[Federal Register Volume 83, Number 123 (Tuesday, June 26, 2018)]
[Notices]
[Pages 29785-29786]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2018-13716]


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ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY

[Docket ID No. EPA-HQ-ORD-2018-0274; FRL-9979-56-ORD]


Review of the National Ambient Air Quality Standards for Ozone--
Call for Scientific and Policy-Relevant Information

AGENCY: Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

ACTION: Notice; call for information.

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SUMMARY: The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is announcing 
that the Office of Air Quality Planning and Standards (OAQPS) and the 
Office of Research and Development's National Center for Environmental 
Assessment (NCEA) are preparing an Integrated Review Plan (IRP) and an 
Integrated Science Assessment (ISA) as part of the review of the air 
quality criteria and the National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) 
for ozone (O3) and related photochemical oxidants. The IRP 
will summarize the plan for the review, including the initial 
identification of policy-relevant issues and questions to frame the 
review. The ISA will build on the scientific assessment conducted for 
the last O3 review, focusing on assessing newly available 
information since the last assessment. Interested parties are invited 
to assist the EPA by submitting information regarding significant new 
O3 research and policy-relevant issues for consideration in 
this review of the primary (health-based) and secondary (welfare-based) 
O3 standards.

DATES: All communications and information submitted in response to this 
call for information should be received by the EPA by August 27, 2018.

ADDRESSES: Submit your comments and related information, identified by 
Docket ID No. EPA-HQ-ORD-2018- 0274 to the Federal eRulemaking Portal: 
http://www.regulations.gov.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: For information regarding the IRP, 
contact Dr. Deirdre L. Murphy, OAQPS, telephone: 919-541-0729, or 
email: [email protected]. For information regarding the ISA, 
contact Dr. Tom Luben, NCEA, telephone: 919-541-5762, or email: 
[email protected].

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: 

I. Information About the Project

    Section 108(a) of the Clean Air Act (CAA or the Act) directs the 
Administrator to identify and list certain air pollutants and then 
issue ``air quality criteria'' for those 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 
such pollutants in the ambient air . . . .'' CAA section 108(a)(2). 
Under section 109 of the Act, EPA is then to establish NAAQS for each 
pollutant for which EPA has issued criteria. Section 109(d)(1) of the 
Act requires periodic review and, if appropriate, revision of existing 
air quality criteria to reflect advances in scientific knowledge on the 
effects of the pollutant on public health and welfare. Under the same 
provision, EPA is also to periodically review and, if appropriate, 
revise the NAAQS, based on the revised air quality criteria.
    Section 109(d)(2) of the Act requires appointment of an independent 
scientific review committee that is to periodically review the existing 
air quality criteria and NAAQS and to recommend any new standards and 
revisions of existing criteria and standards as may be appropriate. 
Since the early 1980s, the requirement for an independent scientific 
review committee has been fulfilled by the Clean Air Scientific 
Advisory Committee (CASAC). Section 109(d)(2)(C) of the Act 
additionally requires the independent scientific review committee to 
advise the EPA Administrator of areas in which additional knowledge is 
required to appraise the adequacy and basis of existing, new, or 
revised NAAQS; describe the research efforts necessary to provide the 
required information; advise the EPA Administrator on the relative 
contribution to air pollution concentrations of natural as well as 
anthropogenic activity; and, advise the EPA Administrator of any 
adverse public health, welfare, social, economic, or energy effects 
which may result from various strategies for attainment and maintenance 
of such NAAQS. To ensure this final statutory requirement is fully met, 
elsewhere in today's Federal Register we are issuing a call for 
information that would facilitate the committee's consideration of 
these issues.
    In its periodic review of the air quality criteria, the EPA reviews 
the currently available scientific information and prepares an ISA. The 
ISA and other key documents prepared in the review receive independent 
and expert scientific review by the CASAC.
    Photochemical oxidants, including O3, are one of six 
``criteria'' pollutants for which EPA has established NAAQS, and 
O3 is the current indicator for that NAAQS. The 
O3 NAAQS were most recently revised in fall of 2015. In 
consideration of the statutory deadline for the next periodic review of 
the air quality criteria and standards, the EPA is accelerating 
initiation of the planning phase for the review, including development 
of the IRP for the review. The IRP will describe the overall plan for 
the review, outlining the anticipated schedule, process, and approaches 
for evaluating the relevant scientific information, as well as the key 
policy-relevant issues that will frame the review. We intend that the 
IRP will build upon key documents from the last review (available from: 
https://www.epa.gov/naaqs/ozone-o3-air-quality-standards). Such 
documents include the preamble to the final rulemaking decision, which 
included detailed discussions of policy-relevant issues central to that 
review (80 FR 65292, October 26, 2015), and the Integrated Science 
Assessment (ISA) for Ozone and Related Photochemical Oxidants (Final 
Report, Feb. 2013), EPA/600/R-10/076F. Interested parties are invited 
to assist the EPA by submitting information regarding significant new 
O3 research and policy-relevant issues for consideration in 
this review of the primary (health-based)

