[Federal Register Volume 81, Number 44 (Monday, March 7, 2016)]
[Rules and Regulations]
[Pages 11671-11673]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2016-04879]



[[Page 11671]]

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ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY

40 CFR Part 52

[EPA-R05-OAR-2014-0664; FRL-9943-33-Region 5]


Air Plan Approval; Illinois; Base Year Emission Inventories for 
the 2008 8-Hour Ozone Standard

AGENCY: Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

ACTION: Direct final rule.

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SUMMARY: The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is approving a State 
Implementation Plan (SIP) revision submitted by the Illinois 
Environmental Protection Agency (IEPA) on September 3, 2014, to address 
emission inventory requirements for the Illinois portions of the 
Chicago-Naperville, Illinois-Indiana-Wisconsin (IL-IN-WI) and St. 
Louis, Missouri-Illinois (MO-IL) ozone nonattainment areas under the 
2008 ozone National Ambient Air Quality Standard (NAAQS or standard). 
The Clean Air Act (CAA) requires emission inventories for all ozone 
nonattainment areas. The emission inventories contained in Illinois' 
September 3, 2014, submission meet this CAA requirement.

DATES: This direct final rule will be effective May 6, 2016, unless EPA 
receives adverse comments by April 6, 2016. If adverse comments are 
received by EPA, EPA will publish a timely withdrawal of the direct 
final rule in the Federal Register informing the public that the rule 
will not take effect.

ADDRESSES: Submit your comments, identified by Docket ID No. EPA-R05-
OAR-2014-0664 at http://www.regulations.gov or via email to 
[email protected]. For comments submitted at Regulations.gov, 
follow the online instructions for submitting comments. Once submitted, 
comments cannot be edited or removed from Regulations.gov. For either 
manner of submission, EPA may publish any comment received to its 
public docket. Do not submit electronically any information you 
consider to be Confidential Business Information (CBI) or other 
information whose disclosure is restricted by statute. Multimedia 
submissions (audio, video, etc.) must be accompanied by a written 
comment. The written comment is considered the official comment and 
should include discussion of all points you wish to make. EPA will 
generally not consider comments or comment contents located outside of 
the primary submission (i.e. on the web, cloud, or other file sharing 
system). For additional submission methods, please contact the person 
identified in the FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT section. For the full 
EPA public comment policy, information about CBI or multimedia 
submissions, and general guidance on making effective comments, please 
visit http://www2.epa.gov/dockets/commenting-epa-dockets.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Edward Doty, Attainment Planning and 
Maintenance Section, Air Programs Branch (AR-18J), Environmental 
Protection Agency, Region 5, 77 West Jackson Boulevard, Chicago, 
Illinois 60604, (312) 886-6057, [email protected].

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: Throughout this document, whenever ``we,'' 
``us,'' or ``our'' is used, we mean EPA. This supplementary information 
section is arranged as follows:

I. The 2008 Ozone NAAQS and Emission Inventory Requirements
II. Illinois' Emission Inventories
    A. Base Year
    B. How did the state develop the emission inventories?
III. EPA's Evaluation
    A. Did the state adequately document the derivation of the 
emission estimates?
    B. Did the state quality assure the emission estimates?
    C. Did the state provide for public review of the requested SIP 
revision?
IV. Final Action
V. Statutory and Executive Order Reviews

