[Federal Register Volume 79, Number 18 (Tuesday, January 28, 2014)]
[Proposed Rules]
[Pages 4436-4438]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2014-01587]


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ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY

40 CFR Part 52

[EPA-R06-OAR-2011-0500; FRL-9905-83-Region 6]


Approval and Promulgation of Implementation Plans; Louisiana; 
Interstate Transport of Fine Particulate Matter

AGENCY: Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

ACTION: Proposed rule.

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SUMMARY: EPA is proposing to approve a portion of a State 
Implementation Plan (SIP) submittal from the State of Louisiana to 
address Clean Air Act (CAA or Act) requirements that prohibit air 
emissions which will contribute significantly to nonattainment or 
interfere with maintenance in any other state for the 2006 fine 
particulate matter (PM2.5) national ambient air quality 
standards (NAAQS). EPA proposes to determine that the existing SIP for 
Louisiana contains adequate provisions to prohibit air pollutant 
emissions from significantly contributing to nonattainment or 
interfering with maintenance of the 2006 24-hour PM2.5 NAAQS 
(2006 PM2.5 NAAQS) in any other state as required by the 
Act.

DATES: Written comments must be received on or before February 27, 
2014.

ADDRESSES: Submit your comments, identified by Docket No. EPA-R06-OAR-
2011-0500, by one of the following methods:
     www.regulations.gov. Follow the online instructions.
     Email: Mr. Carl Young at [email protected].
     Mail or delivery: Mr. Guy Donaldson, Chief, Air Planning 
Section (6PD-L), Environmental Protection Agency, 1445 Ross Avenue, 
Suite 1200, Dallas, Texas 75202-2733.
    Instructions: Direct your comments to Docket No. EPA-R06-OAR-2011-
0500. 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: The index to the docket for this action is available 
electronically at www.regulations.gov and in hard copy at EPA Region 6, 
1445 Ross Avenue, Suite 700, Dallas, Texas. While 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 at either location (e.g., CBI). 
To inspect the hard copy materials, please schedule an appointment with 
the person listed in the FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT paragraph 
below or Mr. Bill Deese at 214-665-7253.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Carl Young, (214) 665-6645, 
[email protected].

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: Throughout this document wherever ``we,'' 
``us,'' or ``our'' is used, we mean the EPA.

Table of Contents

I. Background
II. EPA's Evaluation
III. Proposed Action
IV. Statutory and Executive Order Reviews

I. Background

A. Interstate Transport and the 2006 PM2.5 NAAQS

    In 2006, we established a revised 24-hour NAAQS for 
PM2.5 of 35 micrograms per cubic meter ([mu]g/m\3\) (October 
17, 2006, 71 FR 6114). Section 110(a)(2)(D)(i) of the CAA identifies 
four distinct elements related to the evaluation of impacts of 
interstate transport of air pollutants with respect to a new or revised 
NAAQS. In this action for the state of Louisiana, we are addressing the 
first two elements of section 110(a)(2)(D)(i)(I) with respect to the 
2006 PM2.5 NAAQS.\1\ The first element of section 
110(a)(2)(D)(i)(I) requires that each SIP for a new or revised NAAQS 
contain adequate measures to prohibit any source or other type of 
emissions activity within the state from emitting air pollutants that 
will ``contribute significantly to nonattainment'' of the NAAQS in 
another state. The second element of CAA section 110(a)(2)(D)(i)(I) 
requires that each SIP for a new or revised NAAQS prohibit any source 
or other type of emissions activity in the state from emitting 
pollutants that will ``interfere with maintenance'' of the applicable 
NAAQS in any other state.
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    \1\ This proposed action does not address the two elements of 
the transport SIP provision (in CAA section 110(a)(2)(D)(i)(II)) 
regarding interference with measures required to prevent significant 
deterioration of air quality or to protect visibility in another 
state.
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B. EPA Rules Addressing Interstate Transport for the 2006 
PM2.5 NAAQS

