[Federal Register Volume 77, Number 166 (Monday, August 27, 2012)]
[Notices]
[Pages 51798-51800]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2012-21034]


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

ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY

[EPA-HQ-OAR-2008-0699; FRL-9721-6]


First Draft Documents Related to the Review of the National 
Ambient Air Quality Standards for Ozone

AGENCY: Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

ACTION: Notice of extension of comment period.

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

SUMMARY: The EPA is announcing an extension of the public comment 
period for the first draft assessment documents titled, Health Risk and 
Exposure Assessment for Ozone, First External Review Draft; Welfare 
Risk and Exposure Assessment for Ozone, First External Review Draft; 
and Policy Assessment for the Review of the Ozone National Ambient Air 
Quality Standards: First External Review Draft. The Agency is extending 
the comment period by 31 days to provide stakeholders and the public 
adequate time to conduct appropriate analysis and prepare meaningful 
comments on these first draft assessment documents. The original 
comment period was to end on September 11, 2012. The extended comment 
period will now close on October 12, 2012.

[[Page 51799]]


DATES: Comments should be submitted on or before October 12, 2012.

ADDRESSES: Submit your comments, identified by Docket ID No. EPA-HQ-
OAR-2008-0699, by one of the following methods:
     www.regulations.gov: Follow the on-line instructions for 
submitting comments.
     Email: Comments may be sent by electronic mail (email) to 
[email protected], Attention Docket ID No. EPA-HQ-OAR-2008-0699.
     Fax: Fax your comments to 202-566-9744, Attention Docket 
ID No. EPA-HQ-OAR-2008-0699.
     Mail: Send your comments to: Air and Radiation Docket and 
Information Center, Environmental Protection Agency, Mailcode: 2822T, 
1200 Pennsylvania Ave. NW., Washington, DC 20460, Attention Docket ID 
No. EPA-HQ-OAR-2008-0699.
     Hand Delivery or Courier: Deliver your comments to: EPA 
Docket Center, 1301 Constitution Ave. NW., Room 3334, Washington, DC. 
Such deliveries are only accepted during the Docket's normal hours of 
operation, and special arrangements should be made for deliveries of 
boxed information.

    Instructions: Direct your comments to Docket ID No. EPA-HQ-OAR-
2008-0699. The EPA's policy is that all comments received will be 
included in the public docket without change and may be made available 
online at www.regulations.gov, including any personal information 
provided, unless the comment includes information claimed to be 
Confidential Business Information (CBI) or other information whose 
disclosure is restricted by statute. Do not submit information that you 
consider to be CBI or otherwise protected through www.regulations.gov 
or email. The www.regulations.gov Web site is an ``anonymous access'' 
system, which means EPA will not know your identity or contact 
information unless you provide it in the body of your comment. If you 
send an email comment directly to EPA without going through 
www.regulations.gov, your email address will be automatically captured 
and included as part of the comment that is placed in the public docket 
and made available on the Internet. If you submit an electronic 
comment, EPA recommends that you include your name and other contact 
information in the body of your comment and with any disk or CD-ROM you 
submit. 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. Electronic files should avoid the use of special 
characters, any form of encryption, and be free of any defects or 
viruses.
    Docket: All documents in the docket are listed in the 
www.regulations.gov index. Although listed in the index, some 
information is not publicly available, e.g., CBI or other information 
whose disclosure is restricted by statute. Certain other material, such 
as copyrighted material, will be publicly available only in hard copy. 
Publicly available docket materials are available either electronically 
in www.regulations.gov or in hard copy at the Air Docket in the EPA 
Docket Center, EPA West, Room 3334, 1301 Constitution Ave. NW., 
Washington, DC. This Docket Facility is open from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 
p.m. Monday through Friday, excluding legal holidays. The Docket 
telephone number is 202-566-1742; fax 202-566-9744.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: For questions related to the draft 
document titled, Health Risk and Exposure Assessment for Ozone, First 
External Review Draft (EPA-452/P-12-001; July 2012), please contact Ms. 
Karen Wesson, Office of Air Quality Planning and Standards (Mail code 
C504-02), U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Research Triangle Park, 
NC 27711; email: [email protected]; telephone: 919-541-3515; fax: 
919- 541-5315.
    For questions related to the draft document titled, Welfare Risk 
and Exposure Assessment for Ozone, First External Review Draft (EPA-
452/P-12- 004; July 2012), please contact Dr. Travis Smith, Office of 
Air Quality Planning and Standards (Mail code C539-07), U.S. 
Environmental Protection Agency, Research Triangle Park, NC 27711; 
email: [email protected]; telephone: 919-541-2035; fax: 919-541-
5315.
    For questions related to the draft document titled, Policy 
Assessment for the Review of the Ozone National Ambient Air Quality 
Standards: First External Review Draft (EPA-452/P-12-002; August 2012), 
please contact Ms. Susan Lyon Stone, Office of Air Quality Planning and 
Standards (Mail code C504-06), U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, 
Research Triangle Park, NC 27711; email: [email protected]; 
telephone: 919-541-1146; fax: 919-541-0237.