I. The 2008 Ozone NAAQS and Emission Inventory Requirements

    On March 12, 2008, EPA promulgated a revised 8-hour ozone NAAQS of 
0.075 parts per million (ppm). See 73 FR 16436 (March 27, 2008). In 
2012, EPA designated nonattainment areas for the 2008 ozone NAAQS (77 
FR 30088, May 21, 2012, and 77 FR 34221, June 11, 2012). The Chicago-
Naperville, IL-IN-WI and St. Louis, MO-IL areas were designated as 
marginal nonattainment areas for the 2008 ozone NAAQS. The Illinois 
portion (the Chicago area) of the Chicago-Naperville, IL-IN-WI ozone 
nonattainment area includes the counties of Cook, DuPage, Kane, Lake, 
McHenry, and Will, Aux Sable and Goose Lake Townships in Grundy County, 
and Oswego Township in Kendall County. The Illinois portion (the Metro-
East St. Louis area) of the St. Louis, MO-IL ozone nonattainment area 
includes Madison, Monroe, and St. Clair Counties.
    CAA sections 172(c)(3) and 182(a)(1), 42 U.S.C. 7502(c)(3) and 
7511a(a)(1), require states to develop and submit, as SIP revisions, 
emission inventories for all areas designated as nonattainment for the 
ozone NAAQS. An emission inventory for ozone is an estimation of actual 
emissions of air pollutants that contribute to the formation of ozone 
in an area. Ozone is a gas that is formed by the reaction of Volatile 
Organic Compounds (VOC) and Oxides of Nitrogen (NOX) in the 
atmosphere in the presence of sunlight (VOC and NOX are 
referred to as ozone precursors). Therefore, an emission inventory for 
ozone covers the emissions of VOC and NOX. VOC is emitted by 
many types of pollution sources, including power plants, industrial 
sources, on-road and off-road mobile sources, smaller stationary 
sources, collectively referred to as area sources, and biogenic 
sources.\1\ NOX is primarily emitted by combustion sources, 
both stationary and mobile.
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    \1\ Biogenic emissions are produced by living organisms and are 
typically not included in the base year emission inventories, but 
are considered in ozone modeling analyses, which must consider all 
emissions in a modeled area.
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    The emission inventories provide emissions data for a variety of 
air quality planning tasks, including establishing baseline emission 
levels, calculating emission reduction targets needed to attain the 
NAAQS, determining emission inputs for ozone air quality modeling 
analyses, and tracking emissions over time to determine progress toward 
achieving air quality and emission reduction goals. As stated above, 
the CAA requires the states to submit emission inventories for areas 
designated as nonattainment for ozone. For the 2008 ozone NAAQS, EPA 
has recommended that states use 2011 as a base year for the emission 
estimates (78 FR 34178, 34190, June 6, 2013). However, EPA also allows 
states to submit base year emissions for other years during a recent 
ozone standard violation period. States are required to submit 
estimates of VOC and NOX emissions for four general classes 
of anthropogenic sources: Stationary point sources; area sources; on-
road mobile sources; and off-road mobile sources in their emission 
inventories.

II. Illinois' Emission Inventories

    Illinois submitted a SIP revision addressing the VOC and 
NOX emission inventory requirement for the Chicago and 
Metro-East St. Louis areas on September 3, 2014. Tables 1 and 2 
summarize the 2011 VOC and NOX emissions for these two areas 
for a typical summer day (reflective of the summer period, when the 
highest ozone concentrations are expected in these ozone nonattainment 
areas).

[[Page 11672]]



              Table 1--Chicago Area 2011 Emission Inventory
                             [Tons per day]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
                      Source type                         VOC      NOX
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Point.................................................    48.26   119.88
Area..................................................   210.04    27.13
On-Road Mobile........................................    91.03   296.38
Off-Road Mobile.......................................   168.66   170.86
                                                       -----------------
    Totals............................................   517.98   614.37
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       Table 2--Metro-East St. Louis Area 2011 Emission Inventory
                             [Tons per day]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
                      Source Type                         VOC      NOX
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Point.................................................    10.80    26.18
Area..................................................    18.12     1.24
On-Road Mobile........................................    11.44    34.14
Off-Road Mobile.......................................     8.49    17.17
                                                       -----------------
    Totals............................................    48.86    78.72
------------------------------------------------------------------------

A. Base Year

    As recommended by the EPA, the IEPA has selected 2011 as the base 
year for the submitted emission inventories.

