Air Plan Approval; Michigan; Infrastructure SIP Requirements for the 2015 Ozone NAAQS; Michigan State Board Requirements

<RULE> ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY <CFR>40 CFR Part 52</CFR> <DEPDOC>[EPA-R05-OAR-2019-0215; FRL-13010-02-R5]</DEPDOC> <SUBJECT>Air Plan Approval; Michigan; Infrastructure SIP Requirements for the 2015 Ozone NAAQS; Michigan State Board Requirements</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 Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is approving an element of a State Implementation Plan (SIP) submission from Michigan regarding the infrastructure requirements of section 110 of the Clean Air Act (CAA) for the 2015 ozone National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS). The infrastructure requirements ensure that the structural components of each State's air quality management program are adequate to meet CAA requirements. This action pertains to CAA section 110(a)(2)(E)(ii). </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> This direct final rule will be effective January 20, 2026, unless EPA receives adverse comments by December 22, 2025. If adverse comments are received, EPA will publish a timely withdrawal of the direct final rule in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> informing the public that the rule will not take effect. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> Submit your comments, identified by Docket ID No. EPA-R05-OAR-2019-0215 at <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov</E> or via email to <E T="03">langman.michael@epa.gov.</E> For comments submitted at <E T="03">Regulations.gov</E> , follow the online instructions for submitting comments. Once submitted, comments cannot be edited or removed from the docket. EPA may publish any comment received to its public docket. Do not submit electronically any information you consider to be Confidential Business Information (CBI), Proprietary Business Information (PBI), or other information whose disclosure is restricted by statute. Multimedia submissions (audio, video, etc.) must be accompanied by a written comment. The written comment is considered the official comment and should include discussion of all points you wish to make. EPA will generally not consider comments or comment contents located outside of the primary submission ( <E T="03">i.e.</E> on the web, cloud, or other file sharing system). For additional submission methods, please contact the person identified in the <E T="02">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT</E> section. For the full EPA public comment policy, information about CBI, PBI, or multimedia submissions, and general guidance on making effective comments, please visit <E T="03">https://wwww.epa.gov/dockets/commenting-epa-dockets.</E> <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Kelsey Foss, Air and Radiation Division (AR-18J), Environmental Protection Agency, Region 5, 77 West Jackson Boulevard, Chicago, Illinois 60604, (312) 886-6008, <E T="03">foss.kelsey@epa.gov.</E> The EPA Region 5 office is open from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., Monday through Friday, excluding Federal holidays. </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> Throughout this document whenever “we,” “us,” or “our” is used, we mean EPA. <HD SOURCE="HD1">I. Background</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD2">A. What State SIP submission does this rulemaking address?</HD> This rulemaking addresses a March 8, 2019, submission from the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy (Michigan or EGLE) that meets the infrastructure requirements for the 2015 ozone NAAQS. EPA has already acted on all other elements of Michigan's infrastructure SIP for the 2015 ozone NAAQS except for this element pertaining to State boards. <HD SOURCE="HD2">B. Why did the State make this submission?</HD> Whenever EPA promulgates a new or revised NAAQS, CAA section 110(a)(1) requires States to make SIP submissions to provide for the implementation, maintenance, and enforcement of the NAAQS. This particular type of SIP submission is commonly referred to as an “infrastructure SIP.” These submissions must meet the various requirements of CAA section 110(a)(2), as applicable. Due to ambiguity in some of the language of CAA section 110(a)(2), EPA believes that it is appropriate to interpret these provisions in the specific context of acting on infrastructure SIP submissions. EPA has previously provided comprehensive guidance on the application of these provisions through a guidance document for infrastructure SIP submissions and through regional actions on infrastructure submissions. <SU>1</SU> <FTREF/> Unless otherwise noted below, we are following that existing approach in acting on this submission. In addition, in the context of acting on such infrastructure submissions, EPA evaluates a State's SIP revision for facial compliance with statutory and regulatory requirements, not for the State's implementation of its SIP. <SU>2</SU> <FTREF/> EPA has other authority to