    EPA has addressed the requirements of section 110(a)(2)(D)(i)(I) in 
past

[[Page 4437]]

regulatory actions.\2\ The final Cross-State Air Pollution Rule 
(Transport Rule) addressed the first two elements of CAA section 
110(a)(2)(D)(i)(I) in the eastern United States with respect to the 
2006 24-hour PM2.5 NAAQS, the 1997 annual PM2.5 
NAAQS, and the 1997 8-hour ozone NAAQS (August 8, 2011, 76 FR 48208). 
The Transport Rule was intended to replace the earlier Clean Air 
Interstate Rule (CAIR) which was judicially remanded.\3\ See North 
Carolina v. EPA, 531 F.3d 896 (D.C. Cir. 2008) modified on rehearing, 
550 F.3d 1176 (D.C. Cir. 2008). On August 21, 2012, the U.S. Court of 
Appeals for the D.C. Circuit issued a decision vacating the Transport 
Rule. See EME Homer City Generation, L.P. v. E.P.A., 696 F.3d 7 (D.C. 
Cir. 2012). The court also ordered EPA to continue implementing CAIR in 
the interim. On June 24, 2013, the Supreme Court granted the United 
States' petition for certiorari and agreed to review the D.C. Circuit's 
decision in EME Homer City. The Supreme Court held oral arguments on 
December 10, 2013. In the meantime, and unless the EME Homer City 
decision is reversed or otherwise modified by the Supreme Court, EPA 
intends to act in accordance with the D.C. Circuit opinion in EME Homer 
City.
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    \2\ See NOX SIP Call, 63 FR 57371 (October 27, 1998); 
Clean Air Interstate Rule (CAIR), 70 FR 25172 (May 12, 2005); and 
Transport Rule or Cross-State Air Pollution Rule, 76 FR 48208 
(August 8, 2011).
    \3\ CAIR addressed the 1997 annual and 24-hour PM2.5 
NAAQS, and the 1997 8-hour ozone NAAQS. It did not address the 2006 
24-hour PM2.5 NAAQS.
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C. Louisiana's Submittals

    On May 16, 2011, Louisiana submitted a SIP revision to address the 
requirements of CAA section 110(a)(2)(D)(i)(I) for the 2006 
PM2.5 NAAQS. The submittal stated that the State had 
adequate provisions to prohibit air pollutant emissions from within the 
State that significantly contribute to nonattainment or interfere with 
maintenance of the 2006 PM2.5 NAAQS based on Louisiana 
having EPA-approved CAIR SIPs requiring certain electric generating 
units to participate in sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide trading 
programs (72 FR 39741; 72 FR 55064). On May 21, 2013, the State 
submitted a letter to EPA serving as a technical supplement for the 
2006 PM2.5 NAAQS. The letter stated that because the more 
recent and improved air quality modeling evaluating interstate 
transport for the 2006 PM2.5 NAAQS conducted by EPA for the 
Transport Rule is now available and supports the conclusion that 
emissions in Louisiana do not significantly contribute to nonattainment 
or interfere with maintenance of the 2006 PM2.5 NAAQS in any 
other State, it was being submitted as the basis for the conclusions in 
lieu of the previous technical information provided in the May 16, 2011 
submission. The submittal and technical supplement document the State's 
assessments that Louisiana emissions will not contribute significantly 
to nonattainment, or interfere with maintenance, in any other state for 
the 2006 PM2.5 NAAQS. The submittals and technical 
supplement are available electronically through the www.regulations.gov 
Web site (Docket No. EPA-R06-OAR-2011-0500).

