Effluent Limitations Guidelines and Standards for the Steam Electric Power Generating Point Source Category-Initial Notification Date Extension

<RULE> ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY <CFR>40 CFR Part 423</CFR> <DEPDOC>[EPA-HQ-OW-2009-0819; FRL- 8794.3-02-OW]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 2040-AG48</RIN> <SUBJECT>Effluent Limitations Guidelines and Standards for the Steam Electric Power Generating Point Source Category—Initial Notification Date Extension</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Direct final rule. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (the EPA or Agency) is taking direct final action to extend the date for existing steam electric power plants to decide whether to submit a notice of planned participation (NOPP) for the permanent cessation of coal combustion subcategory in the 2024 Supplemental Steam Electric Reconsideration Rule (“2024 rule”). </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> This rule is effective on December 1, 2025 without further notice, unless the EPA receives adverse comment by November 3, 2025. If the EPA receives adverse comment, the agency will publish a timely withdrawal in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> informing the public that this direct final rule will not take effect. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> You may send comments, identified by Docket ID No. EPA-HQ-OW-2009-0819, by any of the following methods: <E T="03">Federal eRulemaking Portal: https://www.regulations.gov/</E> (our preferred method). Follow the online instructions for submitting comments. <E T="03">Mail:</E> U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, EPA Docket Center, Office of Water, Office of Science and Technology, Docket, Mail Code 28221T, 1200 Pennsylvania Avenue NW, Washington, DC 20460. <E T="03">Hand Delivery or Courier:</E> EPA Docket Center, WJC West Building, Room 3334, 1301 Constitution Avenue NW, Washington, DC 20004. The Docket Center's hours of operations are 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., Monday through Friday (except Federal Holidays). <E T="03">Instructions:</E> All submissions received must include the Docket ID No. for this rulemaking. Comments received may be posted without change to <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov,</E> including personal information provided. For detailed instructions on sending comments and additional information on the rulemaking process, see the “Public Participation” heading of the <E T="02">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION</E> section of this document. <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Richard Benware, Engineering and Analysis Division Office of Water (Mail Code 4303T), Environmental Protection Agency, 1200 Pennsylvania Avenue NW, Washington, DC 20460; telephone number: 202-566-1369; email address: <E T="03">benware.richard@epa.gov</E> . Information about the 2024 rule is available online at: <E T="03">https://www.epa.gov/eg/steam-electric-power-generating-effluent-guidelines-2024-final-rule</E> . </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Table of Contents</HD> <EXTRACT> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">I. Why is the EPA using a direct final rule?</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2"> II. Does this action apply to me? </FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">III. What is the Agency's authority for taking this action?</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">IV. Background</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">V. What action is the EPA taking?</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">VI. Statutory and Executive Order Reviews</FP> </EXTRACT> <HD SOURCE="HD1">I. Why is the EPA using a direct final rule?</HD> The EPA is taking direct final action because the agency views this as a noncontroversial action and anticipates no adverse comment because the rule extends the date for existing steam electric power plants to submit a NOPP in the 2024 rule's (89 FR 40198, May 9, 2024) subcategory for electric generating units (EGUs) permanently ceasing coal combustion by December 31, 2034, from December 31, 2025, to December 31, 2031. This direct final rule does not otherwise amend 40 CFR part 423 in any way. In the “Proposed Rules” section of this issue of the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> , however, the EPA is publishing a separate document that will serve as the proposed rulemaking to extend the initial notification date if adverse comments are received on this direct final rule. The EPA will not institute a second comment period on this action. Any parties interested in commenting must do so at this time. For further information about commenting on this rule, see the <E T="02">ADDRESSES</E> and <E T="02">DATES</E> sections of this document. If the EPA receives adverse comment on this direct final rule, it will publish a timely withdrawal in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> informing the public that this direct final rule will not take effect. The EPA would address all public comments in any subsequent final rule based on the proposed rulemaking. <HD SOURCE="HD1">II. Does this action apply to me?