a negative declaration in place of regulatory requirements to apply RACT for that category of sources. EPA's SIP Requirements Rule for the 2008 ozone NAAQS indicates that States may meet RACT through the establishment of new or more stringent requirements that meet RACT control levels, through a certification that previously adopted RACT controls for a prior ozone NAAQS continue to represent adequate RACT control levels for the 2008 ozone NAAQS, or with a combination of these two approaches. See 80 FR 12264, 12278-79 (March 6, 2015). As previously stated, a State may submit a negative declaration in instances where there are no sources covered by a particular CTG. EPA's SIP Requirements Rule for the 2015 ozone NAAQS retains the existing general 2008 RACT requirements for purposes of the 2015 ozone NAAQS. See 83 FR 63007 (December 6, 2018). On June 4, 2018 (83 FR 25776), EPA designated the Cleveland, OH nonattainment area and the Ohio portion of the Cincinnati, OH-KY nonattainment area as Marginal nonattainment areas for the 2015 ozone NAAQS. The Cleveland, OH nonattainment area consists of Cuyahoga, Geauga, Lake, Lorain, Medina, Portage, and Summit counties. The Ohio portion of the Cincinnati, OH-KY nonattainment area consists of Butler, Clermont, Hamilton, and Warren counties. EPA also designated Ashtabula County as attainment/unclassifiable for the 2015 ozone NAAQS. <SU>1</SU> <FTREF/> On April 13, 2022 (87 FR 21849), pursuant to section 181(b)(2) of the CAA, EPA proposed to determine that the Cleveland, OH nonattainment area failed to attain the 2015 ozone NAAQS by the August 3, 2021, Marginal area attainment deadline and thus proposed to reclassify the area from Marginal to Moderate nonattainment. In that action, EPA proposed to establish January 1, 2023, as the due date for the State to submit all Moderate area nonattainment plan SIP requirements applicable to newly reclassified areas. The Ohio portion of the Cincinnati OH-KY 2015 ozone nonattainment area attained the 2015 ozone standard based on the 2019-2021 design value, and the area was redesignated to attainment effective June 9, 2022 (87 FR 35104). This action addresses the Moderate area VOC and NO <E T="52">X</E> RACT SIP submissions for the Cleveland nonattainment area under the 2015 ozone standard. Also, this action addresses VOC SIP strengthening measures for Ashtabula County and the Ohio portion of the Cincinnati maintenance area under the 2015 ozone standard. <FTNT> <SU>1</SU>  While Ashtabula County was designated as attainment/unclassifiable under the 2015 ozone NAAQS, it was designated nonattainment as part of the Cleveland area under previous ozone standards. Approval of revisions to OAC 3745-21 will not relax VOC RACT provisions applicable to Ashtabula County under previous ozone standards. </FTNT> <HD SOURCE="HD1"> III. What is EPA's evaluation of Ohio's VOC and NO <E T="52">X</E> RACT submittal? </HD> EPA has previously determined that Chapter 3745-21 VOC regulations have met RACT for requirements associated with past ozone NAAQS and incorporated them into the Ohio SIP. See actions dated September 8, 2017 (82 FR 42451), September 30, 2020 (85 FR 68758), and March 23, 1995 (60 FR 15235). For certain source categories, Ohio is certifying the previously adopted RACT regulations and controls contained in OAC Chapter 3745-21 for VOCs continue to satisfy RACT requirements under the 2015 ozone NAAQS. Ohio has also adopted new or more stringent RACT regulations in OAC Chapter 3745-21 for VOCs and in OAC Chapter 3745-110 for NO <E T="52">X</E> . The revisions to OAC Chapter 3745-21 VOC regulations apply to both the Cleveland, OH nonattainment area and the Ohio portion of the Cincinnati OH-KY maintenance area under the 2015 ozone NAAQS, and to Ashtabula County. The new OAC Chapter 3745-110 NO <E T="52">X</E> regulations apply only to the Cleveland, OH 2015 ozone nonattainment area. <HD SOURCE="HD2">A. Certifying Existing Sections of OAC Chapter 3745-21 as VOC RACT for Cleveland</HD> EPA approved OAC Chapter 3745-21 into Ohio's SIP under previous ozone standards. EPA performed a RACT due diligence analysis which can be found in the technical support document (TSD)  <SU>2</SU> <FTREF/> and is describ ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 32k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━