2014-20192. Adequacy Status of Motor Vehicle Emissions Budgets in Submitted Fine Particulate Maintenance Plan for Yuba City-Marysville; California

AGENCY:

Environmental Protection Agency.

ACTION:

Notice of adequacy.

SUMMARY:

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is notifying the public that the Agency has found that the motor vehicle emissions budgets (MVEBs) for fine particulate (PM_2.5) for the years 2017 and 2024 in the Yuba City-Marysville PM_2.5Nonattainment Area Redesignation Request and Maintenance Plan (April 1, 2013) (“Yuba City-Marysville PM_2.5 Plan”) are adequate for transportation conformity purposes. The Yuba City-Marysville PM_2.5 Plan was submitted to EPA on May 23, 2013 by the California Air Resources Board (CARB) as a revision to the California State Implementation Plan (SIP) and includes a maintenance plan for the 2006 24-hour PM_2.5 national ambient air quality standard. Upon the effective date of this notice of adequacy, the Sacramento Area Council of Governments and the U.S. Department of Transportation must use the MVEBs for future conformity determinations.

DATES:

This finding is effective on September 9, 2014.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:

John Ungvarsky, U.S. EPA, Region IX, Air Division AIR-2, 75 Hawthorne Street, San Francisco, CA 94105-3901, [phone] or [e-mail].

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:

Throughout this document, whenever “we,” “us,” or “our” is used, we mean EPA.

This notice is simply an announcement of a finding that we have already made. EPA Region IX sent a letter to CARB on August 11, 2014 stating that the MVEBs in the submitted Yuba City-Marysville PM_2.5 Plan for 2017 and 2024 are adequate. The adequate MVEBs are provided in the following table:

MVEBs in the Yuba City-Marysville PM_2.5 Plan

[Tons per winter season day]

Budget year	Oxides of nitrogen	PM2.5
2017	5.3	0.2
2024	3.1	0.2

Receipt of the MVEBs in the Yuba City-Marysville PM_2.5 Plan was announced on EPA's transportation conformity Web site on May 20, 2014. We received no comments in response to the adequacy review posting. The finding is available at EPA's transportation conformity Web site: http://www.epa.gov/​otaq/​stateresources/​transconf/​adequacy.htm.

Transportation conformity is required by Clean Air Act section 176(c). EPA's conformity rule requires that transportation plans, transportation improvement programs, and projects conform to SIPs and establishes the criteria and procedures for determining whether or not they do conform. Conformity to a SIP means that transportation activities will not produce new air quality violations, worsen existing violations, or delay timely attainment of the national ambient air quality standards.

The criteria by which we determine whether a SIP's MVEBs are adequate for conformity purposes are outlined in 40 CFR 93.118(e)(4) which was promulgated in our August 15, 1997 final rule (62 FR 43780, 43781-43783). We have further described our process for determining the adequacy of submitted SIP budgets in our July 1, 2004 final rule (69 FR 40004, 40038), and we used the information in these resources in making our adequacy determination. Please note that an adequacy review is separate from EPA's completeness review, and should not be used to prejudge EPA's ultimate approval action for the SIP. Even if we find a budget adequate, the SIP could later be disapproved.

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

Dated: August 11, 2014.

Alexis Strauss,

Acting Regional Administrator, Region IX.