[Federal Register Volume 84, Number 123 (Wednesday, June 26, 2019)]
[Proposed Rules]
[Pages 30066-30068]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2019-13496]


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ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY

40 CFR Part 52

[EPA-R05-OAR-2018-0734; FRL-9995-68-Region 5]


Air Plan Approval; Indiana; Indiana RACT SIP and Negative 
Declaration for the Oil and Natural Gas Industry Control Techniques 
Guidelines

AGENCY: Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

ACTION: Proposed rule.

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SUMMARY: The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is proposing to 
approve a ``Negative Declaration'' for the State of Indiana regarding 
the Control Techniques Guidelines (CTG) for the Oil and Gas Industry 
issued by EPA on October 20, 2016. Indiana has evaluated areas for 
which the Oil and Natural Gas Industry CTG must be applied under the 
2008 ozone National Ambient Air Quality Standard (NAAQS). EPA has 
included Lake and Porter counties as part of the Chicago-Naperville, 
IL-IN-WI Moderate nonattainment area for the 2008 ozone NAAQS. 
Therefore, reasonably available control technology (RACT) requirements 
would be applicable for sources covered by the CTGs in Lake and Porter 
counties. No covered sources were found in Lake and Porter counties. 
Approval of this Negative Declaration supports EPA's February 13, 2019 
approval of Indiana's volatile organic compounds (VOC) RACT 
Certification for Lake and Porter Counties.

DATES: Comments must be received on or before July 26, 2019.

ADDRESSES: Submit your comments, identified by Docket ID No. EPA-R05-
OAR-2018-0734, at https://www.regulations.gov, or via email to 
[email protected]. For comments submitted at Regulations.gov, 
follow the online instructions for

[[Page 30067]]

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 https://www2.epa.gov/dockets/commenting-epa-dockets.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Steven Rosenthal, Environmental 
Engineer, Attainment Planning and Maintenance Section, Air Programs 
Branch (AR-18J), U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Region 5, 77 
West Jackson Boulevard, Chicago, Illinois 60604, (312) 886-6052, 
[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. What is the background for this action?
    II. What is EPA's evaluation of indiana's submittal?
    III. What action is EPA proposing?
    IV. Statutory and Executive Order Reviews

I. What is the background for this action?

    On June 11, 2012,\1\ EPA designated the Chicago area as a marginal 
nonattainment area for the 2008 ozone NAAQS. The Chicago area includes 
Cook, DuPage, Kane, Lake, McHenry, and Will Counties and parts of 
Grundy and Kendall Counties in Illinois; Lake and Porter Counties in 
Indiana; and part of Kenosha County in Wisconsin. On May 4, 2016,\2\ 
pursuant to section 181(b)(2) of the Clean Air Act (CAA), EPA 
determined that the Chicago area failed to attain the 2008 ozone NAAQS 
by the July 20, 2015, marginal area attainment deadline and thus 
reclassified the area from marginal to moderate nonattainment. In that 
action, EPA established January 1, 2017, as the due date for the state 
to submit all moderate area nonattainment plan state implementation 
plan (SIP) requirements applicable to newly reclassified areas.
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    \1\ 77 FR 34221, effective July 20, 2012.
    \2\ 81 FR 26697.
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    Indiana submitted a SIP revision request on February 28, 2017, and 
submitted supplemental information on January 9, 2018, to address the 
moderate area requirements for the Indiana portion of the Chicago area 
for the 2008 ozone NAAQS. The submission contained a number of 
nonattainment plan elements, including a certification that the 
existing VOC rules contained in 326 Indiana Administrative Code (IAC) 8 
satisfy the VOC RACT requirements of Section 182(b)(2) of the CAA and 
have been approved into the SIP by EPA. The submission addressed the 
SIP elements that were due on January 1, 2017. Indiana also certified 
that the Negative Declaration approved into the SIP by EPA for the 
fiberglass boat manufacturing materials CTG is still current. EPA 
approved Indiana's moderate SIP element submission on February 13, 2019 
(84 FR 3711).
    On October 20, 2016, EPA issued a CTG for the Oil and Natural Gas 
Industry (Oil and Gas CTG). Under sections 182 and 184 of the CAA, 
states must implement RACT to limit VOC emissions from sources covered 
by the Oil and Gas CTG in ozone nonattainment areas classified as 
``moderate'' or above for the 2008 ozone NAAQS.
    The Oil and Gas CTG includes RACT recommendations for storage 
tanks, centrifugal and reciprocating compressors, pneumatic controllers 
and pumps, and equipment leaks from natural gas processing plants, as 
well as VOC leaks at gathering and boosting stations and oil and gas 
well sites. Requirements are also established for storage tanks, 
pneumatic controllers and pneumatic pumps at low-producing well sites.
    States that are subject to RACT requirements must revise their SIPs 
to include their determinations for sources covered by the Oil and Gas 
CTG. If a state confirms there are no covered sources within its 
jurisdiction, it can submit a Negative Declaration. The Indiana 
Department of Environmental Management (IDEM) has determined that no 
emission sources covered by the Oil and Gas CTG exist within the 
portions of Lake and Porter Counties, which are part of the Chicago-
Naperville, IL-IN-WI Moderate Nonattainment area for the 2008 ozone 
NAAQS. As a result, IDEM submitted a Negative Declaration on October 
25, 2018.