[[Page 29786]]

and secondary (welfare-based) O3 standards.
    The EPA will consult with the CASAC on the IRP and will also 
solicit comments from the public. As the review proceeds, the EPA will 
also request CASAC review of, and provide an opportunity for public 
comment on, other draft documents prepared for the review, which 
generally include the ISA, a risk/exposure assessment (REA), as 
warranted, and a policy assessment (PA). The EPA intends to provide the 
CASAC with a standardized set of key charge questions to consider in 
providing advice to the Administrator throughout the entire review, 
supplementing these questions with more detailed requests as necessary. 
More information on the updated process for the forthcoming ozone NAAQS 
review, including statutory, standardized charge questions, is 
contained in the Administrator's May 9 2018 memorandum, ``Back-to-
Basics Process for Reviewing National Ambient Air Quality Standards.'' 
\1\
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    \1\ Available at: https://www.epa.gov/sites/production/files/2018-05/documents/image2018-05-09-173219.pdf.
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    The ISA will build on the scientific assessment for the last 
review,\2\ focusing on assessing information newly available since the 
2013 ISA. With regard to development of the ISA, the public is 
encouraged to assist in identifying relevant scientific information for 
the review by submitting research studies that were not part of the 
prior review, and have been published or accepted for publication in a 
peer-reviewed journal. The Agency is interested in obtaining newly 
available information, particularly concerning toxicological studies of 
effects of controlled exposure to O3 on laboratory animals, 
humans, and in vitro systems, as well as epidemiologic (observational) 
studies of health effects associated with ambient exposures of human 
populations to O3. The EPA also seeks recent information in 
other areas of O3 research such as chemistry and physics, 
sources and emissions, analytical methodology, transport and 
transformation in the environment, ambient concentrations, and effects 
on welfare \3\ or the environment. This and other selected literature 
relevant to a review of the air quality criteria and NAAQS will be 
considered for inclusion in the forthcoming ISA. In addition to the 
request to submit current peer reviewed research studies, other 
opportunities for submission of new peer-reviewed, published (or in-
press) papers will be available as part of the public comment period on 
the draft ISA that will be reviewed by the CASAC.
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    \2\ The scientific assessment for the last review is documented 
in the Integrated Science Assessment for Ozone and Related 
Photochemical Oxidants (Final Report, Feb 2013), EPA 600/R-10/076F.
    \3\ Under CAA section 302(h), effects on welfare include, but 
are not limited to, ``effects on soils, water, crops, vegetation, 
manmade materials, animals, wildlife, weather, visibility, and 
climate, damage to and deterioration of property, and hazards to 
transportation, as well as effects on economic values and on 
personal comfort and wellbeing.''
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II. How To Submit Information and Comments to the Docket at 
www.regulations.gov

    Submit your comments and related information, identified by Docket 
ID No. EPA-HQ-ORD-2018-0274 to the Federal eRulemaking Portal: http://www.regulations.gov. Follow the online instructions for submitting 
comments. Once submitted, comments cannot be edited or withdrawn. The 
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. The EPA will generally not consider comments or comment 
contents located outside of the primary submission (e.g., on the web, 
cloud, or other file sharing system). For additional submission 
methods, 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.
    When submitting comments, remember to:
     Identify the action by docket number and other identifying 
information (subject heading, Federal Register date and page number).
     Describe any assumptions and provide any technical 
information and/or data that you used.
     Provide specific examples to illustrate your concerns, and 
suggest alternatives.
     Explain your views as clearly as possible, avoiding the 
use of profanity or personal threats.
     Make sure to submit your comments by the comment period 
deadline identified.
    When considering submitting CBI, do not submit this information to 
the 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 the 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 Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) part 2.

    Dated: June 12, 2018.
Mary Ross,
Deputy Director, National Center for Environmental Assessment.
[FR Doc. 2018-13716 Filed 6-25-18; 8:45 am]
 BILLING CODE 6560-50-P