Adequacy Status of Motor Vehicle Emissions Budgets in Submitted PM2.5 Serious Area Plan for South Coast; California |
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Alexis Strauss
Environmental Protection Agency
5 January 2018
[Federal Register Volume 83, Number 4 (Friday, January 5, 2018)]
[Notices]
[Pages 679-680]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2018-00029]
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ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY
[EPA-R09-OAR-2017-0490; FRL-9972-80-Region 9]
Adequacy Status of Motor Vehicle Emissions Budgets in Submitted
PM2.5 Serious Area Plan for South Coast; California
AGENCY: Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
ACTION: Notice of adequacy.
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SUMMARY: The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA or ``Agency'') is
notifying the public that the Agency has found that the motor vehicle
emissions budgets (MVEBs or ``budgets'') for the years 2017 and 2019 in
the 2016 South Coast Serious Area Plan for the 2006 24-hour fine
particulate matter (PM2.5) National Ambient Air Quality
Standards (NAAQS) (``2016 PM2.5 Plan'' or ``Plan'') are
adequate for transportation conformity purposes. The California Air
Resources Board (CARB) submitted the 2016 PM2.5 Plan to the
EPA on April 27, 2017, as a revision to the California State
Implementation Plan (SIP). Upon the effective date of this notice of
adequacy, the Southern California Association of Governments (SCAG) and
the U.S. Department of Transportation must use the adequate budgets in
future transportation conformity analyses.
DATES: This finding is effective January 22, 2018.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Wienke Tax, EPA, Region IX, Air
Division AIR-2, 75 Hawthorne Street, San Francisco, CA 94105-3901;
(415) 947-4192 or tax.wienke@epa.gov.
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: Throughout this document, whenever ``we,''
``us,'' or ``our'' is used, we mean EPA.
Today's notice is simply an announcement of a finding that we have
already made. EPA Region IX sent a letter to CARB on December 19, 2017,
stating that the MVEBs in the 2016 PM2.5 Plan for the
reasonable further progress (RFP) milestone year of 2017 and attainment
year of 2019 are adequate. The finding is available at the EPA's
conformity website: https://www.epa.gov/state-and-local-transportation/adequacy-review-state-implementation-plan-sip-submissions-conformity.
We announced the availability of the Plan and related budgets on the
EPA's conformity website on October 18, 2017. We received no comments
in response to this announcement. The adequate budgets are provided in
the following table:
Adequate Motor Vehicle Emissions Budgets in South Coast 2006 PM2.5 Serious Area Plan
[Annual average tons per day]
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Volatile Directly
Budget Year organic Nitrogen emitted PM2.5
compounds oxides
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2017............................................................ 99 200 21
2019............................................................ 83 169 20
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Transportation conformity is required by CAA section 176(c). The
EPA's Transportation Conformity Rule at 40 CFR part 93, subpart A
requires that transportation plans, transportation improvement
programs, and projects conform to SIPs and establishes the criteria and
procedures for determining whether or not they do. Conformity to a SIP
means that transportation activities will not produce new air quality
violations, worsen existing violations, or delay timely attainment of
the NAAQS.
The criteria we use to determine whether a SIP's motor vehicle
emission budgets are adequate for conformity purposes are outlined in
40 CFR 93.118(e)(4), promulgated on August 15, 1997 (62 FR 43780,
43781-43783). We further described our process for determining the
adequacy of submitted SIP budgets in our July 1, 2004 final rule (69 FR
40004, 40038), and we used the information in these resources in making
our adequacy determination. Please note that an adequacy review is
separate from the EPA's completeness review and should not be used to
prejudge the EPA's ultimate action on the SIP. Even if we find a budget
adequate, the SIP could later be disapproved.
Consistent with the requirements set forth in the Fine Particulate
Matter National Ambient Air Quality Standards: State Implementation
Plan Requirements, Final Rule (81 FR 58010, August 24, 2016)
(``PM2.5 SIP Requirements Rule''), the 2016 PM2.5
Plan contains RFP budgets for 2020, which is the year following the
attainment year. As explained below, we are not taking action on the
2020 budgets at this time.
