[Federal Register Volume 64, Number 196 (Tuesday, October 12, 1999)]
[Proposed Rules]
[Pages 55220-55222]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 99-26556]


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ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY

40 CFR Part 52

[CA-232-0176, FRL-6454-7]


Transportation Conformity Budget Adequacy Determination and 
Status of Maintenance Demonstration and Associated Budgets; San 
Francisco Bay Area Ozone Attainment Plan

AGENCY: Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

ACTION: Proposed rule.

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SUMMARY: EPA is today proposing that the motor vehicle emissions 
budgets contained in the 1999 ozone attainment plan for the San 
Francisco Bay Area are adequate for transportation conformity purposes. 
EPA is also proposing that the Bay Area's existing maintenance 
demonstration and associated budgets are no longer applicable and 
should be replaced by the new budgets upon a final determination of 
adequacy. The attainment plan includes a budget of 175.2 tons per day 
(tpd) for VOC and 247.1 tpd for NOX, both for the year 2000. 
If, after public comment, EPA finalizes this adequacy determination of 
the new budgets, and the determination that the maintenance 
demonstration is no longer applicable, the new budgets would apply to 
the attainment year of 2000 and beyond and become the sole 1-hour ozone 
standard VOC and NOX budgets in the Bay Area for 
transportation conformity.


[[Page 55221]]


DATES: Comments on this proposed action must be received in writing by 
November 12, 1999. Comments should be addressed to the contact listed 
below.

ADDRESSES: A copy of the proposed rule is available in the air programs 
section of EPA Region 9's website, http://www.epa.gov/region09/air, and 
the EPA's Office of Mobile Sources' conformity website, http://
www.epa.gov/oms/traq (once there, click on the ``Conformity'' button, 
then look for ``Adequacy Review of SIP Submissions for Conformity''). A 
copy of the attainment plan can be obtained from the Bay Area Air 
Quality Management District's website, http://sparc2.baaqmd.gov/sip/. A 
copy of the plan is also included in the docket for this rulemaking and 
is available for inspection during normal business hours at EPA Region 
9, Planning Office, Air Division, 17th Floor, 75 Hawthorne Street, San 
Francisco, California 94105. A reasonable fee may be charged for 
copying parts of the docket. Please call (415) 744-1249 for assistance.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Celia Bloomfield (415) 744-1249, 
Planning Office (AIR-2), Air Division, EPA Region 9, 75 Hawthorne 
Street, San Francisco, CA 94105.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:

I. The Bay Area's 1999 Ozone Attainment Plan Contains New On-Road 
Motor Vehicle Emissions Budgets (``Attainment Budgets'') for 
Transportation Conformity Purposes

    On August 13, 1999, the California Air Resources Board (CARB) 
submitted to EPA on behalf of the San Francisco Bay Area (Bay Area) a 
plan designed to bring the Bay Area into attainment with the federal 1-
hour national ambient air quality standard (NAAQS) for ozone. This plan 
has an attainment year of 2000. The 2000 attainment year anticipates 
specific emissions levels for on-road motor vehicles: 175.2 tpd for VOC 
and 247.1 tpd for NOX. Upon a final determination of 
adequacy, these emissions levels will become the transportation 
conformity motor vehicle emissions budgets for the Bay Area.
    The role of transportation conformity, a requirement set out in 
section 176(c) of the Clean Air Act, is to ensure that motor vehicle 
emissions from transportation activities will not exceed the levels 
being relied on in the plan to achieve attainment. In other words, 
emissions from the implementation of transportation plans and programs 
must be ``consistent with estimates of emissions from motor vehicles 
and necessary emission reductions contained in the applicable 
implementation plan'' (CAA section 176(c)(2)(A)). Since the 2000 
budgets in the ozone attainment plan are attainment budgets, they will 
apply to conformity determinations for the attainment year 2000 and for 
every year after 2000.