B. How did the state develop the emission inventories?

    Illinois estimated VOC (Volatile Organic Material (VOM) in the 
Illinois emission inventory \2\) and NOX emissions for each 
Illinois county contained in (and for each township for counties 
partially contained in) the Chicago and Metro-East St. Louis areas. 
Emissions for the counties (or townships) were totaled by source 
category for the two ozone nonattainment areas. To develop the VOC and 
NOX emission inventories, IEPA used the procedures 
summarized below.
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    \2\ VOM as defined at 35 Illinois Administrative Code section 
211.7150 is identical to EPA's definition of VOC at 40 CFR 
51.100(s). The terms VOC and VOM are interchangeable, and refer to 
the same compounds. We use VOC here to remain consistent with EPA's 
standard practice to refer to VOC as an ozone precursor.
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    The primary source of emissions data for point sources was the 
source-reported 2011 Annual Emission Reports (AERs) (emission 
statements). Under Illinois state law covering emission statement 
requirements at 35 Illinois Administrative Code part 254, major sources 
are required to report emissions annually to the state. The emissions 
reported to the state for 2011 were the primary source of facility-
emissions, which were further divided into source category-specific 
emission totals by county/township.
    Area source emissions were generally calculated by multiplying 
source category-specific emission factors by 2011 source activity 
levels (population, employment levels, etc.) for each county or 
township. In some cases, 2011 area source category emissions were 
projected from 2010 emissions using estimated source category-specific 
growth rates.
    On-road mobile source emissions were estimated using EPA's Motor 
Vehicle Emission Simulator model and vehicle activity levels provided 
by the state Department of Transportation and local planning agencies.
    Off-road emissions were estimated using the National Mobile 
Inventory Model (NMIM). These emission estimates were supplemented with 
emission estimates for aircraft, locomotives, and commercial marine 
vessels provided through contractor studies since NMIM does not cover 
these source types.

III. EPA's Evaluation

    EPA has reviewed Illinois' September 3, 2014, requested SIP 
revision for consistency with CAA and EPA emission inventory 
requirements. In particular, EPA has reviewed the techniques used by 
IEPA to derive and quality assure the emission estimates. EPA has also 
evaluated whether Illinois provided the public with the opportunity to 
review and comment on the development of the emission estimates and 
whether IEPA addressed public comments.

A. Did the state adequately document the derivation of the emission 
estimates?

    IEPA documented the general procedures used to estimate the 
emissions for each of the four major source types and for some specific 
source types for the off-road emissions. The documentation of the 
emission estimation procedures was adequate for us to determine that 
Illinois followed acceptable procedures to estimate the emissions.

B. Did the state quality assure the emission estimates?

    Illinois developed a quality assurance plan and followed this plan 
during various phases of the emissions estimation and documentation 
process to quality assure the emissions for completeness and accuracy. 
These quality assurance procedures are summarized in the documentation 
describing how the emissions totals were developed. We have determined 
that the quality assurance procedures followed by Illinois are adequate 
and acceptable and that Illinois has developed inventories of VOC and 
NOX emissions that are comprehensive and complete.

C. Did the state provide for public review of the requested SIP 
revision?

    IEPA notified the public of the opportunity for comment both in 
newspapers and on IEPA's Web site. No comments were received on the 
emission inventories and no public hearing was requested.

IV. Final Action

    We are approving the Illinois SIP revision submitted to address the 
emission inventory requirements for the Chicago and Metro-East St. 
Louis areas for the 2008 ozone NAAQS. The emission inventories we are 
approving into the SIP are specified in Tables 1 and 2 above. We are 
approving the emission inventories because they contain comprehensive, 
accurate, and current inventories of actual emissions for all relevant 
sources in accordance with CAA sections 172(c)(3) and 182(a)(1) and 
because Illinois adopted the emission inventories after providing for 
reasonable public notice and the opportunity for public hearings.
    We are publishing this action without prior proposal because we 
view this as a noncontroversial amendment and anticipate no adverse 
comments. However, in the proposed rules section of this Federal 
Register publication, we are publishing a separate document that will 
serve as the proposal to approve the state plan if relevant adverse 
written comments are filed. This rule will be effective May 6, 2016 
without further notice unless we receive relevant adverse written 
comments by April 6, 2016. If we receive such comments, we will 
withdraw this action before the effective date by publishing a 
subsequent document that will withdraw the final action. All public 
comments received will then be addressed in a subsequent final rule 
based on the proposed action. EPA will not institute a second comment 
period. Any parties interested in commenting on this action should do 
so at this time. Please note that, if EPA receives adverse comment on 
an amendment, paragraph, or section of this rule and if that provision 
may be severed from the remainder of the rule, EPA may adopt as final 
those provisions of the rule that are not the subject of an adverse 
comment. If we do not receive any comments, this action will be 
effective May 6, 2016.

