Air Plan Approval; Guam; Clean Data Determination for the Piti-Cabras Nonattainment Area for the 2010 1-Hour Sulfur Dioxide National Ambient Air Quality Standard

<RULE> ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY <CFR>40 CFR Part 52</CFR> <DEPDOC>[EPA-R09-OAR-2025-0137; FRL-12752-02-R9]</DEPDOC> <SUBJECT>Air Plan Approval; Guam; Clean Data Determination for the Piti-Cabras Nonattainment Area for the 2010 1-Hour Sulfur Dioxide National Ambient Air Quality Standard</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 on a clean data determination (CDD) for the Piti-Cabras, Guam sulfur dioxide (SO <E T="52">2</E> ) nonattainment area (“Piti-Cabras area”) based on our determination that the area has attained the 2010 1-hour SO <E T="52">2</E> National Ambient Air Quality Standard (NAAQS, “standard,” or “2010 SO <E T="52">2</E> NAAQS”). In designated nonattainment areas where air quality data demonstrate that a NAAQS has been attained, the EPA interprets certain requirements of the Clean Air Act (CAA) as no longer applicable for so long as air quality continues to meet the standard. Under this Clean Data Policy, the EPA may issue a determination of attainment, known as a CDD, that a nonattainment area is attaining the relevant NAAQS. This CDD suspends the obligation to submit certain attainment planning requirements for the Piti-Cabras area for as long as the area continues to attain the 2010 SO <E T="52">2</E> NAAQS or until the area is formally redesignated. This CDD does not constitute redesignation of the area to attainment. This action is being taken under the CAA. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> This rule is effective October 20, 2025. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> The EPA has established a docket for this action under Docket ID No. EPA-R09-OAR-2025-0137. 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">e.g.,</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 availability information. If you need assistance in a language other than English or if you are a person with a disability who needs a reasonable accommodation at no cost to you, please contact the person identified in the <E T="02">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT</E> section. <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Khoi Nguyen, Geographic Strategies and Modeling Section, Planning & Analysis Branch, Air & Radiation Division, EPA Region IX, 75 Hawthorne Street, San Francisco, CA 94105; telephone number: 415-947-4120; email address: <E T="03">nguyen.khoi@epa.gov.</E> </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> Throughout this document, “we,” “us,” and “our” refer to the EPA. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Table of Contents</HD> <EXTRACT> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">I. Proposed Action</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">II. Public Comments and EPA Responses</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">III. Final Action</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">IV. Statutory and Executive Order Reviews</FP> </EXTRACT> <HD SOURCE="HD1">I. Proposed Action</HD> On June 20, 2025, the EPA proposed to determine that the Piti-Cabras area has attained the 2010 SO <E T="52">2</E> NAAQS. <SU>1</SU> <FTREF/> This determination, also known as a CDD, would suspend certain planning requirements for the nonattainment area for as long as the area continues to attain the 2010 SO <E T="52">2</E> NAAQS. <FTNT> <SU>1</SU>  90 FR 26235 (June 20, 2025). </FTNT> As described in the notice of proposed rulemaking, the EPA's Clean Data Policy allows for the suspension of CAA requirements that are specifically designed to help an area achieve attainment for as long as the nonattainment area continues to attain the NAAQS. A final CDD suspends the obligation to submit: an attainment demonstration, reasonably available control measures, including reasonably available control technology (RACM/RACT), a reasonable further progress (RFP) demonstration, emissions limitations and control measures as necessary to provide for attainment, and contingency measures. The remaining CAA 172(c) requirements, namely, the base year emissions inventory and nonattainment new source review (NNSR) requirements, are not suspended. While issuance by the EPA of a final CDD suspends certain attainment planning requirements so long as the area continues to attain the 2010 SO <E T="52">2</E> NAAQS, a final CDD does not constitute a redesignation of an area to attainment of the 2010 SO <E T="52">2</E> NAAQS under section 107(d)(3) of the CAA. After issuance of a final CDD, the area remains designated nonattainment for the 2010 SO <E T="52">2</E> NAAQS until the state formally requests redesignation of the