II. The New Attainment Budgets Are Adequate

    The new attainment budgets are based on current motor vehicle 
emissions information and represent the best estimates of motor vehicle 
emissions levels needed for attainment of the federal 1-hour ozone 
standard. EPA believes the budgets meet the criteria for adequacy as 
set out in section 93.118(e)(4) (62 FR 43811, August 15, 1997) and 
should be deemed adequate for transportation conformity purposes.
    There are six criteria for adequacy listed in section 93.118(e)(4). 
The first, a requirement that the budgets be endorsed by the governor 
or his designee and be subject to a State public hearing (section 
93.118(e)(4)(I)), was satisfied by CARB's normal plan approval and 
submittal process. On July 22, 1999, the CARB board held a hearing to 
approve the Bay Area attainment plan. On August 13, 1999, CARB 
officially submitted the plan to EPA with a request from the Governor's 
designee that EPA approve the plan.
    The second criterion requires that prior to plan submittal, there 
be ``consultation among federal, State, and local agencies * * *; full 
implementation plan documentation * * *''; and resolution of EPA's 
comments (section 93.118(e)(4)(ii)). The budgets, which were calculated 
and added to the plan after consultation among federal, State, and 
local agencies and in response to EPA comments, meet EPA's second 
criterion as well.
    In compliance with the third, fourth, and fifth adequacy criteria, 
the motor vehicle emissions budgets are clearly identified and 
precisely quantified (section 93.118(e)(4)(iii)) in Section 4 of the 
submitted attainment plan; the budgets are consistent with the modeling 
results from the attainment assessment, which define the emissions 
levels needed for attainment (section 93.118(e)(4)(iv)); and the 
budgets are not only ``consistent with'' and ``related to the emissions 
inventory and the control measures in the submitted * * * plan,'' 
(section 93.118(e)(4)(v)) but are specifically derived from the motor 
vehicle emissions information projected for the year 2000 taking into 
account emissions reductions that will be achieved by the plan's 
control measures.
    Finally, the sixth criterion relating to revisions of previously 
submitted plans (section 93.118(e)(4)(vi)) does not apply because the 
ozone attainment plan is an initial submission, not a revision to a 
previously submitted control strategy plan for the same Clean Air Act 
purpose and time frame. It is a new attainment plan triggered by EPA's 
redesignation of the Bay Area from maintenance to nonattainment on July 
10, 1998 (63 FR 37258).

III. The 1995 Maintenance Budgets Are No Longer Applicable

    On May 22, 1995, EPA redesignated the Bay Area to attainment and 
approved the Bay Area's maintenance plan, which was submitted as part 
of its redesignation request. 60 FR 27028. Such a plan is required by 
the redesignation provisions of sections 107(d)(3)(E)(iv) and 175A of 
the Act for maintenance areas--areas that are redesignated to 
attainment from nonattainment. The Bay Area is no longer a maintenance 
area. While its maintenance plan was designed to maintain compliance 
with the federal 1-hour ozone standard, the plan failed. During the 
first two years implementing the maintenance plan (1995-1996), the Bay 
Area experienced 43 exceedances and 17 violations of the federal 
standard. As a result, the Bay Area was redesignated back to 
nonattainment on July 10, 1998 (63 FR 37258). Because the Bay Area is 
now a nonattainment area subject to the attainment plan requirements of 
section 172, rather than the maintenance requirements of section 175A, 
we are finding through rulemaking that the maintenance demonstration is 
no longer relevant and is not an applicable requirement under section 
110(l).1 As part of the obsolete maintenance demonstration, 
the maintenance budgets are also no longer an applicable requirement of 
the Act. The maintenance demonstration and associated budgets were not 
eliminated when the Bay Area was redesignated back to nonattainment. 
The maintenance requirements can only be eliminated through rulemaking 
and if the new attainment budgets are deemed adequate. If this adequacy 
determination and determination that the maintenance budgets are no 
longer applicable are finalized, the VOC and NOX 
transportation conformity budgets for the Bay Area contained in the new 
attainment plan submitted by CARB on August 13, 1999 will become the 
only

[[Page 55222]]

applicable 1-hour ozone standard budgets for the Bay Area.
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    \1\ Unlike the maintenance demonstration, the measures approved 
into the SIP as part of the maintenance plan remain in full force 
and effect and cannot be removed from the SIP without equivalent 
replacement because such removal would interfere with attainment 
pursuant to section 110(l).
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IV. Administrative Requirements

A. Executive Order 12866

    The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has exempted this 
regulatory action from Executive Order (E.O.) 12866, Regulatory 
Planning and Review.

B. Executive Order 12875

    Under Executive Order 12875, Enhancing the Intergovernmental 
Partnership, EPA may not issue a regulation that is not required by 
statute and that creates a mandate upon a State, local or tribal 
government, unless the Federal government provides the funds necessary 
to pay the direct compliance costs incurred by those governments, or 
EPA consults with those governments. If EPA complies by consulting, 
Executive Order 12875 requires EPA to provide to the Office of 
Management and Budget a description of the extent of EPA's prior 
consultation with representatives of affected State, local and tribal 
governments, the nature of their concerns, copies of any written 
communications from the governments, and a statement supporting the 
need to issue the regulation. In addition, Executive Order 12875 
requires EPA to develop an effective process permitting elected 
officials and other representatives of State, local and tribal 
governments ``to provide meaningful and timely input in the development 
of regulatory proposals containing significant unfunded mandates.'' 
Today's rule does not create a mandate on State, local or tribal 
governments. The rule does not impose any enforceable duties on these 
entities. Accordingly, the requirements of section 1(a) of E.O. 12875 
do not apply to this rule.

