[Federal Register Volume 86, Number 57 (Friday, March 26, 2021)]
[Proposed Rules]
[Pages 16171-16173]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2021-06300]


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ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY

40 CFR Part 52

[EPA-R06-OAR-2021-0177; FRL-10021-16-Region 6]


Air Plan Approval; Texas; Clean Air Act Requirements for 
Emissions Inventories for Nonattainment Areas for the 2015 Ozone 
National Ambient Air Quality Standards

AGENCY: Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

ACTION: Proposed rule.

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SUMMARY: The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is proposing to 
approve the portions of the State Implementation Plan (SIP) submitted 
by the State of Texas to meet the Emissions Inventory (EI) requirements 
of the Federal Clean Air Act (CAA or the Act), for the Dallas-Fort 
Worth (DFW), Houston-Galveston-Brazoria (HGB), and Bexar County ozone 
nonattainment areas for the 2015 8-hour ozone national ambient air 
quality standards (NAAQS). EPA is proposing to approve this action 
pursuant to section 110 and part D of the CAA and EPA's regulations.

DATES: Written comments must be received on or before April 26, 2021.

ADDRESSES: Submit your comments, identified by Docket No. EPA-R06-OAR-
2021-0177, at https://www.regulations.gov. Follow the online 
instructions for submitting comments. Once submitted, comments cannot 
be edited or removed from Regulations.gov. 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 (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://www.epa.gov/dockets/commenting-epa-dockets.
    Docket: The index to the docket for this action is available 
electronically at www.regulations.gov. While all documents in the 
docket are listed in the index, some information may not be publicly 
available due to docket file size restrictions or content (e.g., CBI).

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Ms. Nevine Salem, EPA Region 6 Office, 
Infrastructure and Ozone Section, 214-665-7222, [email protected]. 
Out of an abundance of caution for members of the public and our staff, 
the EPA Region 6 office will be closed to the public to reduce the risk 
of transmitting COVID-19. We encourage the public to submit comments 
via https://www.regulations.gov, as there will be a delay in processing 
mail and no courier or hand deliveries will be accepted. Please call or 
email the contact listed above if you need alternative access to 
material indexed but not provided in the docket.

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

I. Background

    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. Therefore, an emission 
inventory for ozone focuses on the emissions of VOC and NOX 
referred to as ozone precursors. These precursors (VOC and 
NOX) are emitted by many types of pollution sources, 
including point sources such as power plants and industrial emissions 
sources; on-road and off-road mobile sources (motor vehicles and 
engines); and smaller residential and commercial sources, such as dry 
cleaners, auto body shops, and household paints, collectively referred 
to as nonpoint sources (also called area sources).

1. The 2015 Ozone NAAQS

    On October 1, 2015 the EPA revised both the primary and secondary 
NAAQS \1\ for ozone from concentration

[[Page 16172]]

level of 0.075 part per million (ppm) to 0.070 ppm to provide increased 
protection of public health and the environment (80 FR 65296, October 
26, 2015). The 2015 8-hour ozone NAAQS retains the same general form 
and averaging time as the 0.075 ppm NAAQS set in 2008 (2008 8-hour 
NAAQS) but is set at a more protective level. Specifically, the 2015 8-
hour ozone NAAQS is attained when the 3-year average of the annual 
fourth-highest daily maximum 8-hour ambient air quality ozone 
concentrations is less than or equal to 0.07 ppm \2\.
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    \1\ The primary ozone standards provide protection for children, 
older adults, and people with asthma or other lung diseases, and 
other at-risk populations against an array of adverse health effects 
that include reduced lung function, increased respiratory symptoms 
and pulmonary inflammation; effects that contribute to emergency 
department visits or hospital admissions; and mortality. The 
secondary ozone standards protect against adverse effects to the 
public welfare, including those related to impacts on sensitive 
vegetation and forested ecosystems.
    \2\ For a detailed explanation of the calculation of the 3-year 
8-hour average, see 80 FR 65296 and 40 CFR part 50, Appendix U.
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    On March 9, 2018 (83 FR 10376), the EPA published the 
Classifications Rule that establishes how the statutory classifications 
apply for the 2015 8-hr ozone NAAQS, including the air quality 
thresholds for each classification category and attainment deadline 
associated with each classification.
    On June 18, 2018, the EPA classified the DFW and HGB areas as 
marginal nonattainment areas for 2015 ozone NAAQS with an attainment 
deadline of August 3, 2021. (See 83 FR 25776). The DFW area consists of 
Collin, Dallas, Denton, Ellis, Johnson, Kaufman, Parker, Tarrant and 
Wise counties. The HGB area consists of Brazoria, Chambers, Fort Bend, 
Galveston, Harris, and Montgomery counties. On July 25, 2018, Bexar 
county was designated as marginal nonattainment area for the 2015 ozone 
standard with an attainment deadline of September 24, 2021 (See 83 FR 
35136).

