83 FR 29784 - Call for Information on Adverse Effects of Strategies for Attainment and Maintenance of National Ambient Air Quality Standards

ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY

Federal Register Volume 83, Issue 123 (June 26, 2018)

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Office of Air Quality Planning and Standards (OAQPS), is soliciting information to facilitate the Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee's (CASAC) consideration of any adverse public health, welfare, social, economic, or energy effects which may result from various strategies for attainment and maintenance of national ambient air quality standards (NAAQS).

[Federal Register Volume 83, Number 123 (Tuesday, June 26, 2018)]
[Notices]
[Pages 29784-29785]
From the Federal Register Online  [www.thefederalregister.org]
[FR Doc No: 2018-13718]



[[Page 29784]]

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ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY

[EPA-HQ-OAR-2018-0365; FRL-9979-05-OAR]


Call for Information on Adverse Effects of Strategies for 
Attainment and Maintenance of National Ambient Air Quality Standards

AGENCY: Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

ACTION: Notice; call for information.

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SUMMARY: The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Office of Air 
Quality Planning and Standards (OAQPS), is soliciting information to 
facilitate the Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee's (CASAC) 
consideration of any adverse public health, welfare, social, economic, 
or energy effects which may result from various strategies for 
attainment and maintenance of national ambient air quality standards 
(NAAQS).

DATES: All comments and information submitted in response to this call 
for information should be received by the EPA by October 24, 2018.

ADDRESSES: Submit your comments and related information, identified by 
Docket ID No. EPA-HQ-OAR-2018-0365, to the Federal eRulemaking Portal: 
https://www.regulations.gov.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Ms. Robin Langdon, Office of Air 
Quality Planning and Standards (Mail Code C-439-02), U.S. Environmental 
Protection Agency, Research Triangle Park, NC 27711; telephone number: 
919-541-5695; fax number 919-541-0804; or email: [email protected].

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: 

I. Background Information

    Sections 109(d)(2)(A) and (B) of the Clean Air Act (CAA or the Act) 
require appointment of an independent scientific review committee that 
is charged with periodically reviewing the existing air quality 
criteria and NAAQS and recommending any new standards and revisions of 
existing criteria and standards as may be appropriate. Since the early 
1980s, the requirement for an independent scientific review committee 
has been fulfilled by the CASAC.
    Sections 109(d)(2)(C)(i)-(iii) of the Act additionally require the 
independent scientific review committee to advise the EPA Administrator 
of areas in which additional knowledge is required to appraise the 
adequacy and basis of existing, new, or revised NAAQS; describe the 
research efforts necessary to provide the required information; and 
advise the EPA Administrator on the relative contribution to air 
pollution concentrations of natural as well as anthropogenic activity. 
Section 109(d)(2)(C)(iv) of the Act further requires the independent 
scientific review committee to ``advise the EPA Administrator of any 
adverse public health, welfare, social, economic, or energy effects 
which may result from various strategies for attainment and maintenance 
of such'' NAAQS. As noted in the Administrator's May 9, 2018, 
memorandum, ``Back-to-Basics Process for Reviewing National Ambient Air 
Quality Standards,'' \1\ these topics may include information which is 
not relevant to the standard-setting process,\2\ but they provide 
important policy context for the public, co-regulators, and the EPA.
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    \1\ Available at: https://www.epa.gov/sites/production/files/2018-05/documents/image2018-05-09-173219.pdf.
    \2\ The Supreme Court has held that section 109(b) 
``unambiguously bars cost considerations from the NAAQS-setting 
process.'' Whitman v. Am. Trucking Associations, 531 U.S. 457, 471 
(2001).
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    To facilitate the CASAC's consideration of such effects, the EPA 
requests interested parties to submit information on any adverse public 
health, welfare, social, economic, or energy effects which may result 
from various strategies for attainment and maintenance of existing, 
new, or revised NAAQS for consideration by the CASAC.
    Interested parties are encouraged to identify all relevant 
information, with a particular emphasis on peer-reviewed research 
studies that have been published or accepted for publication and other 
analyses in the following categories: Assessments of the impacts of 
various types of strategies for attainment and maintenance of NAAQS, 
including requirements for stationary sources, area sources, and/or 
mobile sources of emissions; evaluations of the effects of permitting 
requirements, both new source review and prevention of significant 
deterioration requirements, on economic growth and other relevant 
effects listed; examinations of the potential impacts of nonattainment 
status, including the effects on overall economic growth and 
employment; and evaluations of potential impacts on public health, 
public welfare, energy production and consumption, and other social 
effects of interest.
    The EPA also seeks information on inter-pollutant trade-offs from 
strategies to attain and maintain existing, new or revised NAAQS, and 
information on distributional effects, including changes in exposures 
and risk, resulting from alternate attainment strategies for NAAQS, as 
well as other information related to adverse public health, welfare, 
social, economic, or energy effects that may result from attainment of 
existing, new or revised NAAQS. Some aspects of this information may 
also be relevant to the EPA's review of the air quality criteria, which 
section 108(a)(2) of the Act describes as reflecting ``the latest 
scientific knowledge useful in indicating the kind and extent of all 
identifiable effects on public health or welfare which may be expected 
from the presence of such pollutant in the ambient air, in varying 
quantities.'' Section 109(d)(1) of the Act requires that the EPA review 
these criteria periodically. To ensure this statutory requirement is 
met for ozone and other photochemical oxidants, elsewhere in today's 
Federal Register we are announcing initiation of a new periodic review 
of the criteria for ozone and other photochemical oxidants and issuing 
a call for information that would facilitate the EPA's review of these 
criteria.

II. How To Submit Information to the Docket

    Submit information, identified by Docket ID No. EPA-HQ-OAR-2018-
0365, to the Federal eRulemaking Portal: https://www.regulations.gov. 
Follow the online instructions for submissions. Once submitted, 
information cannot be edited or withdrawn. 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 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. The EPA 
will generally not consider comments or comment contents located 
outside of the primary submission (e.g., on the Web, Cloud, or other 
file sharing system). For 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://www2.epa.gov/dockets/commenting-epa-dockets.
    When submitting comments, remember to:
     Identify the action by docket number and other identifying 
information (subject heading, Federal Register date and page number).
     Describe any assumptions and provide any technical 
information and/or data that you used.

[[Page 29785]]

     Provide specific examples to illustrate your concerns, and 
suggest alternatives.
     Explain your views as clearly as possible, avoiding the 
use of profanity or personal threats.
     Make sure to submit your comments by the comment period 
deadline identified.
    When considering submitting CBI, do not submit this information to 
the EPA through www.regulations.gov or email. Clearly mark the part or 
all of the information that you claim to be CBI. For CBI information in 
a disk or CD-ROM that you mail to the EPA, mark the outside of the disk 
or CD-ROM as CBI and then identify electronically within the disk or 
CD-ROM the specific information that is claimed as CBI. In addition to 
one complete version of the comment that includes information claimed 
as CBI, a copy of the comment that does not contain the information 
claimed as CBI must be submitted for inclusion in the public docket. 
Information so marked will not be disclosed except in accordance with 
procedures set forth in 40 Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) part 2.

    Dated: June 12, 2018.
Panagiotis Tsirigotis,
Director, Office of Air Quality Planning and Standards.
[FR Doc. 2018-13718 Filed 6-25-18; 8:45 am]
 BILLING CODE 6560-50-P