Air Plan Approval; GA; Removal of Emissions Statements Requirement and Updates To Permit by Rule

<RULE> ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY <CFR>40 CFR Part 52</CFR> <DEPDOC>[EPA-R04-OAR-2025-0045; FRL-12937-02-R4]</DEPDOC> <SUBJECT>Air Plan Approval; GA; Removal of Emissions Statements Requirement and Updates To Permit by Rule</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 changes to the Georgia State Implementation Plan (SIP) submitted by the Georgia Department of Natural Resources Environmental Protection Division (GA EPD), on June 27, 2024, to revise a source monitoring and reporting regulation by, among other things, removing the requirement for emissions statements in counties formerly designated as nonattainment for ozone and to revise the permit by rule regulation. EPA is approving these revisions pursuant to the Clean Air Act (CAA or Act). </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> This rule is effective November 3, 2025. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> EPA has established a docket for this action under Docket Identification No. EPA-R04-OAR-2025-0045. All documents in the docket are listed on the <E T="03">regulations.gov</E> website. Although listed in the index, some information may not be publicly available, <E T="03">i.e.,</E> Confidential Business Information 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 electronically through <E T="03">www.regulations.gov</E> or in hard copy at the Air Regulatory Management Section, Air Planning and Implementation Branch, Air and Radiation Division, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Region 4, 61 Forsyth Street SW, Atlanta, Georgia 30303-8960. EPA requests that if at all possible, you contact the person listed in the <E T="02">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT</E> section to schedule your inspection. The Regional Office's official hours of business are Monday through Friday 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., excluding Federal holidays. <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Weston Freund, Air Regulatory Management Section, Air Planning and Implementation Branch, Air and Radiation Division, Region 4, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, 61 Forsyth Street SW, Atlanta, Georgia 30303-8960. The telephone number is (404) 562-8773. Mr. Freund can also be reached via electronic mail at <E T="03">freund.weston@epa.gov.</E> </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">I. This Action</HD> EPA is approving changes to the Georgia SIP submitted by the State of Georgia through a letter dated June 27, 2024, to revise a source monitoring and reporting regulation and the permit by rule regulation. <SU>1</SU> <FTREF/> Specifically, the changes address Rules 391-3-1-.02(6)(a), <E T="03">Specific Monitoring and Reporting Requirements for Particular Sources,</E> and 391-3-1-.03(11)(b)7, <E T="03">Coating and/or Gluing Operations.</E> <SU>2</SU> <FTREF/> <FTNT> <SU>1</SU>  On July 9, 2025, EPA received a letter from GA EPD clarifying that the changes to 391-3-1-.03(11)(b)7.(i). do not include the language, “or enforceable as a practical matter limiting the source to below Part 70 or Part 63 major source thresholds.” This phrase was originally submitted to EPA on December 15, 2011, and was subsequently included in a partial withdrawal letter dated January 8, 2019. </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>2</SU>  The June 27, 2024, submittal also contains changes to Rules 391-3-1-.02(1), <E T="03">General Requirement;</E> 391-3-1-.02(2)(nnn), <E T="03">NO</E> <E T="54">X</E> <E T="03">Emissions from Large Stationary Gas Turbines;</E> 391-3-1-.03(1), <E T="03">Construction (SIP) Permit;</E> 391-3-1-.03(6)(j), <E T="03">Construction Permit Exemption for Pollution Control Projects;</E> 391-3-1-.03(8), <E T="03">Permit Requirements;</E> and 391-3-1-.03(13), <E T="03">Emission Reduction Credits.</E> EPA will address these changes in a separate rulemaking. </FTNT> Through a notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM), published on August 21, 2025, (90 FR 40795), EPA proposed to approve the June 27, 2024, changes to Georgia Rules 391-3-1-.02(6)(a), <E T="03">Specific Monitoring and Reporting Requirements for Particular Sources,</E> and 391-3-1-.03(11)(b)7, <E T="03">Coating and/or Gluing Operations.