II. EPA's Evaluation

A. EPA's Approach for Evaluating Interstate Transport of Air Pollution

    To determine whether the CAA section 110(a)(2)(D)(i)(I) requirement 
is satisfied, EPA must determine whether a state's emissions contribute 
significantly to nonattainment or interfere with maintenance in any 
other state. If this factual finding is in the negative, then section 
110(a)(2)(D)(i)(I) does not require any changes to a state's SIP. EPA 
is proposing to determine that the existing SIP for Louisiana is 
adequate to satisfy the requirements of 110(a)(2)(D)(i)(I) of the CAA 
to address interstate transport requirements with regard to the 2006 
PM2.5 NAAQS. This proposed conclusion is based on air 
quality modeling originally conducted by EPA to quantify each 
individual eastern state's (including Louisiana's) contributions to 
downwind nonattainment and maintenance areas during the rulemaking 
process for the Transport Rule.
    In the Transport Rule rulemaking, we used air quality modeling to: 
(1) identify locations projected to be nonattainment or have 
maintenance problems in 2012 for the 2006 24-hour PM2.5 
NAAQS (nonattainment and maintenance receptors) and (2) quantify the 
air quality contributions of emissions from upwind states on downwind 
24-hour PM2.5 concentrations at the receptors for the 2006 
24-hour PM2.5 NAAQS in 2012.\4\ As detailed in the Air 
Quality Modeling TSDs, we used a threshold of 1 percent of the NAAQS to 
identify linkages between upwind states and downwind nonattainment and 
maintenance receptors. With respect to the 2006 24-hour 
PM2.5 NAAQS, our analysis for the Transport Rule found that 
the 1 percent threshold captures a high percentage of the total 
pollution transport affecting downwind states with nonattainment/
maintenance receptors.\5\ The air quality threshold used for the 2006 
24-hour PM2.5 NAAQS was 0.35 [mu]g/m\3\ (1 percent of 35.0 
[mu]g/m\3\). If a state's air quality contribution to downwind 
nonattainment/maintenance receptors in all other states did not exceed 
the threshold, it was concluded that its emissions do not contribute 
significantly to nonattainment or interfere with maintenance in another 
state for the NAAQS.
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    \4\ See the Technical Support Documents for the Transport Rule 
(proposal and final) found in the regulations.gov e-docket for this 
action (EPA-R06-OAR-2011-0500).
    \5\ See section IV.F (Analysis of Contributions Captured by 
Various Thresholds) of the Air Quality Modeling TSD.
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B. Evaluation of the State's Submittals

    EPA's evaluation confirms Louisiana's analysis provided in the SIP 
submittal for the State of Louisiana submitted on May 16, 2011, and the 
technical supplement submitted on May 21, 2013. The air quality 
modeling performed for the Transport Rule found that the impact from 
Louisiana emissions on both downwind nonattainment and maintenance 
receptors was less than the 1 percent threshold for the 2006 
PM2.5 NAAQS. EPA therefore did not find emissions from 
Louisiana linked to any downwind nonattainment or maintenance receptors 
for the 2006 24-hour PM2.5 NAAQS.
    Below is a summary of the air quality modeling results for 
Louisiana from Table IV-9 of EPA's Air Quality Modeling TSD regarding 
Louisiana's largest contribution to both downwind PM2.5 
nonattainment and maintenance areas.

[[Page 4438]]



             Louisiana's Largest Contribution to Downwind PM2.5 Nonattainment and Maintenance Areas
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                                                                          Largest downwind     Largest downwind
                                                       Air quality        contribution to      contribution to
                      NAAQS                         threshold ([mu]g/      nonattainment     maintenance ([mu]g/
                                                          m\3\)             ([mu]g/m\3\)            m\3\)
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2006 24-hour PM2.5 NAAQS (35 [mu]g/m\3\).........                0.35                 0.11                 0.13
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    Based on this analysis, we propose to approve the portion of the 
May 16, 2011 Louisiana SIP submittal, and the technical supplement 
submitted on May 21, 2013, determining that the existing SIP for 
Louisiana contains adequate provisions to prohibit air pollutant 
emissions from contributing significantly to nonattainment or 
interfering with maintenance of the 2006 PM2.5 NAAQS in any 
other state as required by CAA section 110(a)(2)(D)(i)(I).
    We continue to believe it is appropriate to rely on the modeling 
conducted during the rulemaking for the Transport Rule even though the 
rule itself was vacated by the D.C. Circuit. EME Homer City Generation 
L.P. v. EPA, 696 F.3d 7 (D.C. Cir. 2012).\6\ Nothing in the EME Homer 
City opinion suggests that the air quality modeling on which our 
proposal relies is flawed or invalid for any reason. In addition, 
nothing in that opinion undermines or calls into question our proposed 
conclusion that, because emissions from Louisiana do not contribute 
more than one percent of the 2006 PM2.5 NAAQS to any 
downwind area with nonattainment or maintenance problems, Louisiana 
does not contribute significantly to nonattainment or interfere with 
maintenance in another state for this NAAQS. Further, EPA is not 
proposing to rely on any requirements of the Transport Rule or emission 
reductions associated with that rule to support its conclusion that 
Louisiana has met its 110(a)(2)(D)(i)(I) obligations with respect to 
the 2006 PM2.5 NAAQS.
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    \6\ On June 24, 2013, the Supreme Court granted EPA's petition 
for certiorari and agreed to review the D.C. Circuit's decision in 
EME Homer City.
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C. Section 110(l) of the Act

