83 FR 19191 - Air Plan Approval; Alaska; Interstate Transport Requirements for the 2012 PM2.5

ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY

Federal Register Volume 83, Issue 85 (May 2, 2018)

The Clean Air Act (CAA) requires each State Implementation Plan (SIP) to contain adequate provisions prohibiting emissions that will have certain adverse air quality effects in other states. On March 10, 2016, the State of Alaska made a submission to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to address these requirements. The EPA is proposing to approve the submission as meeting the requirement that each SIP contain adequate provisions to prohibit emissions that will contribute significantly to nonattainment or interfere with maintenance of the 2012 annual fine particulate matter (PM<INF>2.5</INF>) National Ambient Air Quality Standard (NAAQS).

[Federal Register Volume 83, Number 85 (Wednesday, May 2, 2018)]
[Proposed Rules]
[Pages 19191-19193]
From the Federal Register Online  [www.thefederalregister.org]
[FR Doc No: 2018-09319]


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ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY

40 CFR Part 52

[EPA-R10-OAR-2017-0745; FRL-9977-43--Region 10]


Air Plan Approval; Alaska; Interstate Transport Requirements for 
the 2012 PM2.5 NAAQS

AGENCY: Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

ACTION: Proposed rule.

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SUMMARY: The Clean Air Act (CAA) requires each State Implementation 
Plan (SIP) to contain adequate provisions prohibiting emissions that 
will have certain adverse air quality effects in other states. On March 
10, 2016, the State of Alaska made a submission to the Environmental 
Protection Agency (EPA) to address these requirements. The EPA is 
proposing to approve the submission as meeting the requirement that 
each SIP contain adequate provisions to prohibit emissions that will 
contribute significantly to nonattainment or interfere with maintenance 
of the 2012 annual fine particulate matter (PM2.5) National 
Ambient Air Quality Standard (NAAQS).

DATES: Comments must be received on or before June 1, 2018.

ADDRESSES: Submit your comments, identified by Docket ID No. EPA-R10-
OAR-2017-0745 at https://www.regulations.gov. Follow the online 
instructions for submitting comments. Once submitted, comments cannot 
be edited or removed from Regulations.gov. The EPA may publish any 
comment received to its public docket. Do not submit electronically any 
information you consider to be Confidential Business Information (CBI) 
or other information the disclosure of which 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. The EPA 
will generally not consider comments or comment contents located 
outside of the primary submission (i.e., on the web, cloud, or other 
file sharing system). For

[[Page 19192]]

additional submission methods, the full EPA public comment policy, 
information about CBI or multimedia submissions, and general guidance 
on making effective comments, please visit https://www.epa.gov/dockets/commenting-epa-dockets.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Jeff Hunt, Air Planning Unit, Office 
of Air and Waste (OAW-150), Environmental Protection Agency, Region 10, 
1200 Sixth Ave, Suite 900, Seattle, WA 98101; telephone number: (206) 
553-0256; email address: [email protected].

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: Throughout this document whenever ``we,'' 
``us,'' or ``our'' is used, we mean the EPA. This supplementary 
information section is arranged as follows:

Table of Contents

I. What is the background of this SIP submission?
II. What guidance is the EPA using to evaluate this SIP submission?
III. EPA's review
IV. What action is EPA taking?
V. Statutory and Executive Order Reviews

I. What is the background of this SIP submission?

    This rulemaking addresses a submission from the Alaska Department 
of Environmental Conservation (ADEC), describing its infrastructure SIP 
for the 2012 annual PM2.5 NAAQS, submitted March 10, 2016. 
Specifically, this rulemaking addresses the portion of the submission 
dealing with interstate pollution transport under CAA section 
110(a)(2)(D)(i)(I), otherwise known as the ``good neighbor'' provision. 
The requirement for states to make a SIP submission of this type arises 
from section 110(a)(1) of the CAA. Pursuant to section 110(a)(1), 
states must submit ``within 3 years (or such shorter period as the 
Administrator may prescribe) after the promulgation of a national 
primary ambient air quality standard (or any revision thereof),'' a 
plan that provides for the ``implementation, maintenance, and 
enforcement'' of such NAAQS. The statute directly imposes on states the 
duty to make these SIP submissions, and the requirement to make the 
submissions is not conditioned upon the EPA taking any action other 
than promulgating a new or revised NAAQS. Section 110(a)(2) includes a 
list of specific elements that ``[e]ach such plan'' submission must 
address. The EPA commonly refers to such state plans as 
``infrastructure SIPs.''

