2022-00810. Air Plan Approval; California; San Joaquin Valley Unified Air Pollution Control District; South Coast Air Quality Management District

AGENCY:

Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

ACTION:

Proposed rule.

SUMMARY:

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is proposing to approve revisions to the San Joaquin Valley Unified Air Pollution Control District (SJVUAPCD) and South Coast Air Quality Management District (SCAQMD) portions of the California State Implementation Plan (SIP). These revisions concern emissions of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and oxides of nitrogen (NO_X) from flares. We are proposing to approve these local rules to regulate these emission sources under the Clean Air Act (CAA or the Act). We are taking comments on this proposal and plan to follow with a final action.

DATES:

Comments must be received on or before February 24, 2022.

ADDRESSES:

Submit your comments, identified by Docket ID No. EPA-R09-OAR-2021-0846 at https://www.regulations.gov. For comments submitted at 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. If you need assistance in a language other than English or if you are a person with disabilities who needs a reasonable accommodation at no cost to you, please contact the person identified in the FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT section.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:

Donnique Sherman, EPA Region IX, 75 Hawthorne St., San Francisco, CA 94105. By phone: [phone] or by email at [e-mail].

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:

Throughout this document, “we,” “us” and “our” refer to the EPA.

Table of Contents

I. The State's Submittal

A. What rules did the State submit?

B. Are there other versions of these rules?

C. What is the purpose of the submitted rule revisions?

II. The EPA's Evaluation and Action

A. How is the EPA evaluating the rules?

B. Do the rules meet the evaluation criteria?

C. The EPA's Recommendations to Further Improve the Rules

D. Public Comment and Proposed Action

III. Incorporation by Reference

IV. Statutory and Executive Order Reviews

I. The State's Submittal

A. What rules did the State submit?

Table 1 lists the rules addressed by this proposal with the dates that they were adopted or amended by the local air agencies and submitted by the California Air Resources Board (CARB) to the EPA.

Table 1—Submitted Rules

Local agency	Rule No.	Rule title	Adopted/ amended	Submitted
SCAQMD	1118.1	Control of Emissions from Non-Refinery Flares	01/04/2019	04/24/2019
SJVUAPCD	4311	Flares	12/17/2020	03/12/2021

Under CAA section 110(k)(1), the EPA must determine whether a SIP submittal meets the minimum completeness criteria established in 40 CFR part 51, appendix V for an official SIP submittal on which the EPA is obligated to take action. If the EPA does not make an affirmative determination of completeness or incompleteness within six months of receipt of a SIP submittal, the submittal is deemed to be complete by operation of law. The submitted rules listed in Table 1 were deemed complete by operation of law on the following dates: October 24, 2019 (SCAQMD Rule 1118.1), and September 12, 2021 (SJVUAPCD Rule 4311).

B. Are there other versions of these rules?

There are no previous versions of SCAQMD Rule 1118.1 in the SIP. SCAQMD locally adopted this rule on January 4, 2019, and CARB submitted it to us on April 24, 2019.

We approved an earlier version of SJVUAPCD Rule 4311 into the SIP on November 3, 2011 (76 FR 68106). The SJVUAPCD adopted revisions to the SIP-approved version on December 17, 2020, and CARB submitted them to us on March 12, 2021. If we take final action to approve the December 17, 2020 version of Rule 4311, this version will replace the previously approved version of this rule in the SIP.

C. What is the purpose of the submitted rule revisions?

Emissions of NO_X and VOCs contribute to the production of ground-level ozone, which harms human health and the environment. Section 110(a) of the CAA requires states to submit regulations that control NO_X emissions. The submitted rules set further requirements to control NO_X and other emissions from flares. A description of these rules follows, and a more complete list of revisions and rule discussion can be found in the technical support documents (TSDs) and submitted district staff reports and rules for this rulemaking:

• SCAQMD Rule 1118.1 was adopted to fulfill reasonably available control technology (RACT) requirements for non-refinery flares and to facilitate the transition of the NO_X RECLAIM (Regional Clean Air Incentives Market) program to a command-and-control regulatory structure. Rule 1118.1 is designed to reduce NO_X and VOC emissions from non-refinery flares. The proposed rule establishes capacity thresholds for existing flares and emission limits for NO_X, VOC, and carbon monoxide (CO) for new, replaced, or relocated non-refinery flares.

