[Federal Register Volume 73, Number 101 (Friday, May 23, 2008)]
[Proposed Rules]
[Pages 30029-30030]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: E8-11605]


=======================================================================
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY

40 CFR Parts 52 and 81

[EPA-R09-OAR-2006-0306; FRL-8570-7]


Approval and Promulgation of Implementation Plans; Designation of 
Areas for Air Quality Planning Purposes; State of California; PM-10; 
Revision of Designation; Redesignation of the San Joaquin Valley Air 
Basin PM-10 Nonattainment Area to Attainment; Approval of PM-10 
Maintenance Plan for the San Joaquin Valley Air Basin; Approval of 
Commitments for the East Kern PM-10 Nonattainment Area; Extension of 
Public Comment Period

AGENCY: Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

ACTION: Proposed rule; extension of public comment period.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

SUMMARY: EPA is extending the public comment period for the proposed 
rule entitled ``Approval and Promulgation of Implementation Plans; 
Designation of Areas for Air Quality Planning Purposes; State of 
California; PM-10; Revision of Designation; Redesignation of the San 
Joaquin Valley Air Basin PM-10 Nonattainment Area to Attainment; 
Approval of PM-10 Maintenance Plan for the San Joaquin Valley Air 
Basin; Approval of Commitments for the East Kern PM-10 Nonattainment 
Area.'' The proposed rule was published on April 25, 2008 (73 FR 
22307). The State of California has since provided technical 
corrections to the motor vehicle emissions budgets in the 2007 San 
Joaquin Valley PM-10 Maintenance Plan that EPA is proposing to approve. 
EPA believes the technical corrections are minor and do not impact 
other aspects of the April 25, 2008 proposal. EPA is extending the 
public comment period for the proposed rule until June 10, 2008 in 
order to provide the public with the opportunity to consider these 
technical corrections.

DATES: The public comment period for this proposed rule is extended 
until June 10, 2007.

ADDRESSES: Submit your comments, identified by docket number EPA-R09-
OAR-2006-0306, by one of the following methods:
    (1) Federal eRulemaking Portal: http://www.regulations.gov.
    (2) E-mail: [email protected].
    (3) Mail or deliver: Doris Lo (AIR-2), U.S. Environmental 
Protection Agency Region IX, 75 Hawthorne Street, San Francisco, CA 
94105-3901.
    Instructions: All comments will be included in the public docket 
without change and may be made available online at http://www.regulations.gov, including any personal information provided, 
unless the comment includes Confidential Business Information (CBI) or 
other information whose disclosure is restricted by statute. 
Information that you consider CBI or otherwise protected should be 
clearly identified as such and should not be submitted through the 
http://www.regulations.gov or e-mail. http://www.regulations.gov is an 
anonymous access system, and EPA will not know your identity or contact 
information unless you provide it in the body of your comment. If you 
send e-mail directly to EPA, your e-mail address will be automatically 
captured and included as part of the public comment. If EPA cannot read 
your comment due to technical difficulties and cannot contact you for 
clarification, EPA may not be able to consider your comment.
    Docket: The index to the docket for this action is available 
electronically at http://www.regulations.gov and in hard copy at EPA 
Region IX, 75 Hawthorne Street, San Francisco, California. While

[[Page 30030]]

all documents in the docket are listed in the index, some information 
may be publicly available only at the hard copy location (e.g., 
copyrighted material), and some may not be publicly available in either 
location (e.g., CBI). To inspect the hard copy materials, please 
schedule an appointment during normal business hours with the contact 
listed directly below.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Doris Lo, EPA Region IX, (415) 972-
3959, [email protected].

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: On April 21, 2008 the Regional Administrator 
signed a proposed rule entitled ``Approval and Promulgation of 
Implementation Plans; Designation of Areas for Air Quality Planning 
Purposes; State of California; PM-10; Revision of Designation; 
Redesignation of the San Joaquin Valley Air Basin PM-10 Nonattainment 
Area to Attainment; Approval of PM-10 Maintenance Plan for the San 
Joaquin Valley Air Basin; Approval of Commitments for the East Kern PM-
10 Nonattainment Area.'' This rule was published on April 25, 2008 (73 
FR 22307) and, among other things, proposed to approve county by county 
subarea motor vehicle emissions budgets (MVEB) in the 2007 San Joaquin 
Valley PM-10 Maintenance Plan (2007 Plan) for the San Joaquin Valley 
Air Basin (SJVAB) PM-10 nonattainment area \1\ for the years 2005 and 
2020. See 73 FR 22307, 22315-22317, Table 4. The California Air 
Resources Board (CARB) used its mobile source emission model, 
EMFAC2007, to estimate the direct particulate matter of ten microns or 
less (PM-10) emissions and oxides of nitrogen (NOX) 
emissions for the MVEBs.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \1\ The nonattainment area includes the entire counties of San 
Joaquin, Fresno, Kings, Madera, Merced, Stanislaus and Tulare and 
part of Kern County.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    CARB has provided EPA with technical corrections to the 2020 MVEBs 
for Merced, San Joaquin, Stanislaus and Tulare counties in the 2007 
Plan. See the May 13, 2008 letter to Mr. Wayne Nastri from James N. 
Goldstene. As discussed in the letter, the MVEBs for these four 
counties were incorrectly calculated because the input processor for 
the EMFAC2007 emissions model used the wrong travel activity data for 
2020. The correct MVEBs are shown in revised Table 4 below, which 
replaces Table 4 in the proposed rule at 73 FR 22316-22317:

    Table 4.--Motor Vehicle Emissions Subarea Budgets (Tons per Day) San Joaquin Valley Air Basin 2007 Plan *
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                               2005                            2020
                     County                      ---------------------------------------------------------------
                                                       PM-10            NOX            PM-10            NOX
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Fresno..........................................            13.5            59.2            16.1            23.2
Kern **.........................................            12.1            88.3            14.7            39.5
Kings...........................................             3.1            16.7             3.6             6.8
Madera..........................................             3.6            13.9             4.7             6.5
Merced..........................................             6.2            39.2             6.4            12.9
San Joaquin.....................................             9.1            42.6            10.6            17.0
Stanislaus......................................             5.6            29.7             6.7            10.8
Tulare..........................................             7.3            25.1             9.4            10.9
                                                 ---------------------------------------------------------------
    Total.......................................            60.5           314.7            72.2          127.6
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
* The budgets are based on attainment and maintenance of the 24-hour PM-10 NAAQS. The annual standard was
  revoked on December 18, 2006. See 71 FR 61144.
** MVEBs in Table 4 are only for the SJVAB portion of Kern County.

    The difference between the 2020 budgets found in the 2007 Plan and 
the 2020 budgets provided in the May 13, 2008 letter are small and 
Valley-wide result in no change in total PM-10 emissions and an 
increase of only 0.2 tons per day in NOX emissions. EPA 
believes that the changes in the budgets do not impact the maintenance 
demonstration in the 2007 Plan because they are small. Therefore these 
technical corrections have no effect on EPA's preliminary conclusion 
that the subarea 2020 MVEBs for Merced, San Joaquin, Stanislaus and 
Tulare counties are approvable (73 FR 22316-22317) or on any other 
aspects of the proposed rule.
    EPA is extending the public comment period for the proposed rule 
until June 10, 2008 in order to provide the public with the opportunity 
to consider these technical corrections.

    Dated: May 15, 2008.
Wayne Nastri,
Regional Administrator, Region 9.
 [FR Doc. E8-11605 Filed 5-22-08; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 6560-50-P