Environmental Protection Agency February 3, 2023 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

When municipal discharges cause violations of the Clean Water Act (CWA), the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) sets a schedule for the municipality to address them as soon as possible. EPA considers factors such as public health, environmental protection, and a community's financial capability when developing schedules to implement the compliance measures. The updated Clean Water Act Financial Capability Assessment Guidance (FCA Guidance) may be used by municipalities when making certain water quality decisions and when developing or revising plans to dramatically reduce sewer overflows. The FCA Guidance describes the financial information and formulas the Agency intends to use to assess the financial resources a community has available to implement controls to meet the requirements of the CWA. It also provides transparent benchmarks for negotiating schedules to put those controls in place and for states and authorized tribes to assess potential changes to water quality standards. This guidance also helps ensure national consistency in CWA implementation. The FCA Guidance replaces EPA's 1997 Combined Sewer OverflowsGuidance for Financial Capability Assessment and Schedule Development (1997 FCA Guidance) to evaluate a community's capability to fund CWA control measures in both the permitting and enforcement context. Additionally, Section III of the FCA Guidance is intended to assist states and authorized tribes in the consideration of economic impacts to public entities for supporting revisions to designated uses, water quality standard (WQS) variances, and antidegradation reviews for high quality waters. The FCA Guidance reflects EPA's consideration of public comments received in response to its February 23, 2022 Federal Register publication. The contents of this guidance document do not have the force and effect of law and are not meant to bind the public in any way. This document is intended only to provide recommendations to the public regarding existing requirements under the law or agency policies.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is proposing to determine under the Clean Air Act (CAA) that the Detroit, Michigan nonattainment area (hereafter also referred to, respectively, as the ``Detroit area'' or ``area'') has attained the 2015 ozone National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS or standard). This determination is based upon complete, quality-assured, and certified ambient air monitoring data for the 2020-2022 design period showing that the area achieved attainment of the 2015 ozone NAAQS. EPA also proposes to take final agency action on an exceptional events request submitted by the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy (EGLE) on January 26, 2023, and concurred on by EPA on January 30, 2023. As a result of these determinations, EPA is proposing to suspend the requirements for the area to submit attainment demonstrations and associated Reasonably Available Control Measures (RACM), Reasonable Further Progress (RFP) plans, contingency measures for failure to attain or make reasonable progress, and other planning State Implementation Plans (SIPs) related to attainment of the 2015 ozone NAAQS, for as long as the area continues to attain the 2015 ozone NAAQS. This action does not constitute a redesignation of the area to attainment of the 2015 ozone NAAQS, and the area remains designated nonattainment until such time as EPA determines that the area meets the CAA requirements for redesignation to attainment and takes action to redesignate the area.

Pursuant to the Federal Clean Air Act (CAA or the Act), the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is proposing to approve revisions to the State Implementation Plan (SIP) for Oklahoma submitted by the State of Oklahoma on February 9, 2021. The submitted revisions address Open Burning, Control of Emission of Volatile Organic Compounds (VOC), and Specialty Coatings VOC Content Limits.