    Section 110(l) of the Act prohibits EPA from approving any SIP 
revision that would interfere with any applicable requirement 
concerning attainment and reasonable further progress or any other 
applicable requirement of the Act. The SIP submittal from the State of 
Louisiana contains no new regulatory provisions and does not affect any 
requirement in Louisiana's applicable implementation plan. Therefore, 
the submission does not interfere with any applicable requirement 
concerning attainment and reasonable further progress or any other 
applicable requirement of the Act. EPA has concluded, based on 
Louisiana's and EPA's technical analysis, that the existing Louisiana 
SIP is sufficient to meet the requirements of 110(a)(2)(D)(i)(I) with 
respect to the 2006 PM2.5 NAAQS.

III. Proposed Action

    We are proposing to approve a portion of a SIP submittal for the 
State of Louisiana submitted on May 16, 2011, and the technical 
supplement submitted on May 21, 2013, to address interstate transport 
for the 2006 PM2.5 NAAQS. Based on our evaluation we propose 
to approve the portion of the SIP submittal determining the existing 
SIP for Louisiana contains adequate provisions to prohibit air 
emissions from contributing significantly to nonattainment or 
interfering with maintenance of the 2006 PM2.5 NAAQS in any 
other state as required by CAA section 110(a)(2)(D)(i)(I). This action 
is being taken under section 110 of the Act.

IV. Statutory and Executive Order Reviews

    Under the Clean Air Act, the Administrator is required to approve a 
SIP submission that complies with the provisions of the Act and 
applicable Federal regulations. 42 U.S.C. 7410(k); 40 CFR 52.02(a). 
Thus, in reviewing SIP submissions, EPA's role is to approve state 
choices, provided that they meet the criteria of the Clean Air Act. 
Accordingly, this action merely proposes to approve state law as 
meeting Federal requirements and does not impose additional 
requirements beyond those imposed by state law. For that reason, this 
action:
     Is not a ``significant regulatory action'' subject to 
review by the Office of Management and Budget under Executive Order 
12866 (58 FR 51735, October 4, 1993);
     does not impose an information collection burden under the 
provisions of the Paperwork Reduction Act (44 U.S.C. 3501 et seq.);
     is certified as not having a significant economic impact 
on a substantial number of small entities under the Regulatory 
Flexibility Act (5 U.S.C. 601 et seq.);
     does not contain any unfunded mandate or significantly or 
uniquely affect small governments, as described in the Unfunded 
Mandates Reform Act of 1995 (Pub. L. 104-4);
     does not have Federalism implications as specified in 
Executive Order 13132 (64 FR 43255, August 10, 1999);
     is not an economically significant regulatory action based 
on health or safety risks subject to Executive Order 13045 (62 FR 
19885, April 23, 1997);
     is not a significant regulatory action subject to 
Executive Order 13211 (66 FR 28355, May 22, 2001);
     is not subject to requirements of section 12(d) of the 
National Technology Transfer and Advancement Act of 1995 (15 U.S.C. 272 
note) because application of those requirements would be inconsistent 
with the Clean Air Act; and
     does not provide EPA with the discretionary authority to 
address, as appropriate, disproportionate human health or environmental 
effects, using practicable and legally permissible methods, under 
Executive Order 12898 (59 FR 7629, February 16, 1994).
    In addition, this proposed rule does not have tribal implications 
as specified by Executive Order 13175 (65 FR 67249, November 9, 2000), 
because the SIP is not approved to apply in Indian country located in 
the state, and EPA notes that it will not impose substantial direct 
costs on tribal governments or preempt tribal law.

List of Subjects in 40 CFR Part 52

    Environmental protection, Air pollution control, Nitrogen dioxide, 
Particulate matter, Reporting and recordkeeping requirements, Sulfur 
oxides, Volatile organic compounds.


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

    Dated: January 15, 2014.
Ron Curry,
Regional Administrator, Region 6.
[FR Doc. 2014-01587 Filed 1-27-14; 8:45 am]
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