</HD> Entities potentially regulated by this action include: <GPOTABLE COLS="3" OPTS="L2,nj,tp0,i1" CDEF="s50,r150,24"> <TTITLE> </TTITLE> <CHED H="1">Category</CHED> <CHED H="1">Example of regulated entity</CHED> <CHED H="1">North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) code</CHED> <ROW> <ENT I="01">Industry</ENT> <ENT> Electric Power Generation Facilities—Electric Power Generation Electric Power Generation Facilities—Fossil Fuel Electric Power Generation This table is not intended to be exhaustive, but rather provides a guide for readers regarding entities likely to be regulated by this action. This table includes the types of entities that the EPA is now aware could potentially be regulated by this action. Other types of entities not included could also be regulated. To determine whether your entity is regulated by this action, you should carefully examine the applicability criteria found in 40 CFR 423.10 (Applicability). If you have questions regarding the applicability of this action to a particular entity, consult the person listed in the <E T="02">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT</E> section. <HD SOURCE="HD1">III. What is the Agency's authority for taking this action?</HD> The statutory authority for this rule is the same as that relied upon for the 2024 rule: Federal Water Pollution Control Act, 33 U.S.C. 1251 <E T="03">et seq.,</E> including Clean Water Act sections 301; 304(b), (c), (e), and (g); 306; 307; 308 and 501(a); 33 U.S.C. 1311, 1314(b), 1314(c), 1314(e), 1314(g), 1316, 1317, 1318, and 1361(a). The statutory authority for the rulemaking procedures followed in this action is Administrative Procedure Act (APA) section 553(b)(B), 5 U.S.C. 553(b)(B). The EPA finds good cause to forego notice-and-comment rulemaking as unnecessary because the Agency does not anticipate adverse comments on this limited deadline extension. However, if the EPA receives adverse comments, it will withdraw this direct final rule and respond to comments as indicated in the proposed rule published in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> contemporaneously with this action. <HD SOURCE="HD1">IV. Background</HD> The EPA promulgated the most recent iteration of the Supplemental Steam Electric Effluent Limitations Guidelines and Standards in 2024. In the 2024 rule, the EPA established a subcategory for EGUs permanently ceasing coal combustion by December 31, 2034. For these EGUs, less stringent limitations and standards apply for discharges of pollutants found in flue gas desulfurization wastewater, bottom ash transport water, and combustion residual leachate (CRL) than limitations applicable to non-closing or non-repowering sources in this source category. These less stringent limitations and standards are the same as the limitations and standards previously applicable under the 2020 Steam Electric Reconsideration Rule (85 FR 64650, October 13, 2020). As there were no nationally applicable limitations and standards for CRL prior to 2024, the subcategory left in place the requirement for permitting authorities to develop case-by-case technology-based effluent limitations using their best professional judgment, and it established mercury and arsenic limitations based on chemical precipitation after retirement of the plant. In order to participate in this subcategory, facilities had to submit a NOPP to their permitting authority or control authority by December 31, 2025, and subsequently submit annual progress reports on the steps taken to achieve permanent cessation of coal combustion. The NOPP notifies the permitting authority or the control authority of the plant's intent to opt into the 2024 rule's subcategory for sources that anticipate closure or repowering. Stakeholders, including grid operators, grid reliability experts, trade associations, and utilities, have raised concerns that a significant number of facilities need more time to understand how their operations fit within a changing landscape of local and regional demand that is untethered from rapidly approaching compliance timelines crafted under different demand assumptions used in the 2024 rule. This includes, among other decisions, whether to avail themselves of the compliance pathway for EGUs seeking to retire or convert to alternative fuel sources by December 31, 2034. <HD SOURCE="HD1">V. What action is the EPA taking?</HD> Based on the recent discussions with electric utility trade associations and other stakeholders suggesting that there are likely additional EGUs seeking more time to decide whether to provide notice of intent to voluntarily cease coal combustion by December 31, 2034, and that these EGUs need additional time to make this decision in light of surging electricity demand and corresponding concerns related to energy availability across the country, the EPA is extending the NOPP filing date in 40 CFR 423.19(h) from December 31, 2025, to December 31, 2031. This direct final rule does not change any other d ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 17k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━