</E> Comments on the August 21, 2025, NPRM were due on or before September 11, 2025. EPA received two comments, one in support and one potentially adverse. EPA addresses the potentially adverse comment in the following section. <HD SOURCE="HD1">II. Response to Comments</HD> EPA summarizes and responds to the potentially adverse comment below. The commenter “recommend[ed] under no circumstance that the rules be changed or plans approved that endanger the air and water quality Georgians have a God given right to have. The governement [ <E T="03">sic</E> ] should not be allowing companies to pollute the air we breathe and the water we drink, and then leave Georgian taxpayer the bill for clean up.” However, it is not clear whether the comment is adverse because the commenter does not explain why the changes EPA proposed to approve to the Georgia SIP in the August 21, 2025, NPRM would “endanger” air or water quality. As explained in the August 21, 2025, NPRM, the change to remove the emissions statement requirement merely removes an emissions reporting requirement that is only applicable in areas designated as “nonattainment” for the ozone NAAQS. As explained in the NPRM, the Atlanta Area was redesignated to “attainment/unclassifiable” for the 2015 8-hour ozone National Ambient Air Quality Standard (NAAQS) in an October 17, 2022, action (87 FR 62733), and no other part of the State is designated “nonattainment” for the 2015 standard or any other NAAQS. Thus, this reporting obligation is no longer required pursuant to the CAA. This change to the SIP to remove the reporting requirement does not impact any air emissions and is not related to water quality regulations. Further, the changes made to the permit by rule regulations are minor and clarifying in nature and do not relax the existing rule. Therefore, EPA is finalizing approval of the changes to the Georgia SIP transmitted in the June 27, 2024, submittal. <HD SOURCE="HD1">III. Incorporation by Reference</HD> In this document, EPA is finalizing regulatory text that includes incorporation by reference. In accordance with requirements of 1 CFR 51.5, and as discussed in Section I of this preamble, EPA is finalizing the incorporation by reference of Rules 391-3-1-.02(6)(a), <E T="03">Specific Monitoring and Reporting Requirements for Particular Sources,</E> and 391-3-1-.03(11)(b)7, <E T="03">Coating and/or Gluing Operations,</E> <SU>3</SU> <FTREF/> state effective on June 19, 2023. EPA has made, and will continue to make, these materials generally available through <E T="03">www.regulations.gov</E> and at the EPA Region 4 Office (please contact the person identified in the “For Further Information Contact” section of this preamble for more information). Therefore, these materials have been approved by EPA for inclusion in the State implementation plan, have been incorporated by reference by EPA into that plan, are fully federally enforceable under sections 110 and 113 of the CAA as of the effective date of the final rulemaking of EPA's approval, and will be incorporated by reference in the next update to the SIP compilation. <SU>4</SU> <FTREF/> <FTNT> <SU>3</SU>  Except that EPA is not proposing to incorporate by reference into the SIP the phrase “or enforceable as a practical matter limiting the source to below Part 70 or Part 63 major source thresholds” within Rule 391-3-1-.03(11)(b)7., <E T="03">Coating and/or Gluing Operations.</E> </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>4</SU>  62 FR 27968 (May 22, 1997). </FTNT> <HD SOURCE="HD1">IV. Final Action</HD> EPA is approving the aforementioned Georgia SIP revision consisting of changes to Rules 391-3-1-.02(6)(a), <E T="03">Specific Monitoring and Reporting Requirements for Particular Sources,</E> and 391-3-1-.03(11)(b)7, <E T="03">Coating and/or Gluing Operations,</E> <SU>5</SU> <FTREF/> state effective June 19, 2023, for the reasons discussed above. <FTNT> <SU>5</SU>  Except that EPA is not proposing to incorporate by reference into the SIP the phrase “or enforceable as a practical matter limiting the source to below Part 70 or Part 63 major source thresholds” within Rule 391-3-1-.03(11)(b)7., <E T="03">Coating and/or Gluing Operations.</E> </FTNT> <HD SOURCE="HD1">V. Statutory and Executive Order Reviews</HD> Under the CAA, the Administrator is required to approve a SIP submission that complies with the provisions of the CAA and applicable Federal regulations. <E T="03">See</E> 42 U.S.C. 7410(k); 40 CFR 52.02(a). Thus, in reviewing SIP submissions, EPA's role is to approve state choices, provided that they meet the criteria of the CAA. Accordingly, this action merely approves state law as meeting Federal requirements and does not impose additional requirements beyond those imposed by state law. For that reason, this action: • Is not a significant regulatory action subject to review by the Office of Management and Budget under Executive Order 12866 (58 FR 51735, October 4, 1993); • Is not subject to Executive Order 14192 (90 FR 9065, February 6, 2025) because SIP actions are exempt from review under Executive Order 12866; • Does not impose an information collection burden under the provisions of the Paperwork Reduction Act (44 U.S.C. 3501 <E T="03">et seq.</E> ); • Is certified as not ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 15k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━