The Transportation Conformity Rule requires that control strategy
SIPs, including the RFP plans and attainment plans required for Serious
PM2.5 nonattainment areas,\1\ contain MVEBs for direct
PM2.5 and PM2.5 precursors subject to
transportation conformity analyses for each milestone year addressed in
the control strategy.\2\
[[Page 680]]
Under the PM2.5 SIP Requirements Rule, Serious area
PM2.5 attainment plans must define appropriate quantitative
milestones and include projected RFP emission levels for direct
PM2.5 and all PM2.5 plan precursors in each
milestone year. For an area designated nonattainment for the 2006
PM2.5 NAAQS before January 15, 2015, the attainment plan
must contain quantitative milestones to be achieved no later than 3
years after December 31, 2014, and every 3 years thereafter until the
milestone date that falls within 3 years after the applicable
attainment date (40 CFR 51.1013(a)(4)).\3\ As the EPA explained in the
preamble to the PM2.5 SIP Requirements Rule, it is important
to include a post-attainment year quantitative milestone to ensure
that, if the area fails to attain by the attainment date, the EPA can
continue to monitor the area's progress toward attainment while the
state develops a new attainment plan (see 81 FR 58010, 58063-58064,
August 24, 2016).
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\1\ See 40 CFR 93.101 (defining ``control strategy
implementation plan revision'').
\2\ See 40 CFR 93.101 (defining ``motor vehicle emissions
budget''), 93.102(b)(2)(iv) and (v) (establishing applicability of
part 93 requirements to PM2.5 precursor pollutants) and
93.118(a) (requiring that each transportation plan, TIP, or project
not from a conforming transportation plan and TIP be consistent with
the motor vehicle emissions budget(s) in the applicable
implementation plan (or implementation plan submission)).
\3\ See also 81 FR 58010, 58058 and 58063-58064 (August 24,
2016).
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Consistent with the requirements of 40 CFR 51.1013(a)(4), the 2016
PM2.5 Plan identifies December 31, 2017, as the first
quantitative milestone date (i.e., the date 3 years after December 31,
2014). The second quantitative milestone date is December 31, 2020, and
is also the last milestone date identified in the Plan because it falls
within 3 years after the December 31, 2019 attainment date for the
area.\4\ Although this post-attainment year quantitative milestone is a
required element of the Serious area plan, it is not necessary to
demonstrate transportation conformity for 2020 in the submitted SIP or
to use the 2020 budgets in transportation conformity determinations
until such time as the area fails to attain the 2006 PM2.5
NAAQS. Therefore, the EPA is not taking action at this time on the
submitted MVEBs for 2020 in the 2016 PM2.5 Plan.
Additionally, the EPA has not yet started the adequacy process for the
2020 budgets.
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\4\ Under CAA section 188(c)(2), a Serious PM2.5
nonattainment area must attain the PM2.5 NAAQS as
expeditiously as practicable but no later than the end of the tenth
calendar year after the area is designated as nonattainment. Because
the South Coast area was designated as nonattainment for the 2006
PM2.5 NAAQS effective December 14, 2009 (74 FR 58688,
November 13, 2009), the latest permissible attainment date for the
area is December 31, 2019.
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If the EPA were to either find adequate or approve the post-
attainment milestone year MVEBs now, those budgets would have to be
used in transportation conformity determinations that are made after
the effective date of the adequacy finding or approval even if the
South Coast area ultimately attains the PM2.5 NAAQS by the
Serious area attainment date. This would mean that SCAG \5\ would be
required to demonstrate conformity for the post-attainment date
milestone year and all later years addressed in the conformity
determination (e.g., the last year of the metropolitan transportation
plan) to the post-attainment date RFP budgets rather than the budgets
associated with the attainment year for the area (i.e., the budgets for
2019). The EPA does not believe that it is necessary to demonstrate
conformity using these post-attainment year budgets in areas that
either the EPA anticipates will attain by the attainment date or in
areas that attain by the attainment date. As discussed elsewhere in
this notice, the EPA is announcing that it has found adequate the MVEBs
for the first milestone year (2017) and the attainment year (2019) for
the South Coast PM2.5 nonattainment area.
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\5\ SCAG is the Metropolitan Planning Organization for the South
Coast 2006 PM2.5 nonattainment area.
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If and when the EPA determines that the South Coast area has failed
to attain the 2006 PM2.5 NAAQS by the applicable attainment
date, the EPA will begin the MVEB adequacy and approval processes for
the post-attainment year (2020) budgets. If the EPA finds the 2020
budgets adequate or approves them, those budgets will have to be used
in subsequent transportation conformity determinations. The EPA
believes that initiating the process to act on the submitted post-
attainment year MVEBs following a determination that the area has
failed to attain by the Serious area attainment date ensures that
transportation activities will not cause or contribute to new
violations, increase the frequency or severity of any existing
violations, or delay timely attainment or any required interim emission
reductions or milestones in the South Coast PM2.5
nonattainment area, consistent with the requirements of CAA section
176(c)(1)(B).
Authority: 42 U.S.C. 7401 et seq.
Dated: December 20, 2017.
Alexis Strauss,
Acting Regional Administrator, Region IX.
[FR Doc. 2018-00029 Filed 1-4-18; 8:45 am]
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