General Information

A. What should I consider as I prepare my comments for EPA?

    1. Submitting CBI. Do not submit this information to 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 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 CFR part 2.
    2. Tips for Preparing Your Comments. When submitting comments, 
remember to:
     Identify the rulemaking by docket number and other 
identifying information (subject heading, Federal Register date and 
page number).
     Follow directions--The agency may ask you to respond to 
specific questions or organize comments by referencing a Code of 
Federal Regulations (CFR) part or section number.
     Explain why you agree or disagree; suggest alternatives 
and substitute language for your requested changes.
     Describe any assumptions and provide any technical 
information and/or data that you used.
     If you estimate potential costs or burdens, explain how 
you arrived at your estimate in sufficient detail to allow for it to be 
reproduced.
     Provide specific examples to illustrate your concerns, and 
suggest alternatives.
     Make sure to submit your comments by the comment period 
deadline identified.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: Under section 108(a) of the Clean Air Act 
(CAA), the Administrator identifies and lists certain pollutants which 
``cause or contribute to air pollution which may reasonably be 
anticipated to endanger public health or welfare.'' The EPA then issues 
air quality criteria for these listed pollutants, which are commonly 
referred to as ``criteria pollutants.'' The air quality criteria are to 
``accurately reflect 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 [a] 
pollutant in the ambient air, in varying quantities.'' Under section 
109 of the CAA, EPA establishes primary (health-based) and secondary 
(welfare-based) National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) for 
pollutants for which air quality criteria are issued. Section

[[Page 51800]]