C. Executive Order 13045

    Protection of Children from Environmental Health Risks and Safety 
Risks (62 FR 19885, April 23, 1997), applies to any rule that: (1) Is 
determined to be ``economically significant'' as defined under E.O. 
12866, and (2) concerns an environmental health or safety risk that EPA 
has reason to believe may have a disproportionate effect on children. 
If the regulatory action meets both criteria, the Agency must evaluate 
the environmental health or safety effects of the planned rule on 
children, and explain why the planned regulation is preferable to other 
potentially effective and reasonably feasible alternatives considered 
by the Agency. This rule is not subject to E.O. 13045 because it does 
not involve decisions intended to mitigate environmental health or 
safety risks.

D. Executive Order 13084

    Under Executive Order 13084, Consultation and Coordination with 
Indian Tribal Governments, EPA may not issue a regulation that is not 
required by statute, that significantly or uniquely affects the 
communities of Indian tribal governments, and that imposes substantial 
direct compliance costs on those communities, unless the Federal 
government provides the funds necessary to pay the direct compliance 
costs incurred by the tribal governments, or EPA consults with those 
governments. If EPA complies by consulting, Executive Order 13084 
requires EPA to provide to the Office of Management and Budget, in a 
separately identified section of the preamble to the rule, a 
description of the extent of EPA's prior consultation with 
representatives of affected tribal governments, a summary of the nature 
of their concerns, and a statement supporting the need to issue the 
regulation. In addition, Executive Order 13084 requires EPA to develop 
an effective process permitting elected officials and other 
representatives of Indian tribal governments ``to provide meaningful 
and timely input in the development of regulatory policies on matters 
that significantly or uniquely affect their communities.'' Today's rule 
does not significantly or uniquely affect the communities of Indian 
tribal governments. Accordingly, the requirements of section 3(b) of 
E.O. 13084 do not apply to this rule.

E. Regulatory Flexibility Act

    The Regulatory Flexibility Act of 1990 requires federal agencies to 
identify potentially adverse impacts of federal regulations upon small 
entities. In instances where significant impacts are possible on a 
substantial number of these entities, agencies are required to perform 
a Regulatory Flexibility Analysis (RFA).
    EPA has determined that today's regulation will not have a 
significant impact on a substantial number of small entities. This 
regulation affects federal agencies and metropolitan planning 
organizations, which by definition are designated only for metropolitan 
areas with a population of at least 50,000. These organizations do not 
constitute small entities.
    Therefore, as required under section 605 of the Regulatory 
Flexibility Act, 5 U.S.C. 601 et seq., I certify that this rule will 
not have a significant economic impact on a substantial number of small 
entities.

F. Unfunded Mandates

    Under Section 202 of the Unfunded Mandates Reform Act of 1995 
(``Unfunded Mandates Act''), signed into law on March 22, 1995, EPA 
must prepare a budgetary impact statement to accompany any proposed or 
final rule that includes a Federal mandate that may result in estimated 
annual costs to State, local, or tribal governments in the aggregate; 
or to private sector, of $100 million or more. Under Section 205, EPA 
must select the most cost-effective and least burdensome alternative 
that achieves the objectives of the rule and is consistent with 
statutory requirements. Section 203 requires EPA to establish a plan 
for informing and advising any small governments that may be 
significantly or uniquely impacted by the rule.
    EPA has determined that the approval action promulgated does not 
include a Federal mandate that may result in estimated annual costs of 
$100 million or more to either State, local, or tribal governments in 
the aggregate, or to the private sector. This Federal action approves 
pre-existing requirements under State or local law, and imposes no new 
requirements. Accordingly, no additional costs to State, local, or 
tribal governments, or to the private sector, result from this action.

List of Subjects in 40 CFR Part 52

    Environmental protection, Air pollution control, Hydrocarbons, 
Intergovernmental relations, Nitrogen oxides, Ozone, Volatile organic 
compounds.

    Authority: 42 U.S.C. 7401 et seq.

    Dated: September 27, 1999.
Felicia Marcus,
Regional Administrator, Region IX.
[FR Doc. 99-26556 Filed 10-8-99; 8:45 am]
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