Environmental Protection Agency January 3, 2006 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

This amendment to 40 CFR 35.162 will address a situation which occurred in EPA's FY 2006 CWA Section 106 appropriation process. The President's FY 2006 budget specifically requested an increase in Section 106 funding for enhanced monitoring activities, particularly for statistically-valid assessments of water quality nationwide and for strengthening State and interstate monitoring programs. This action announces EPA's amendment of its CWA allocation regulation to provide the Agency with the flexibility to allot separately these funds that have been appropriated by Congress for Section 106 grants and targeted for monitoring. The amendment applies only to those portions of Section 106 funds which have been targeted in EPA's appropriations process for specific water pollution control elements.

This action withdraws the Tribal Solid Waste Interagency Workgroup announcement of the FY 06 Solicitation request for proposals of the Tribal Solid Waste Management Assistance Project (previously called the Open Dump Cleanup Project), published in the Federal Register Notice on Wednesday, November 23, 2005 (70 FR 70828). EPA is withdrawing the November 23, 2005 Notice of Availability because it has determined that it is necessary to make certain changes and clarifications to the funding solicitation contained therein. EPA will issue a revised solicitation in the near future. The revised solicitation will be published on the Internet at https://www.epa.gov/ tribalmsw (click on the ``Grants/Funding'' link) and will also be available through https://www.grants.gov.

The EPA is proposing to approve non-regulatory revisions to the Tennessee State Implementation Plan (SIP) and regulatory revisions to the Nashville-Davidson portion of the Tennessee SIP, submitted by the State of Tennessee through the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation (TDEC) on January 26, 1999, October 11, 2001, and April 15, 2005. The revisions amend the Vehicle Inspection and Maintenance program in Nashville-Davidson County and the Nashville (Middle Tennessee) Ozone Maintenance Area Plan. In the Rules Section of this Federal Register, the EPA is approving the SIP revisions 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. If no significant, material, and adverse comments are received in response to this rule, no further activity is contemplated. If EPA receives adverse comments, the direct final rule will be withdrawn and all public comments received will be addressed in a subsequent final rule based on this proposed rule. The EPA will not institute a second comment period on this document. Any parties interested in commenting on this document should do so at this time.

EPA is proposing to approve a State Implementation Plan (SIP) revision submitted by the State of Montana on August 2, 2004. The revision is to the State's Emergency Episode Avoidance Plan (EEAP). In the ``Rules and Regulations'' section of this Federal Register, EPA is approving the State's SIP revision as a direct final rule without prior proposal because the Agency views this as a noncontroversial SIP revision and anticipates no adverse comments. A detailed rationale for the approval is set forth in the preamble to the direct final rule. If EPA receives no adverse comments, EPA will not take further action on this proposed rule. If EPA receives adverse comments, EPA will withdraw the direct final rule and it will not take effect. EPA will address all public comments in a subsequent final rule based on this proposed rule. EPA will not institute a second comment period on this action. Any parties interested in commenting must do so at this time. Please note that if EPA receives adverse comment on an amendment, paragraph, or section of this rule and if that provision may be severed from the remainder of the rule, EPA may adopt as final those provisions of the rule that are not the subject of an adverse comment.