Maryland: Final Approval of State Underground Storage Tank Program Revisions, Codification, and Incorporation by Reference

<RULE> ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY <CFR>40 CFR Part 282</CFR> <DEPDOC>[EPA-R03-UST-2025-0091; FRL 12797-02-R3]</DEPDOC> <SUBJECT>Maryland: Final Approval of State Underground Storage Tank Program Revisions, Codification, and Incorporation by Reference</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Direct final rule. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> Pursuant to the Solid Waste Disposal Act of 1965, as amended (commonly known as the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA)), the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is taking direct final action to approve revisions to the State of Maryland's Underground Storage Tank (UST) program submitted by Maryland (Maryland or State). This action also codifies EPA's approval of Maryland's state program and incorporates by reference (IBR) those provisions of Maryland's regulations and statutes that EPA has determined meet the requirements for approval. The provisions will be subject to EPA's inspection and enforcement authorities under sections 9005 and 9006 of RCRA Subtitle I and other applicable statutory and regulatory provisions. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> This rule is effective November 10, 2025, unless EPA receives significant negative comments opposing this action by October 14, 2025. If EPA receives significant negative comments opposing this action, EPA will publish a timely withdrawal in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> informing the public that the rule will not take effect. The incorporation by reference of certain publications listed in the regulations is approved by the Director of the Federal Register, as of November 10, 2025, in accordance with 5 U.S.C. 552(a) and 1 Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) part 51. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> Submit your comments by one of the following methods: 1. <E T="03">Federal eRulemaking Portal: https://www.regulations.gov.</E> Follow the on-line instructions for submitting comments. 2. <E T="03"> Email: uybarreta.thomas@epa.gov</E> . <E T="03">Instructions:</E> Direct your comments to Docket ID No. EPA-R03-UST-2025-0091. EPA's policy is that all comments received will be included in the public docket without change and may be available online at <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov,</E> including any personal information provided, unless the comment includes information claimed to be Confidential Business Information (CBI) or other information whose disclosure is restricted by statute. Do not submit information that you consider to be CBI or otherwise protected through <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov,</E> or email. The Federal website, <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov,</E> is an “anonymous access” system, which means EPA will not know your identity or contact information unless you provide it in the body of your comment. If you send an email comment directly to EPA without going through <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov,</E> your email address will be automatically captured and included as part of the comment that is placed in the public docket and made available on the internet. If you submit an electronic comment, EPA recommends that you include your name and other contact information in the body of your comment. If EPA cannot read your comment due to technical difficulties, and cannot contact you for clarification, EPA may not be able to consider your comment. Electronic files should avoid the use of special characters, any form of encryption, and be free of any defects or viruses. EPA encourages electronic submittals, but if you are unable to submit electronically, please reach out to the EPA contact person listed in this document for assistance. If you need assistance in a language other than English, or you are a person with disabilities who needs a reasonable accommodation at no cost to you, please reach out to the EPA contact person by email or phone. <E T="03">Docket:</E> All documents in the docket are listed in the <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov</E> index. Although listed in the index, some information might not be publicly available, <E T="03">e.g.,</E> CBI or other information whose disclosure is restricted by statute. Publicly available materials are available electronically through <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov.</E> <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Thomas UyBarreta, (215) 814-2953, <E T="03">uybarreta.thomas@epa.gov,</E> RCRA Programs Branch; Land, Chemicals, and Redevelopment Division, EPA Region 3, Four Penn Center, 1600 John F. Kennedy Blvd., (Mailcode 3LD30), Philadelphia, PA 19103. </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">I. Approval of Revisions to Maryland's Underground Storage Tank Program</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD2">A. Why are revisions to state programs necessary?