Air Plan Approval; North Carolina; Regional Haze

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is proposing to approve a revision to North Carolina's regional haze State Implementation Plan (SIP), submitted by the North Carolina Department of Environment and Natural Resources (NC DENR) on October 31, 2014, that relies on an alternative to Best Available Retrofit Technology (BART) to satisfy BART requirements for electric generating units (EGUs) formerly subject to the Clean Air Interstate Rule (CAIR). EPA also proposes to find that final approval of this SIP revision would correct the deficiencies that led to EPA's limited disapproval of the State's regional haze SIP on June 7, 2012, and proposes to convert EPA's June 27, 2012, limited approval to a full approval. This submittal addresses the requirements of the Clean Air Act (CAA or Act) and EPA's rules that require states to prevent any future, and remedy any existing, manmade impairment of visibility in mandatory Class I areas caused by emissions of air pollutants from numerous sources located over a wide geographic area (also referred to as the regional haze program). States are required to assure reasonable progress toward the national goal of achieving natural visibility conditions in Class I areas.