II. What guidance is the EPA using to evaluate this SIP submission?

    The EPA highlighted the statutory requirement to submit 
infrastructure SIPs within 3 years of promulgation of a new NAAQS in an 
October 2, 2007, guidance document entitled ``Guidance on SIP Elements 
Required Under Sections 110(a)(1) and (2) for the 1997 8-hour Ozone and 
PM2.5 National Ambient Air Quality Standards'' (2007 
guidance). The most recent relevant document was a memorandum published 
on March 17, 2016, titled ``Information on the Interstate Transport 
``Good Neighbor'' Provision for the 2012 Fine Particulate Matter 
National Ambient Air Quality Standards under Clean Air Act Section 
110(a)(2)(D)(i)(I)'' (memorandum). The memorandum describes the EPA's 
past approach to addressing interstate transport, and provides the 
EPA's general review of relevant modeling data and air quality 
projections as they relate to the 2012 annual PM2.5 NAAQS. 
The memorandum provides information relevant to the EPA Regional office 
review of the CAA section 110(a)(2)(D)(i)(I) ``good neighbor'' 
provision in infrastructure SIPs with respect to the 2012 annual 
PM2.5 NAAQS. This rulemaking considers information provided 
in that memorandum.
    The memorandum also provides states and the EPA Regional offices 
with future year annual PM2.5 design values for monitors in 
the United States based on quality assured and certified ambient 
monitoring data and air quality modeling. The memorandum further 
describes how these projected potential design values can be used to 
help determine which monitors should be further evaluated to 
potentially address whether emissions from other states significantly 
contribute to nonattainment or interfere with maintenance of the 2012 
annual PM2.5 NAAQS at those sites. The memorandum explains 
that the pertinent year for evaluating air quality for purposes of 
addressing interstate transport for the 2012 PM2.5 NAAQS is 
2021, the attainment deadline for 2012 PM2.5 NAAQS 
nonattainment areas classified as Moderate.
    Based on this approach, the potential receptors are outlined in the 
memorandum. Most of the potential receptors are in California, located 
in the San Joaquin Valley or South Coast nonattainment areas. However, 
there is also one potential receptor in Shoshone County, Idaho, and one 
potential receptor in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania. The memorandum 
also indicates that for certain states with incomplete ambient 
monitoring data, additional information including the latest available 
data, should be analyzed to determine whether there are potential 
downwind air quality problems that may be impacted by transported 
emissions.
    This rulemaking considers analysis in Alaska's submission, as well 
as additional analysis conducted by the EPA during review of its 
submission. For more information on how we conducted our analysis, 
please see the technical support document (TSD) included in the docket 
for this action.

III. EPA's Review

    This rulemaking proposes action on the portion of Alaska's March 
10, 2016, SIP submission addressing the good neighbor provision 
requirements of CAA section 110(a)(2)(D)(i)(I). State plans must 
address specific requirements of the good neighbor provisions (commonly 
referred to as ``prongs''), including:

--Prohibiting any source or other type of emissions activity in one 
state from contributing significantly to nonattainment of the NAAQS in 
another state (prong one); and
--Prohibiting any source or other type of emissions activity in one 
state from interfering with maintenance of the NAAQS in another state 
(prong two).

    The EPA has developed a consistent framework for addressing the 
prong one and two interstate transport requirements with respect to the 
PM2.5 NAAQS in several previous federal rulemakings. The 
four basic steps of that framework include: (1) Identifying downwind 
receptors that are expected to have problems attaining or maintaining 
the relevant NAAQS; (2) identifying which upwind states contribute to 
these identified problems in amounts sufficient to warrant further 
review and analysis; (3) for states identified as contributing to 
downwind air quality problems, identifying upwind emissions reductions 
necessary to prevent an upwind state from significantly contributing to 
nonattainment or interfering with maintenance of the relevant NAAQS 
downwind; and (4) for states that are found to have emissions that 
significantly contribute to nonattainment or interfere with maintenance 
of the relevant NAAQS downwind, reducing the identified upwind 
emissions through adoption of permanent and enforceable measures. This 
framework was most recently applied with respect to PM2.5 in 
the Cross-State Air Pollution Rule (CSAPR),

