2022-26360. Air Plan Approval; California; Eastern Kern Air Pollution Control District; Stationary Source Permits

AGENCY:

Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

ACTION:

Proposed rule.

SUMMARY:

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is proposing to approve a revision to the Eastern Kern Air Pollution Control District (EKAPCD) portion of the California State Implementation Plan (SIP). In this action, we are proposing to approve a local rule submitted by the EKAPCD, governing the issuance of permits for stationary sources, focusing on the preconstruction review and permitting of major sources and major modifications under part D of title I of the Clean Air Act (CAA or “the Act”). In the “Rules and Regulations” section of this issue of the Federal Register , we are approving the submitted rule into the California SIP as a direct final rule without a prior proposed rule. If we receive no adverse comment, we will not take further action on this proposed rule.

DATES:

Written comments must be received by January 4, 2023.

ADDRESSES:

Submit your comments, identified by Docket ID No. EPA-R09-OAR-2022-0651 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 the disclosure of which 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:

Po-Chieh Ting, 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.

This document proposes to approve EKAPCD Rule 210.1A into the EKAPCD portion of the California SIP. This rule was submitted to the EPA by the California Air Resources Board (CARB) on October 5, 2022 by a letter of the same date. We find that CARB's October 5, 2022 SIP submittal for EKAPCD Rule 210.1A meets the completeness criteria in 40 CFR part 51 Appendix V, which must be met before formal EPA review.

We have published a direct final rule to approve the submitted rule into the EKAPCD portion of the California SIP in the “Rules and Regulations” section of this issue of the Federal Register because we view this as a noncontroversial action and anticipate no adverse comment. We have explained our reasons for this action in the preamble to the direct final rule.

If we receive no adverse comment, we will not take further action on this proposed rule. If we receive adverse comment, we will withdraw the direct final rule and it will not take effect. We would address all public comments in any subsequent final rule based on this proposed rule.

We do not intend to institute a second comment period on this action. Any parties interested in commenting must do so at this time. For further information, please see the information provided in the ADDRESSES section of this document.

Dated: November 28, 2022.

Martha Guzman Aceves,

Regional Administrator, Region IX.