Air Plan Approval; Rhode Island; Decommissioning of Stage II Vapor Recovery Systems

<RULE> ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY <CFR>40 CFR Part 52</CFR> <DEPDOC>[EPA-R01-OAR-2024-0188; FRL-12928-02-R1]</DEPDOC> <SUBJECT>Air Plan Approval; Rhode Island; Decommissioning of Stage II Vapor Recovery Systems</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 a State Implementation Plan (SIP) revision submitted by the State of Rhode Island. This revision removes requirements for Stage II vapor recovery equipment at gasoline dispensing facilities (GDFs). This revision also includes minor updates to Stage I vapor recovery regulatory amendments. The intended effect of this action is to approve Rhode Island's revised vapor recovery regulations. This action is being taken in accordance with the Clean Air Act. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> This rule is effective on December 22, 2025. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> EPA has established a docket for this action under Docket Identification No. EPA-R01-OAR-2024-0188. 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">i.e.,</E> 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 at <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov</E> or at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, EPA Region 1 Regional Office, Air and Radiation Division, 5 Post Office Square—Suite 100, Boston, MA. EPA requests that if at all possible, you contact the contact listed in the <E T="02">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT</E> section to schedule your inspection. <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Ayla Martinelli, Air Quality Branch, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, EPA Region 1, 5 Post Office Square—Suite 100, (Mail code 5-MI), Boston, MA 02109-3912, tel. (617) 918-1057, email: <E T="03">martinelli.ayla@epa.gov.</E> </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> Throughout this document whenever “we,” “us,” or “our” is used, we mean EPA. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Table of Contents</HD> <EXTRACT> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">I. Background and Purpose</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">II. Final Action</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">III. Incorporation by Reference</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">IV. Statutory and Executive Order Reviews</FP> </EXTRACT> <HD SOURCE="HD1">I. Background and Purpose</HD> On August 14, 2025 (90 FR 39139), EPA published a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) for the State of Rhode Island. The NPRM proposed approval of the removal of Stage II vapor recovery requirements at GDFs, as well as minor updates to Stage I vapor recovery regulations. The formal SIP revision was submitted by Rhode Island on February 24, 2025. The rationale for EPA's proposed action is explained in the NPRM and will not be restated here. No public comments were received on the NPRM. <HD SOURCE="HD1">II. Final Action</HD> EPA is approving Rhode Island's February 24, 2025, SIP revision to Air Pollution Control Regulation (APCR) No. 11, <E T="03">Petroleum Liquids Marketing and Storage,</E> as a revision to the Rhode Island SIP. <HD SOURCE="HD1">III. Incorporation by Reference</HD> In this rule, the EPA is finalizing regulatory text that includes incorporation by reference. In accordance with requirements of 1 CFR 51.5, the EPA is finalizing the incorporation by reference of Rhode Island's amended APCR No. 11. described in the amendments to 40 CFR part 52 set forth below. The EPA has made, and will continue to make, these documents generally available through <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov</E> and at the EPA Region 1 Office (please contact the person identified in the <E T="02">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT</E> 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>1</SU> <FTREF/> <FTNT> <SU>1</SU>  62 FR 27968 (May 22, 1997). </FTNT> <HD SOURCE="HD1">IV. Statutory and Executive Order Reviews</HD> Under the Clean Air Act, the Administrator is required to approve a SIP submission that complies with the provisions of the Clean Air Act and applicable Federal regulations. 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 Clean Air Act. 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 Orders 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 having a significant economic impact on a substantial number of small entities under the Regulatory Flexibility Act (5 U.S.C. 601 <E T="03">et seq.</E> ); • Does not contain any unfunded mandate or significantly or uniquely affect small governments, as described in the Unfunded Mandates Reform Act of 1995 (Pub. L. 104-4); • Does not have federalism implications as specified in Executive Order 13132 (64 FR 43255, August 10, 1999); • Is not subject to Executive Order 13045 (62 FR 19885, April 23, 1997) because it approves a state program; • Is not a significant regulatory action subject to Executive Order 13211 (66 FR 28355, May 22, 2001); and • Is not subject to requirements of Section 12(d) of the National Technology Transfer and Advancement Act of 1995 (15 U.S.C. 272 note) because application of those requirements would be inconsistent with the Clean Air Act. In addition, the SIP is not approved to apply on any Indian reservation land or in any other area where EPA or an Indian tribe has demonstrated that a tribe has jurisdiction. In those areas of Indian country, the rule does not have tribal implications and will not impose substantial direct costs on tribal governments or preempt tribal law as specified by Executive Order 13175 (65 FR 67249, November 9, 2000). The Congressional Review Act, 5 U.S.C. 801 <E T="03">et seq.,</E> as added by the Small Business Regulatory Enforcement Fairness Act of 1996, generally provides that before a rule may take effect, the agency promulgating the rule must submit a rule report, which includes a copy of the rule, to each House of the Congress and to the Comptroller General of the United States. EPA will submit a report containing this action and other required information to the U.S. Senate, the U.S. House of Representatives, and the Comptroller General of the United States prior to publication of the rule in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> . A major rule cannot take effect until 60 days after it is published in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> . This action is not a “major rule” as defined by 5 U.S.C. 804(2). Under section 307(b)(1) of the Clean Air Act, petitions for judicial review of this action must be filed in the United States Court of Appeals for the appropriate circuit by January 20, 2026. Filing a petition for reconsideration by the Administrator of this final rule does not affect the finality of this action for the purposes of judicial review nor does it extend the time within which a petition for judicial review may be filed, and shall not postpone the effectiveness of such rule or action. This action may not be challenged later in proceedings to enforce its requirements. (See section 307(b)(2).) <LSTSUB> <HD SOURCE="HED">List of Subjects in 40 CFR Part 52</HD> Environmental protection, Air pollution control, Carbon monoxide, Incorporation by reference, Intergovernmental relations, Lead, Nitrogen dioxide, Ozone, Particulate matter, Reporting and recordkeeping requirements, Sulfur oxides, Volatile organic compounds. </LSTSUB> <HD SOURCE="HED">Authority:</HD> 42 U.S.C. 7401 <E T="03">et seq.</E> <SIG> <DATED>Dated: October 30, 2025.</DATED> <NAME>Mark Sanborn,</NAME> Regional Administrator, EPA Region 1. </SIG> For the reasons stated in the preamble, the Environmental Protection Agency amends part 52 of chapter I, title 40 of the Code of Federal Regulations to read as follows: <HD SOURCE="HED">PART 52—APPROVAL AND PROMULGATION OF IMPLEMENTATION PLANS</HD> <REGTEXT TITLE="40" PART="52"> 1. The authority citation for part 52 continues to read as follows: <HD SOURCE="HED">Authority:</HD> 42 U.S.C. 7401 <E T="03">et seq.</E> </REGTEXT> <SUBPART> <HD SOURCE="HED">Subpart OO—Rhode Island</HD> </SUBPART> <REGTEXT TITLE="40" PART="52"> 2. In § 52.2070(c), amend the table by revising the entry “Air Pollution Control Regulation 11” to read as follows: <SECTION> <SECTNO>§ 52.2070 </SECTNO> <SUBJECT> Identification of plan.</SUBJECT> <STARS/> (c) * * * <GPOTABLE COLS="5" OPTS="L1,i1" CDEF="s50,r50,12,r100,r100"> <TTITLE>EPA-Approved Rhode Island Regulations</TTITLE> <CHED H="1">State citation</CHED> <CHED H="1">Title/subject</CHED> <CHED H="1">State effective d ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 11k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━