Air Plan Disapproval; Ohio; E-Check Attestation Provisions

ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY <CFR>40 CFR Part 52</CFR> <DEPDOC>[EPA-R05-OAR-2025-1048; FRL-13020-01-R5]</DEPDOC> <SUBJECT>Air Plan Disapproval; Ohio; E-Check Attestation Provisions</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Proposed rule. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is proposing to disapprove a revision to the Ohio State Implementation Plan (SIP) submitted on July 9, 2025, by the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency (Ohio EPA). The revision, which Ohio EPA submitted pursuant to Ohio Amended Substitute House Bill 54 (“E-Check Ease Act”), includes provisions that would create an alternative to state-run mandatory on-board diagnostic (OBD) inspections with a self-attestation program that allows motorists to self-attest that their vehicles comply with emissions requirements. This approach is inconsistent with statutory and regulatory requirements for Enhanced inspection and maintenance (I/M) programs under the Clean Air Act (CAA) and would interfere with attainment and reasonable further progress toward the 2015 ozone National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS). </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> Comments must be received on or before January 12, 2026. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> Submit your comments, identified by Docket ID No. EPA-R05-OAR-2025-1048 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 to EPA's docket at <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov</E> 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://www.epa.gov/dockets/commenting-epa-dockets.</E> <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Francisco J. Acevedo, Air and Radiation Division (AR18J), Environmental Protection Agency, Region 5, 77 West Jackson Boulevard, Chicago, Illinois 60604, (312) 886-6061, <E T="03">acevedo.francisco@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> The CAA establishes a framework for controlling emissions of ozone precursors in areas that do not attain the NAAQS. Section 182 of the CAA (42 U.S.C. 7511a) requires that certain ozone nonattainment areas implement vehicle I/M programs to identify and repair high-emitting vehicles operating in the nonattainment area. Nonattainment areas classified as Moderate must adopt at least a “Basic” I/M program (CAA section 182(b)(4)), and areas classified as Serious or above must adopt an “Enhanced” I/M program (CAA section 182(c)(3)). Pursuant to the CAA and EPA's corresponding implementing regulations at 40 CFR 51 subpart S, both Basic and Enhanced I/M programs are subject to certain performance standards and program administration requirements, including mandatory OBD vehicle inspections, corrective action and retesting for vehicles that fail inspection, and enforceable program mechanisms to ensure compliance. The Cleveland-Akron-Lorain metropolitan area in northeast Ohio is designated nonattainment for the 2015 ozone NAAQS. The area is classified as a Serious ozone nonattainment area effective January 16, 2025 (89 FR 101901, December 17, 2024). As a result of its classification, Ohio is currently required to implement an Enhanced I/M program meeting all statutory and regulatory requirements for Serious areas. Ohio implements “E-Check”, its SIP-approved vehicle I/M program, in the Cleveland-Akron-Lorain metropolitan area. <SU>1</SU> <FTREF/> E-Check has long been relied upon in Ohio's SIP to provide emission reductions necessary for both reasonable further progress (RFP) and attainment demonstrations for multiple ozone standards. The program consists of a hybrid network that combines state-contracted centralized inspection facilities with a number of decentralized service centers where approximately 880,000 vehicles annually with a gross vehicle weight rating of up to 10,000 pounds undergo OBD-based testing consistent with EPA's I/M regulations at 40 CFR part 51, subpart S. EPA fully approved Ohio's I/M program on April 4, 1995, 60 FR 16989, and approved revisions to the program on January 6, 1997, 62 FR 646. <FTNT> <SU>1</SU>  Under Ohio's E-Check program, Ohio EPA is required to ensure emissions testing is performed in Cuyahoga, Geauga, Lake, Lorain, Medina, Portage, and Summit counties. </FTNT> In March 2025, the Ohio General Assembly enacted the “E-Check Ease Act.” The E-Check Ease Act includes a provision incorporated into Ohio Revised Code (ORC) 3704.14(C)(2) that fundamentally alters the State's I/M framework. The law creates an alternative compliance pathway under which motorists may obtain an “alternative emissions certificate” by signing a self- attestation form declaring, “to the best of their knowledge,” that their vehicle complies with State and Federal emission requirements. Unlike the current E-Check program, this pathway does not involve the direct inspection of the OBD system to check for the proper functioning of the vehicle's emissions control systems and to ensure repairs when needed. It also provides no civil or criminal penalties for submitting a false attestation. The only consequence is rejection of the self-attestation form and a requirement to resubmit it or undergo a standard inspection. The E-Check Ease Act also provides that the addition of the alternative emissions certification to Ohio's E-Check program is not effective until EPA approves a SIP revision submitted by Ohio EPA incorporating this modification of Ohio's I/M program. If EPA approves the modification of Ohio's I/M program, Ohio EPA would be required to amend their regulations governing the E-Check program contained in Ohio Administrative Code (OAC) 3745-26 to include these provisions and submit the amended regulations to EPA as a revision to Ohio's OAC 3745-26 SIP-approved regulations. Accordingly, Ohio EPA developed and submitted a SIP revision on July 9, 2025, requesting EPA approval of the self-attestation option as part of the State's federally enforceable I/M program. Ohio's submission included a demonstration under CAA section 110(l), asserting that the revision would not interfere with attainment or reasonable further progress toward the 2015 ozone NAAQS. Ohio's SIP submission and associated supporting documents are available in the docket for this action, at <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov,</E> Docket ID No. EPA-R05-OAR-2025-1048. <HD SOURCE="HD1">II. EPA's Evaluation of Ohio's SIP Revision</HD> EPA has carefully reviewed Ohio's July 9, 2025, SIP submission requesting approval of an alternative emissions certification process within Ohio's existing I/M program considering the requirements of the CAA, EPA's implementing regulations, and longstanding program guidance. Ohio's July 9, 2025, SIP submission included a copy of the E-Check Ease Act that was signed into law on March 31, 2025. In support of the SIP revision, Ohio also included a demonstration under section 110(l) of the CAA, which prohibits approval of SIP revisions that interfere with attainment or reasonable further progress toward the NAAQS. Ohio's analysis assumed that 100 percent of eligible motorists could use the self-attestation option within one year of implementation. In addition, Ohio EPA provided public notice and an opportunity to comment on the SIP revision and associated CAA section 110(l) demonstration. The State received over 650 comments. Most commenters requested elimination of the E-Check program altogether, while others either supported the self-attestation option as a modernization or opposed it as ineffective and detrimental to air quality. Ohio EPA responded to comments and submitted the public notice and response to comments as part of the SIP submittal. Based on our evaluation, EPA proposes to disapprove the revision because it is inconsistent with Enhanced I/M statutory requirements, EPA's I/M regulations at 40 CFR part 51, subpart S, and the anti-backsliding provision of CAA section 110(l). <HD SOURCE="HD2">A. Elimination of Required OBD Inspections</HD> Section 182(c)(3)(C)(vii) of the CAA explicitly requires Enhanced I/M programs to include “inspection of emission control diagnostic systems.” Similarly, CAA section 202(m)(3) requires I/M program SIPs to “provide for inspection of onboard diagnostic systems.” EPA's I/M regulations at 40 CFR 51.373(g)-(h) further mandate that OBD checks be implemented in all Enhanced I/M areas. The Ohio SIP revision would offer an alternative to OBD inspections with self-attestation by the vehicle owner or lessee, w ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 21k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━