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designed to address both the 1997 and 2006 PM2.5 standards, 
as well as the 1997 ozone standard.\1\
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    \1\ Alaska was not part of the CSAPR rulemaking. The EPA 
approved the Alaska SIP as meeting the CAA section 
110(a)(2)(D)(i)(I) requirements for the 1997 ozone and 1997 
PM2.5 NAAQS on October 15, 2008 (73 FR 60955) and the 
2006 PM2.5 NAAQS on August 4, 2014 (79 FR 45103).
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    ADEC's submission focused mainly on emissions inventories, 
geographic factors, and prevailing meteorological conditions to 
demonstrate that sources in Alaska are unlikely to significantly 
contribute to nonattainment or interfere with maintenance of the NAAQS 
in other states. ADEC evaluated emissions inventories by source 
category for direct PM2.5, as well as the precursors 
nitrogen oxides (NOX) and sulfur dioxide (SO2). 
ADEC noted that emissions of NOX in Alaska are small in 
comparison to national levels. Data from the 2011 National Emissions 
Inventory (NEI) presented in the submission show that total 
NOX emissions in Alaska are approximately 0.9 percent of 
national emissions. Similarly, data from the 2011 NEI show that total 
SO2 emissions in Alaska are approximately 0.4 percent of 
national emissions. With respect to direct PM2.5, ADEC noted 
that anthropogenic sources account for only 9 percent of Alaskan 
emissions, with the majority of PM2.5 emissions occurring 
due to natural wildfires. ADEC also highlighted the fact that 
approximately 600 miles of mountainous terrain in Canada's Province of 
British Columbia separate the southeastern border of Alaska from the 
nearest state, Washington. The highest emissions of regulated air 
pollutants occur even further away from the contiguous 48 states in the 
Municipality of Anchorage (1,435 miles from Seattle, WA) and the 
Fairbanks North Star Borough (2,244 miles from Seattle, WA). Lastly, 
ADEC stated that weather patterns make long range transport of air 
pollutants from Alaska to the 48 contiguous states, and Hawaii, 
unlikely. Wind patterns emanate from the western Gulf of Alaska and 
travel inland towards the east into Northern Canada. For these reasons, 
ADEC concluded that Alaska does not contribute to nonattainment or 
interfere with maintenance of the 2012 PM2.5 NAAQS in any 
other state.
    Alaska developed and submitted its technical analysis before March 
17, 2016, when, as discussed earlier, the EPA released a memorandum 
with updated modeling projections for 2017 and 2025 annual 
PM2.5 design values meant to assist states in development of 
2012 PM2.5 NAAQS interstate transport SIPs. As discussed in 
the TSD for this action, we used the information in the 2016 memorandum 
and supplemental information, as discussed below, and came to the same 
conclusion as the state. It is reasonable to conclude that emissions 
from Alaska do not significantly contribute to nonattainment or 
interfere with maintenance of the 2012 PM2.5 NAAQS in any 
other state.
    In our evaluation, potential downwind nonattainment and maintenance 
receptors were identified in other states. EPA evaluated these 
potential receptors to determine first if, based on review of relevant 
data and other information, there would be downwind nonattainment or 
maintenance problems, and if so, whether Alaska is likely to contribute 
to such problems in these areas. After reviewing air quality reports, 
modeling results, designation letters, designation technical support 
documents, attainment plans and other information for these areas, we 
are proposing to approve the Alaska SIP as meeting CAA section 
110(a)(2)(i)(I) interstate transport requirements for the 2012 
PM2.5 NAAQS.

IV. What action is EPA taking?

    The EPA is proposing to approve a portion of Alaska's March 10, 
2016, submission certifying that the current Alaska SIP is sufficient 
to meet the interstate transport requirements of CAA section 
110(a)(2)(D)(i)(I), specifically prongs one and two, as set forth 
above. The EPA is requesting comments on the proposed approval.

V. Statutory and Executive Order Reviews

    Under the CAA, the Administrator is required to approve a SIP 
submission that complies with the provisions of the CAA and applicable 
federal regulations. 42 U.S.C. 7410(k); 40 CFR 52.02(a). Thus, in 
reviewing SIP submissions, the 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 Orders 12866 (58 
FR 51735, October 4, 1993) and 13563 (76 FR 3821, January 21, 2011);
     Is not an Executive Order 13771 (82 FR 9339, February 2, 
2017) regulatory action because SIP approvals are exempted under 
Executive Order 12866;
     Does not impose an information collection burden under the 
provisions of the Paperwork Reduction Act (44 U.S.C. 3501 et seq.);
     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 et seq.);
     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 an economically significant regulatory action based 
on health or safety risks subject to Executive Order 13045 (62 FR 
19885, April 23, 1997);
     Is not a significant regulatory action subject to 
Executive Order 13211 (66 FR 28355, May 22, 2001);
     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 CAA; and
     Does not provide EPA with the discretionary authority to 
address, as appropriate, disproportionate human health or environmental 
effects, using practicable and legally permissible methods, under 
Executive Order 12898 (59 FR 7629, February 16, 1994).
    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).

List of Subjects in 40 CFR Part 52

    Environmental protection, Air pollution control, Incorporation by 
reference, Intergovernmental relations, Particulate matter, Reporting 
and recordkeeping requirements.

    Dated: April 23, 2018.
Chris Hladick,
Regional Administrator, Region 10.
[FR Doc. 2018-09319 Filed 5-1-18; 8:45 am]
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