area to attainment, the EPA takes formal action to determine that the area meets CAA requirements for redesignation, and the EPA approves an accompanying state-submitted maintenance plan that ensures the area will continue to meet the NAAQS for the successive 10-year period. <HD SOURCE="HD1">II. Public Comments and EPA Responses</HD> The EPA's proposed action provided a 30-day public comment period. During this period, we received one comment unrelated to this action. <HD SOURCE="HD1">III. Final Action</HD> No comments were submitted that change our assessment as described in our proposed action. Therefore, the EPA is finalizing the CDD for the Piti-Cabras area, the complete description of which can be found at 40 CFR 81.353. <SU>2</SU> <FTREF/> <FTNT> <SU>2</SU>  The nonattainment area consists of “the portion of Guam within a 6.074-km radius centered on UTM Easting 249,601.60 m, and UTM Northing 1,489,602.00 m (UTM Zone 55N).” </FTNT> The EPA's final determination suspends the requirements for an attainment demonstration and certain other associated nonattainment planning requirements for the Piti-Cabras area so long as the area continues to attain the 2010 SO <E T="52">2</E> NAAQS. As indicated in the proposal on this action, a final CDD action suspends certain planning requirements for a CAA part D nonattainment area SIP, including: an attainment demonstration, RACM/RACT, emissions limitations and control measures as necessary to provide for attainment, an RFP plan, and contingency measures. This final action also suspends the EPA's obligation to promulgate a FIP and the sanctions clocks associated with the finding of failure to submit issued on November 3, 2020, <SU>3</SU> <FTREF/> with regard to the attainment demonstration, RACM/RACT, RFP, emissions limitations and control measures as necessary to provide for attainment, and contingency measures. Those elements of the EPA's obligation as to this nonattainment area under the consent decree in <E T="03">Center for Biological Diversity et al.</E> v. <E T="03">Regan,</E> No. 4:24-cv-01900 (N.D. Cal.), doc. 28, paragraphs 1.c-d, 2, are also satisfied by this action. <FTNT> <SU>3</SU>  85 FR 69504 (November 3, 2020). </FTNT> Following issuance of a CDD for the Piti-Cabras area, the State remains obligated to submit the nonattainment planning requirements, including a base year emissions inventory and a showing that the area is covered by an EPA-approved NNSR program. The EPA issued a direct final rule finding complete and approving the base year emissions inventory element of the attainment plan SIP revision for the Piti-Cabras area on July 16, 2025. <SU>4</SU> <FTREF/> The EPA provided a 30-day public notice period and did not receive adverse comments. The EPA also found complete and proposed to approve Guam's NNSR program element on June 18, 2025. <SU>5</SU> <FTREF/> We are finalizing approval of the Guam's NNSR program in an action that is located in the Final Rules section of this <E T="04">Federal Register</E> . Accordingly, with this final CDD, the EPA has now satisfied all of our obligations under the consent decree in <E T="03">Center for Biological Diversity et al.</E> v. <E T="03">Regan,</E> No. 4:24-cv-01900 (N.D. Cal.), doc. 28, paragraphs 1.c-d, 2. Further, the FIP obligation and sanctions clocks triggered by the November 3, 2020 finding of failure to submit will remain suspended as long as the area continues to attain the 2010 SO <E T="52">2</E> NAAQS. <FTNT> <SU>4</SU>  90 FR 31877 (July 16, 2025). </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>5</SU>  90 FR 25984 (June 18, 2025). </FTNT> This final action does not constitute a redesignation of the Piti-Cabras area to attainment of the 2010 SO <E T="52">2</E> NAAQS under section 107(d)(3) of the CAA. The area will remain designated nonattainment for the 2010 SO <E T="52">2</E> NAAQS until such time as the EPA determines that the area meets the CAA requirements for redesignation to attainment and takes further action to redesignate the area. <HD SOURCE="HD1">IV. Statutory and Executive Order Reviews</HD> Additional information about these statutes and Executive orders can be found at <E T="03">https://www.epa.gov/laws-regulations/laws-and-executive-orders.</E> <HD SOURCE="HD2">A. Executive Order 12866: Regulatory Planning and Review and Executive Order 13563: Improving Regulation and Regulatory Review</HD> This action is not a significant regulatory action and was therefore not submitted to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for review. <HD SOURCE="HD2">B. Executive Order 14192: Unleashing Prosperity Through Deregulation</HD> This action is not an Executive ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 16k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━