109(d) of the CAA requires periodic review and, if appropriate, 
revision of existing air quality criteria. The revised air quality 
criteria reflect advances in scientific knowledge on the effects of the 
pollutant on public health or welfare. The EPA is also required to 
periodically review and revise the NAAQS, if appropriate, based on the 
revised criteria.\1\ A draft of the integrated review plan was released 
for public review and comment in September 2009 and was the subject of 
a consultation with the Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee (CASAC) 
on November 13, 2009 (74 FR 54562; October 22, 2009).\2\ Comments 
received from that consultation and from the public were considered in 
finalizing the plan and in beginning the review of the air quality 
criteria.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \1\ See http://www.epa.gov/ttn/naaqs/review.html for more 
information on the NAAQS review process.
    \2\ See http://yosemite.epa.gov/sab/sabproduct.nsf/WebProjectsbyTopicCASAC!OpenView for more information on CASAC 
activities related to the current O3 NAAQS review.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    As part of EPA's review of the primary and secondary ozone 
(O3) NAAQS,\3\ the Agency is conducting quantitative 
assessments characterizing the health and welfare risks associated with 
exposure to ambient O3. The EPA's plans for conducting these 
assessments, including the proposed scope and methods of the analyses, 
were presented in two planning documents titled, Ozone National Ambient 
Air Quality Standards: Scope and Methods Plan for Health Risk and 
Exposure Assessment and Ozone National Ambient Air Quality Standards: 
Scope and Methods Plan for Welfare Risk and Exposure Assessment 
(henceforth, Scope and Methods Plans).\4\ These documents were released 
for public comment in April 2011, and were the subject of a 
consultation with the CASAC on May 19-20, 2011 (76 FR 23809; April 28, 
2011). In May 2012, a memo titled, Updates to information presented in 
the Scope and Methods Plans for the Ozone NAAQS Health and Welfare Risk 
and Exposure Assessments, was made available that described changes to 
elements of the scope and methods plans and provided a brief 
explanation of each change and the reason for it.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \3\ See http://www.epa.gov/ttn/naaqs/review.html for more 
information on the NAAQS review process.
    \4\ EPA-452/P-11-001 and -002; April 2011; Available: http://www.epa.gov/ttn/naaqs/standards/ozone/s_o3_2008_pd.html
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    On July 16, 2012 EPA made available the first draft documents 
Health Risk and Exposure Assessment for Ozone, First External Review 
Draft and Welfare Risk and Exposure Assessment for Ozone, First 
External Review Draft. At that time, we noted that Chapter 6 of the 
Health Risk and Exposure Assessment (REA) and quantitative results of 
ecosystem services modeling in Chapter 6 of the Welfare REA would be 
made available in a separate submission in August, 2012.
    On August 15, EPA made available updates to the first draft Health 
and Welfare REAs, along with several technical memos and appendices. 
Updates to the Health REA include Chapter 6 which describes risk 
analyses based on application of results from human clinical studies, 
an updated Chapter 9 which incorporates the findings from Chapter 6, 
and several corrections to other chapters, including corrected table 
numbers in Chapter 5, and corrected references in several locations. 
Updates to the Welfare REA include additional analyses described in 
Chapter 6 which provide estimates of damages from O3 
exposure to ecosystem services related to commercial forests and urban 
trees, additional discussions in Chapter 7 related to the ecosystem 
service analyses in the revised Chapter 6, as well as corrections to 
maps in Chapter 4 and corrected references in several locations.
    In addition, on August 15, 2012 EPA made available the first draft 
document titled Policy Assessment for the Review of the Ozone National 
Ambient Air Quality Standards: First External Review Draft. When final, 
the Policy Assessment will serve to ``bridge the gap'' between the 
scientific information and the judgments required of the Administrator 
in determining whether it is appropriate to retain or revise the 
standards. The first draft Policy Assessment builds upon information 
presented in the Integrated Science Assessment of Ozone and Related 
Photochemical Oxidants (Third draft) \5\ and the two draft Risk and 
Exposure Assessment documents described above. The first draft Policy 
Assessment may be accessed online through EPA's TTN Web site at http://www.epa.gov/ttn/naaqs/standards/ozone/s_o3_index.html.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \5\ U.S. EPA. Integrated Science Assessment of Ozone and Related 
Photochemical Oxidants (Third External Review Draft). U.S. 
Environmental Protection Agency, Washington, DC, EPA/600/R-10/076C, 
2012; Available: http://cfpub.epa.gov/ncea/isa/recordisplay.cfm?deid=242490#Download.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    The EPA is soliciting advice and recommendations from the CASAC by 
means of a review of these draft documents at an upcoming public 
meeting of the CASAC that will be held September 11-13, 2012. 
Information about these public meetings, including the dates and 
locations, was published in a separate notice in the Federal Register 
(77 FR 46755). The EPA is also soliciting comments from the public on 
these draft documents. Following the CASAC meeting and the close of the 
public comment period, EPA will consider comments received from the 
CASAC and the public in preparing revisions to these documents.
    The draft documents briefly described above do not represent and 
should not be construed to represent any final EPA policy, viewpoint, 
or determination. The EPA will consider any public comments submitted 
in response to this notice when revising the documents.

    Dated: August 20, 2012.
Mary Henigin,
Acting Director, Office of Air Quality Planning and Standards.
[FR Doc. 2012-21034 Filed 8-24-12; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 6560-50-P