address any issues concerning a State's implementation of the rules, regulations, consent orders, etc. that comprise its SIP. <FTNT> <SU>1</SU>  EPA explains and elaborates on these ambiguities and its approach to address them in its September 13, 2013, Infrastructure SIP Guidance (available at <E T="03">https://www3.epa.gov/airquality/urbanair/sipstatus/docs/Guidance_on_Infrastructure_SIP_Elements_Multipollutant_FINAL_Sept_2013.pdf</E> ), as well as in numerous agency actions, including EPA's prior action on Michigan's, Illinois', Minnesota's, and Wisconsin's infrastructure SIPs to address the 2008 lead NAAQS (79 FR 27241 (May 13, 2014)). </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>2</SU>  See U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit decision in <E T="03">Montana Environmental Information Center</E> v. <E T="03">EPA,</E> No. 16-71933 (Aug. 30, 2018). </FTNT> <HD SOURCE="HD1">II. What is EPA's analysis of the State's submission?</HD> CAA section 110(a)(2)(E)(ii) requires that each SIP contain provisions that comply with the State board requirements of CAA section 128. Section 128(a) contains two explicit requirements: (1) That any board or body which approves permits or enforcement orders under the CAA shall have at least a majority of members who represent the public interest and do not derive any significant portion of their income from persons subject to permits and enforcement orders under the CAA, and (2) that any potential conflicts of interest by members of such board or body or the head of an executive agency with similar powers be adequately disclosed. EPA did not act on this portion of Michigan's March 8, 2019, SIP submission because Michigan had recently created State boards, <SU>3</SU> <FTREF/> and EPA needed time to assess which rules applied to the boards. These State boards have since been abolished. <SU>4</SU> <FTREF/> <FTNT> <SU>3</SU>  Michigan Public Act 267 of 2018 created the Environmental Rules Review Committee. Public Act 267 is available at <E T="03">https://www.legislature.mi.gov/Bills/Bill?ObjectName=2017-SB-0652.</E> Michigan Public Act 268 of 2018 created the Environmental Permit Review Commission. Public Act 268 is available at <E T="03">https://www.legislature.mi.gov/Bills/Bill?ObjectName=2017-SB-0653.</E> Public Acts 267 and 268 were filed and effective on June 29, 2018. </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>4</SU>  Michigan Executive Order 2024-5, published July 18, 2024, and effective September 17, 2024, abolished the Environmental Rules Review Committee and the Environmental Permit Review Commission. According to Executive Order 2024-5, the authority to hear permit review appeals and to approve permits lies wholly with the Director of EGLE or the Director's designee. Executive Order 2024-5 is available at <E T="03">https://www.michigan.gov/whitmer/news/state-orders-and-directives/2024/07/18/executive-order-2024-5-executive-reorganization.</E> </FTNT> Because Michigan no longer has State boards, CAA section 128(a)(1) does not apply to Michigan. Michigan Civil Service Commission Rule 2-8.3(a)(1) is already contained in Michigan's SIP and fulfills the conflict of interest disclosure requirement of CAA section 128(a)(2). Thus, EPA finds that Michigan's infrastructure SIP meets the requirement of CAA section 110(a)(2)(E)(ii) for the 2015 ozone NAAQS. <HD SOURCE="HD1">III. What action is EPA taking?</HD> EPA is approving Michigan's March 8, 2019, submission as satisfying the requirement of CAA section 110(a)(2)(E)(ii) for the 2015 ozone NAAQS. We are publishing this action without prior proposal because we view this as a noncontroversial amendment and anticipate no adverse comments. However, in the proposed rules section of this <E T="04">Federal Register</E> publication, we are publishing a separate document that will serve as the proposal to approve the State plan if relevant adverse written comments are filed. This rule will be effective January 20, 2026 without further notice unless we receive relevant adverse written comments by December 22, 2025. If we receive such comments, we will withdraw this action before the effective date by publishing a subsequent document that will withdraw the final action. All public comments received will then be addressed in a subsequent final rule based on the proposed action. EPA will not institute a second comment period. Any parties interested in commenting on this action should do so at this time. Please note that if EPA receives adverse comment on an amendment, paragraph, or section of this rule and if that provision may be severed from the remainder of the rule, EPA may adopt as final those provisions of the rule that are not the subject of an adverse comment. If we do not receive any comments, this action will be effective January 20, 2026. <HD SOURCE="HD1">IV. Statutory and Executive Order Reviews</HD> Under the CAA, the Administrator is required to approve a SIP submission that co ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 16k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━