Department of Agriculture July 27, 2015 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is opening the comment period for the Agency's draft recommended aquatic life water quality chronic criterion for selenium in freshwater. EPA released a previous draft entitled ``External Peer Review Draft Aquatic Life Ambient Water Quality Criterion for SeleniumFreshwater, 2014'' for public comment on May 14, 2014. EPA received scientific views from the public and stakeholders, and convened a contractor-led expert external peer review. EPA considered the results from the expert peer review and scientific views and comments from the public and stakeholders to develop the current draft document, which is now available for comment. Following closure of this public comment period, EPA will consider scientific views from the public on this draft document as well as any new data or information received. EPA will then publish Federal Register notice(s) announcing the availability of the final selenium criterion.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is proposing to approve the State of Alabama's March 27, 2015, State Implementation Plan (SIP) revision, submitted by the Alabama Department of Environmental Management. This SIP revision provides Alabama's state- determined allowance allocations for existing electric generating units (EGUs) in the State for the 2016 control periods and replaces the allowance allocations for the 2016 control periods established by EPA under the Cross-State Air Pollution Rule (CSAPR). The CSAPR addresses the ``good neighbor'' provision of the Clean Air Act (CAA or Act) that requires states to reduce the transport of pollution that significantly affects downwind nonattainment and maintenance areas. EPA is proposing to approve Alabama's SIP revision, incorporate the state-determined allocations for the 2016 control periods into the SIP, and amend the regulatory text of the CSAPR Federal Implementation Plan (FIP) to reflect approval and inclusion of the state-determined allocations. EPA is proposing to approve Alabama's SIP revision because it meets the requirements of the CAA and the CSAPR requirements to replace EPA's allowance allocations for the 2016 control periods. This action is being taken pursuant to the CAA and its implementing regulations. In the Final Rules Section of this Federal Register, EPA is approving the State's implementation plan revision as a direct final rule without prior proposal because the Agency views this as a noncontroversial submittal and anticipates no adverse comments. A detailed rationale for the approval is set forth in the direct final rule.

This action finalizes amendments to the National Emission Standards for Hazardous Air Pollutants (NESHAP) for the Portland Cement Manufacturing Industry and Standards of Performance for Portland Cement Plants. On February 12, 2013, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) finalized amendments to the NESHAP and the new source performance standards (NSPS) for the Portland cement industry. Subsequently, the EPA became aware of certain minor technical errors in those amendments, and thus issued a proposal to correct these errors on November 19, 2014 (79 FR 68821). The EPA received 3 comments on the proposal. In response to the comments received and to complete technical corrections, the EPA is now issuing final amendments. In addition, consistent with the U.S. Court of Appeals to the DC Circuit's vacatur of the affirmative defense provisions in the final rule, this action removes those provisions. These amendments do not affect the pollution reduction or costs associated with these standards.