2. Statutory and Regulatory Emission Inventory Requirements

    An emission inventory of ozone is an estimation of actual emissions 
of air pollutants that contribute to the formation of ozone in an area. 
The emissions inventory provides emissions data for a variety of air 
quality planning tasks, including establishing baseline emission levels 
for 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 meeting 
Reasonable Further Progress (RFP) requirements.
    CAA section 182(a)(1) and 40 CFR 51.1315(b) require states to 
submit a ``base year inventory'' for each ozone nonattainment area 
within two years of the effective date of designation. This inventory 
must be ``a comprehensive, accurate, current inventory of actual 
emissions from sources of VOC and NOX emitted within the 
boundaries of the nonattainment area as required by CAA section 
182(a)(1)'' (40 CFR 51.1300(p), see also CAA section 172(c)(3)). In 
addition, 40 CFR 51.1310(b) requires that the inventory year be 
selected consistent with the baseline year for the RFP plan, which is 
usually the most recent calendar year for which a complete triennial 
emissions inventory is required to be submitted to the EPA under the 
Air Emissions Reporting Requirements (AAER) (40 CFR part 51, subpart 
A).

3. State's Submittal

    On June 10, 2020, Texas adopted a SIP revision addressing the 2015 
ozone NAAQS emissions inventory requirements for the DFW, HGB and Bexar 
County nonattainment areas, and submitted it to EPA on June 24, 
2020.\3\ Texas has developed a 2017 base year emissions inventory for 
the DFW, HGB, and Bexar county nonattainment areas. The 2017 base year 
emissions include all point, nonpoint (area), non-road mobile, and on-
road mobile source emissions. Tables 1, 2, and 3 summarize the 2017 
NOX and VOC emissions for these nonattainment areas for a 
typical ozone season day emission \4\ (reflective of the summer period, 
when the highest ozone concentrations are expected in these ozone 
nonattainment areas).
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    \3\ A copy of the SIP revision is available online at 
www.regulations.gov, Docket number EPA-R06-OAR-2021-0177.
    \4\ See Ozone season day emission as defined in 40 CFR 
51.1300(q).

                  Table 1--DFW 2017 Emissions Inventory
                             [Tons per day]
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                    Source type                        NOX        VOC
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Point.............................................      29.90      21.04
Nonpoint (Area)...................................      41.82     293.62
On-road Mobile....................................      74.79      31.74
Non-road Mobile...................................     125.13      60.56
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  Total...........................................     271.64     406.96
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                  Table 2--HGB 2017 Emissions Inventory
                             [Tons per day]
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                    Source type                        NOX        VOC
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Point.............................................      97.31      73.34
Nonpoint (Area)...................................      32.12     287.74
On-road Mobile....................................      86.34      32.29
Non-road Mobile...................................     101.49      58.65
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  Total...........................................     317.26     452.02
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             Table 3--Bexar County 2017 Emissions Inventory
                             [Tons per day]
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                    Source type                        NOX        VOC
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Point.............................................      29.88       3.56
Nonpoint (Area)...................................       6.62      74.61
On-road Mobile....................................      11.42       7.09
Non-road Mobile...................................      35.70      20.84
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  Total...........................................      83.62     106.10
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II. EPA's Evaluation

    EPA has reviewed the Texas SIP revision for consistency with the 
CAA and regulatory emission inventory requirements. In particular, EPA 
has reviewed the techniques used by state of Texas to derive and 
quality assure the emission estimates. EPA has also evaluated whether 
Texas provided the public with the opportunity to review and comment on 
the development of the emission estimates and whether Texas addressed 
the public comments received. A summary of EPA's analysis is provided 
below. For a full discussion for our evaluation, please see our 
Technical Support Document (TSD) included in the docket to this action.
    Texas documented the general procedures used to estimate the 
emissions for each of the four major source types as referenced above. 
The documentation of the emission estimation procedures was adequate 
for us to determine that Texas followed acceptable procedures to 
estimate the emissions.
    Texas 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 propose to find 
that the quality assurance procedures followed by Texas are adequate 
and acceptable and that Texas has developed inventories of VOC and 
NOX emissions that are comprehensive and complete.
    Texas notified the public of the opportunity for comment and 
offered three public hearings. A full record of public notices, written 
and oral comments received during the state's public comment period, as 
well as states' responses to those comments are included in the state's 
submittal. A copy of the Texas SIP revision submittal is available 
online at www.regulations.gov, Docket number EPA-R06-OAR-2021-0177.

[[Page 16173]]

III. Proposed Action

    We are proposing to approve the portion of the Texas SIP revision 
submitted on June 24, 2020 to address the emissions inventory 
requirements for the DFW, HGB, and Bexar counties for the 2015 ozone 
NAAQS. The inventories we are proposing to approve are listed in Tables 
1, 2, and 3 above. We are proposing to approve the emissions 
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) requirements and because 
Texas adopted the emission inventories consistent with reasonable 
public notice and opportunity for a public hearing requirements. A TSD 
was prepared which details our evaluation. Our TSD may be accessed 
online at www.regulations.gov, Docket No. EPA- R06-OAR-2021-0177.

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 Act and applicable 
Federal regulations. 42 U.S.C. 7410(k); 40 CFR 52.02(a). Thus, in 
reviewing SIP submissions, the EPA's role is to approve state choices, 
provided that they meet the criteria of the CAA. 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 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 proposed 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, Nitrogen dioxide, Ozone, Reporting and record keeping 
requirements, Volatile organic compounds.

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

    Dated: March 22, 2021.
David Gray,
Acting Regional Administrator, Region 6.
[FR Doc. 2021-06300 Filed 3-25-21; 8:45 am]
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