Environmental Protection Agency May 19, 2017 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is establishing air quality designations in the United States (U.S.) for the 2012 primary annual fine particle (PM2.5) National Ambient Air Quality Standard (NAAQS) for the remaining undesignated areas in the state of Tennessee. When the EPA designated the majority of areas in the country in December 2014, and March 2015, the EPA deferred initial area designations for several locations, including all of the state of Tennessee except three counties in the Chattanooga area, because the EPA could not determine using available data whether the areas were meeting or not meeting the NAAQS. However, we believed that forthcoming data in 2015 would allow the EPA to make that determination. Tennessee has now submitted complete, quality-assured, and certified air quality monitoring data for 2015 for the areas identified in this document, and based on these data, the EPA is designating these areas as unclassifiable/attainment for the 2012 primary annual PM2.5 NAAQS.

Pursuant to the Federal Clean Air Act (CAA or the Act), the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is proposing to approve a portion of a revision to the Louisiana State Implementation Plan (SIP) submitted by the State of Louisiana through the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality (LDEQ) on February 10, 2017, that addresses regional haze requirements for the first planning period. LDEQ submitted this SIP revision to address deficiencies identified by the EPA in a previous action. The EPA is proposing to approve the majority of the SIP revision, which addresses the CAA requirement that certain categories of existing major stationary sources built between 1962 and 1977 procure and install the Best Available Retrofit Technology (BART), while deferring action on LDEQ's BART determination for a single facility. Specifically, the EPA is proposing to approve most of LDEQ's BART evaluations and conclusions for Louisiana's BART-eligible electric generating unit (EGU) sources and to approve LDEQ's sulfur-dioxide (SO2) and particulate-matter (PM) emission limits for those sources that are subject to BART. The EPA is also proposing to approve Louisiana's reliance on the Cross-State Air Pollution Rule (CSAPR) trading program for ozone-season nitrogen oxides (NOX) as a permissible alternative to source-specific NOX BART emission limits. This action is being taken under sections 110 and 169A of the CAA.