[[Page 11673]]

V. Statutory and Executive Order Reviews

    Under the CAA, the Administrator is required to approve a SIP 
submission that complies with the provisions of the CAA 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 CAA. Accordingly, this 
action merely approves 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 Orders 
12866 (58 FR 51735, October 4, 1993) and 13563 (76 FR 3821, January 21, 
2011);
     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 CAA; 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, the SIP is not approved to apply on any Indian 
reservation land or in any other area where EPA or an Indian tribe has 
demonstrated that a tribe has jurisdiction. In those areas of Indian 
country, the rule does not have tribal implications and will not impose 
substantial direct costs on tribal governments or preempt tribal law as 
specified by Executive Order 13175 (65 FR 67249, November 9, 2000).
    The Congressional Review Act, 5 U.S.C. 801 et seq., as added by the 
Small Business Regulatory Enforcement Fairness Act of 1996, generally 
provides that before a rule may take effect, the agency promulgating 
the rule must submit a rule report, which includes a copy of the rule, 
to each House of the Congress and to the Comptroller General of the 
United States. EPA will submit a report containing this action and 
other required information to the U.S. Senate, the U.S. House of 
Representatives, and the Comptroller General of the United States prior 
to publication of the rule in the Federal Register. A major rule cannot 
take effect until 60 days after it is published in the Federal 
Register. This action is not a ``major rule'' as defined by 5 U.S.C. 
804(2).
    Under section 307(b)(1) of the CAA, petitions for judicial review 
of this action must be filed in the United States Court of Appeals for 
the appropriate circuit by May 6, 2016. Filing a petition for 
reconsideration by the Administrator of this final rule does not affect 
the finality of this action for the purposes of judicial review nor 
does it extend the time within which a petition for judicial review may 
be filed, and shall not postpone the effectiveness of such rule or 
action. Parties with objections to this direct final rule are 
encouraged to file a comment in response to the parallel notice of 
proposed rulemaking for this action published in the proposed rules 
section of today's Federal Register, rather than file an immediate 
petition for judicial review of this direct final rule, so that EPA can 
withdraw this direct final rule and address the comment in the proposed 
rulemaking. This action may not be challenged later in proceedings to 
enforce its requirements. (See section 307(b)(2).)

List of Subjects in 40 CFR Part 52

    Environmental protection, Air pollution control, Carbon monoxide, 
Incorporation by reference, Intergovernmental relations, Nitrogen 
dioxide, Ozone, Reporting and recordkeeping requirements, Volatile 
organic compounds.

    Dated: February 22, 2016.
Robert A. Kaplan,
Acting Regional Administrator, Region 5.

    40 CFR part 52 is amended as follows:

PART 52--APPROVAL AND PROMULGATION OF IMPLEMENTATION PLANS

0
1. The authority citation for part 52 continues to read as follows:

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


0
2. Section 52.726 is amended by adding paragraph (pp) to read as 
follows:


Sec.  52.726  Control strategy: Ozone.

* * * * *
    (pp) On September 3, 2014, Illinois submitted 2011 volatile organic 
compounds and oxides of nitrogen emission inventories for the Illinois 
portions of the Chicago-Naperville, Illinois-Indiana-Wisconsin and St. 
Louis, Missouri-Illinois nonattainment areas for the 2008 ozone 
national ambient air quality standard as a revision of the Illinois 
state implementation plan. The emission inventories are approved as a 
revision of the state's implementation plan.

[FR Doc. 2016-04879 Filed 3-4-16; 8:45 am]
 BILLING CODE 6560-50-P