II. What is EPA's evaluation of Indiana's submittal?

    IDEM searched its oil and gas well records and air permit records 
and evaluated potentially affected emissions sources to determine 
whether there were any sources covered by the Oil and Natural Gas 
Industry CTG.
    The Indiana Department of Natural Resources' (IDNR) Division of Oil 
and Gas administers Indiana's oil and gas statutes and regulates 
petroleum exploration and production operations including: well 
spacing, exploration, permitting, drilling, completion, production, and 
abandonment operations; underground injection of fluids for enhanced 
oil recovery or for production fluid disposal; and the underground 
storage of natural gas or other petroleum products in underground 
formations. IDEM conducted a search of permitted oil and natural gas 
wells in Lake and Porter counties using IDNR's online permit database. 
This search showed that no active oil or gas production wells exist in 
Lake or Porter counties.
    EPA's CTG lists six source categories along with the applicability 
criteria and RACT recommendation for each emission source category. As 
an example, storage vessels are one of these potentially subject 
emission sources. The applicability criteria are any individual storage 
vessel with a potential to emit greater than or equal to six tons per 
year (tpy) of VOC. The RACT recommendation is 95 percent reduction or 
maintain less than 4 tpy uncontrolled actual VOC emissions. The other 
source categories are pneumatic controllers, pneumatic pumps, 
centrifugal and reciprocating compressors, equipment leaks and fugitive 
emissions.
    IDEM conducted a search of Indiana's air permit database to 
identify potentially affected emissions sources, based upon applicable 
SIC codes, in Lake and Porter counties. No covered emissions sources 
were identified in Porter County. Three facilities in Lake County were 
identified and selected for further evaluation based on their SIC codes 
and descriptions. These facilities are:
     Northern Indiana Public Service Company LLC--North Hayden 
Substation, which is described as a stationary natural gas transmission 
and distribution facility,
     Northern Indiana Public Service Company LLC--Vector Crown 
Point Substation, which is described as a natural gas fired pipeline 
heater, and

[[Page 30068]]

     ANR Pipeline Company--St. John Station, which is described 
as a stationary natural gas compressor station.
    IDEM reviewed the 6 emission source categories, described above, 
for each of these three facilities and found that either there were no 
potentially subject sources or that the source was below the 
applicability cutoff. As an example, neither Northern Indiana Public 
Service Company LLC has storage tanks and ANR Pipeline Company--St. 
John Station has one condensate storage tank with a PTE of 0.35 tpy 
VOC, which is below the RACT cutoff of six tpy VOC.
    During its public comment period, IDEM received a comment from the 
Hoosier Environmental Council, who inquired about the absence of bulk 
storage tank facilities in northern Lake County in the applicability 
analysis. The commenter provided Enbridge and Citgo as examples.
    In response to the comment IDEM identified and evaluated bulk 
petroleum storage facilities in the affected area. IDEM performed a 
search for bulk petroleum storage facilities associated with the 
extraction and production of crude oil. None of the bulk petroleum 
storage facilities in Lake and Porter counties are located at 
extraction sites or associated with crude oil production. Therefore, 
the bulk petroleum storage facilities in Lake and Porter Counties do 
not meet the applicability criteria in the CTG.
    EPA has reviewed Indiana's Negative Declaration regarding the Oil 
and Gas CTG issued on October 20, 2016. As discussed in detail above, 
Indiana found no sources covered by the CTG in Lake or Porter Counties. 
Therefore, EPA is proposing to approve the state's submission as 
meeting the VOC RACT requirement for the Indiana portion of the Chicago 
area for the 2008 ozone NAAQS. Approval of this Negative Declaration 
supports EPA's February 13, 2019 approval of Indiana's VOC RACT 
Certification for Lake and Porter Counties.

III. What action is EPA proposing?

    EPA is proposing to approve Indiana's Negative Declaration for the 
Oil and Gas CTG. Approval of this negative declaration will support the 
February 13, 2019 approval of Indiana's VOC RACT Certification for Lake 
and Porter counties.

IV. 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);
     Is not an Executive Order 13771 (82 FR 9339, February 2, 
2017) regulatory action because SIP approvals are exempted under 
Executive Order 12866;
     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 (Public Law 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).

List of Subjects in 40 CFR Part 52

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

    Dated: June 13, 2019.
Cathy Stepp,
Regional Administrator, Region 5.
[FR Doc. 2019-13496 Filed 6-25-19; 8:45 am]
 BILLING CODE 6560-50-P