</HD> Section 9004 of RCRA authorizes EPA to approve state underground storage tank (UST) programs to operate in lieu of the Federal UST program. EPA may approve a state program if the state demonstrates, pursuant to section 9004(a), 42 U.S.C. 6991c(a), that the state program includes the elements set forth at section 9004(a)(1) through (9), 42 U.S.C. 6991c(a)(1) through (9), and provides for adequate enforcement of compliance with UST standards (section 9004(a), 42 U.S.C. 6991c(a)). Additionally, EPA must find, pursuant to section 9004(b), 42 U.S.C. 6991c(b), that the state program is “no less stringent” than the Federal program in the elements set forth at section 9004(a)(1) through (7), 42 U.S.C. 6991c(a)(1) through (7). States such as Maryland that have received final UST program approval from EPA under section 9004 of RCRA must, in order to retain such approval, revise their approved programs when the controlling Federal or state statutory or regulatory authority is changed and EPA determines a revision is required. In 2015, EPA revised the Federal UST regulations and determined that states must revise their UST programs accordingly. <HD SOURCE="HD2">B. What decisions has EPA made in this rule?</HD> On June 28, 2024, in accordance with 40 CFR 281.51, Maryland submitted a complete program revision application seeking EPA approval for its UST program revisions (State Application). Maryland's revisions correspond to the EPA final rule published on July 15, 2015 (80 FR 41566), which revised the 1988 UST regulations and the 1988 state program approval (SPA) regulations. As required by 40 CFR 281.20, the State Application contains the following: a transmittal letter requesting program approval; a description of the program and operating procedures; a demonstration of the State's procedures to ensure adequate enforcement; a Memorandum of Agreement outlining the roles and responsibilities of EPA and the implementing agency; an Attorney General's statement in accordance with 40 CFR 281.24 certifying to applicable State authorities; and copies of all relevant State statutes and regulations. EPA has reviewed the State Application and determined that the revisions to Maryland's UST program are no less stringent than the corresponding Federal requirements in subpart C of 40 CFR part 281, and that Maryland's program provides for adequate enforcement of compliance (40 CFR 281.11(b)). Therefore, EPA grants Maryland final approval to operate its UST program with the changes described in the State Application, and as outlined below in section I.G. of this preamble. <HD SOURCE="HD2">C. What is the effect of this approval decision?</HD> This action does not impose additional requirements on the regulated community because the regulations being approved by this rule are already effective in Maryland, and they are not changed by this action. This action merely approves the existing State regulations as meeting the Federal requirements and renders them federally enforceable. <HD SOURCE="HD2">D. Why is EPA using a direct final rule?</HD> EPA is publishing this direct final rule concurrently with a proposed rulemaking because EPA views this as a noncontroversial action and anticipates no significant negative comment. EPA is providing an opportunity for public comment now. <HD SOURCE="HD2">E. What happens if EPA receives comments that oppose this action?</HD> Along with this direct final rule, EPA is publishing a separate document in the “Proposed Rules” section of this <E T="04">Federal Register</E> that serves as the proposal to approve the State's UST program revisions, providing opportunity for public comment. If EPA receives significant negative comments that oppose this approval, EPA will publish a timely withdrawal in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> informing the public that the rule will not take effect. EPA will not make any further decision on the approval of the State program changes until it considers any significant negative comment received during the comment period. EPA will address any significant negative comment in a later final rule. You may not have another opportunity to comment. If you want to comment on this approval, you must do so at this time. <HD SOURCE="HD2">F. For what has Maryland previously been approved?</HD> On June 30, 1992, EPA finalized a rule approving Maryland's UST program, effective July 30, 1992 (57 FR 29034), to operate in lieu of the Federal program. <HD SOURCE="HD2">G. What changes is EPA approving with this action?</HD> On June 28, 2024, in accordance with 40 CFR 281.51, Maryland submitted a complete application for final approval of its UST program revisions adopted and effective on June 13, 2022. EPA has reviewed Maryland's UST program requirements and determined that such requirements are no less stringent than the Federal regulations and that the criteria set forth in 40 CFR part 281, subpart C are met. As part of the State Application, the Attorney General ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 44k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━