• SJVUAPCD amended Rule 4311 to fulfill SJVUAPCD's control measure commitments in their 2018 PM_2.5 Plan and their 2016 Ozone Plan, for reducing flare emissions. SJVUAPCD amended Rule 4311 to require owners and operators of flares to install Ultra Low NO_X (ULN) flaring technologies and to encourage alternative uses of waste gas. Some of the revisions include establishing annual throughput thresholds that flares must not exceed, and adding a compliance schedule for meeting annual throughput limits.

II. The EPA's Evaluation and Action

A. How is the EPA evaluating the rules?

Rules in the SIP must be enforceable (see CAA section 110(a)(2)), must not interfere with applicable requirements concerning attainment and reasonable further progress or other CAA requirements (see CAA section 110(l)), and must not modify certain SIP control requirements in nonattainment areas without ensuring equivalent or greater emissions reductions (see CAA section 193).

Generally, SIP rules must require RACT for each major source of NO_X in ozone nonattainment areas classified as moderate or above (see CAA sections 182(b)(2) and 182(f)). The SCAQMD and SJVUAPCD regulate ozone nonattainment areas classified as Extreme for the 2008 8-hour ozone National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS), and the 2015 8-hour ozone NAAQS (40 CFR 81.305). Therefore, these rules must implement RACT.

Guidance and policy documents that we used to evaluate enforceability, revision/relaxation and rule stringency requirements for the applicable criteria pollutants include the following:

1. “State Implementation Plans; General Preamble for the Implementation of Title I of the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990,” 57 FR 13498 (April 16, 1992); 57 FR 18070 (April 28, 1992).

2. “Issues Relating to VOC Regulation Cutpoints, Deficiencies, and Deviations,” EPA, May 25, 1988 (the Bluebook, revised January 11, 1990).

3. “Guidance Document for Correcting Common VOC & Other Rule Deficiencies,” EPA Region 9, August 21, 2001 (the Little Bluebook).

B. Do the rules meet the evaluation criteria?

These rules meet CAA requirements and are consistent with relevant guidance regarding enforceability, RACT, and SIP revisions. The TSDs have more information on our evaluation.

C. The EPA's Recommendations To Further Improve the Rules

The TSDs include recommendations for the next time the local agencies modify their rules.

D. Public Comment and Proposed Action

As authorized in section 110(k)(3) of the Act, the EPA proposes to fully approve the submitted rules because they fulfill all relevant requirements. We will accept comments from the public on this proposal until February 24, 2022. If we take final action to approve the submitted rules, our final action will incorporate these rules into the federally enforceable SIP.

III. Incorporation by Reference

In this rule, the EPA is proposing to include in a final EPA rule regulatory text that includes incorporation by reference. In accordance with requirements of 1 CFR 51.5, the EPA is proposing to incorporate by reference the SCAQMD rule and the SJVUAPCD rule described in Table 1 of this preamble. The EPA has made, and will continue to make, these materials available through https://www.regulations.gov and at the EPA Region IX Office (please contact the person identified in the FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT section of this preamble for more information).

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, the EPA's role is to approve state choices, provided that they meet the criteria of the Clean Air Act. Accordingly, this proposed 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 proposed 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 Clean Air Act; and
• Does not provide the EPA with the discretionary authority to address disproportionate human health or environmental effects with practical, appropriate, 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 the 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
• Nitrogen dioxide
• Ozone
• Reporting and recordkeeping requirements
• Volatile organic compounds

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

Dated: January 11, 2022.

Martha Guzman Aceves,

Regional Administrator, Region IX.