Environmental Protection Agency – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

Pursuant to the Federal Clean Air Act (CAA, the Act), the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is approving two revisions to the Arkansas State Implementation Plan (SIP) submitted by the Governor on May 12, 2022, and November 1, 2022. These SIP revisions were submitted in response to EPA's June 12, 2015, finding of substantial inadequacy and SIP call concerning excess emissions during periods of startup, shutdown, and malfunction (SSM) events. EPA is approving these SIP revisions and finds that the revisions correct the inadequacies identified in Arkansas' SIP in the June 12, 2015, SIP call.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is updating a portion of the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) Air Regulations. Requirements applying to OCS sources located within 25 miles of states' seaward boundaries must be updated periodically to remain consistent with the requirements of the corresponding onshore area (COA), as mandated by the Clean Air Act (CAA). The portion of the OCS air regulations that is being updated pertains to the requirements for OCS sources for which Virginia is the designated COA. The Commonwealth of Virginia's requirements discussed in this document will be incorporated by reference into the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) and listed in the appendix to the Federal OCS air regulations.

In this action, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) proposes to revise the Guideline on Air Quality Models (``Guideline''). The Guideline has been incorporated into EPA's regulations, satisfying a requirement under the Clean Air Act (CAA) section 165(e)(3)(D) for the EPA to specify, with reasonable particularity, models to be used in the Prevention of Significant Deterioration (PSD) program. It provides EPA-preferred models and other recommended techniques, as well as guidance for their use in predicting ambient concentrations of air pollutants. In this action, the EPA is proposing revisions to the Guideline, including enhancements to the formulation and application of the EPA's near-field dispersion modeling system, AERMOD, and updates to the recommendations for the development of appropriate background concentration for cumulative impact analyses. Within this action, the EPA is also announcing the Thirteenth Conference on Air Quality Modeling and invites the public to participate in the conference. The conference will focus on the proposed revisions to the Guideline, and part of the conference will also serve as the public hearing for these revisions.

In accordance with the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA), EPA is issuing a notice of receipt of requests by registrants to voluntarily cancel certain pesticide registrations. EPA intends to grant these requests at the close of the comment period for this announcement unless the Agency receives substantive comments within the comment period that would merit its further review of the requests, or unless the registrants withdraw their requests. If these requests are granted, any sale, distribution, or use of products listed in this notice will be permitted after the registration has been cancelled only if such sale, distribution, or use is consistent with the terms as described in the final order.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Science Advisory Board (SAB) Staff Office requests public nominations of scientific experts to form a panel to review the revised Technical Guidance for Assessing Environmental Justice in Regulatory Analysis (Environmental Justice Technical Guidance or EJTG) and develop a self-initiated commentary outlining recommendations on advancing environmental justice science in rulemaking. The SAB Environmental Justice Science and Analysis Review Panel will review the revised EJTG to be released publicly in 2023, as well as other information to be provided by the EPA. The Panel will provide recommendations and expert input on both advisory activities.

The Environmental Protection Agency (``EPA'') is granting the California Air Resources Board's (``CARB'') request for authorization of amendments to its Ocean-Going Vessels At-Berth regulation (``At-Berth Regulation''). CARB's At-Berth Regulation specifies auxiliary engine emission reduction requirements applicable to container, refrigerated, cargo, cruise, roll on-roll off (ro-ro), and tanker vessels (also emission reduction requirements to tanker vessel auxiliary boilers) while docked or ``berthed'' at specified marine terminals and ports in California. This decision is issued under the authority of the Clean Air Act (``CAA'' or ``Act'').

In accordance with the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator's March 18, 2022, memorandum regarding ``Consent Decrees and Settlement Agreements to resolve Environmental Claims Against the Agency,'' notice is hereby given of a proposed consent decree in Arizona Mining Reform Coalition et al. v. Guzman et al. (D. Ariz. 2023). On September 27, 2023, the Arizona Mining Reform Coalition, the Center for Biological Diversity, Earthworks, the Concerned Citizens and Retired Miners Coalition, and the Grand Canyon Chapter of the Sierra Club (collectively, ``Plaintiffs'') filed a complaint against EPA in the United States District Court for the District of Arizona alleging that the Agency failed to perform a mandatory duty under the Clean Water Act (CWA) to establish Total Maximum Daily Loads (TMDLs) for copper and lead impairments for Queen Creek, Arizona. This complaint followed submission of a Notice of Intent to Sue on August 9, 2022. EPA seeks public input on a proposed consent decree prior to its final decision-making with regard to potential settlement of the litigation.

Under the Federal Advisory Committee Act, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) gives notice of a public meeting of the Good Neighbor Environmental Board (GNEB). The purpose of this meeting is for the board to discuss and approve the final integrated draft of its 20th comprehensive report on water and wastewater infrastructure issues and challenges along the U.S.-Mexico border region.

This action proposes to establish recordkeeping and reporting requirements for uses of ozone-depleting substances as process agents and to update definitions to reflect current practice. Codified recordkeeping and reporting requirements would provide clear and consistent notice each year of information EPA collects, aggregates, and reports as a party to the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer; effectively monitor these narrow uses in a more routine and consistent manner under the Clean Air Act; and enhance understanding of emissions of substances harmful to the ozone layer.

In accordance with the Clean Air Act, as amended (CAA or the Act), notice is given of a proposed consent decree in Center for Biological Diversity v. United States Environmental Protection Agency, et al., No. 2:23-cv-01843 (E.D. Pa.). On May 16, 2023, Plaintiff Center for Biological Diversity filed a complaint in the Unites States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. Plaintiff alleged that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA or the Agency) has unreasonably delayed taking action following the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit's September 3, 2021, order in Case No. 21-1279. That order granted EPA's request to remand to EPA for reconsideration a final rule titled ``Air Plan Approval; Pennsylvania; Reasonably Available Control Technology (RACT) for Volatile Organic Compounds (VOC) Under the 2008 Ozone National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS),'' published in the Federal Register on December 14, 2020). The proposed consent decree would establish a deadline for EPA to complete its reconsideration of that final rule.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is taking final action to find that 11 States failed to submit State Implementation Plan (SIP) revisions required by the Clean Air Act (CAA) in a timely manner for certain nonattainment areas classified as Moderate for the 2015 ozone National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS). The States that failed to submit the required SIP revisions for reclassified Moderate areas are Arizona, California, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, New Jersey, Nevada, Texas, and Wisconsin. This action triggers certain CAA deadlines for the imposition of sanctions if a State does not submit a complete SIP addressing the outstanding requirements and for the EPA to promulgate a Federal Implementation Plan (FIP) if the EPA does not approve the State's SIP revision addressing the outstanding requirements.

This notice announces the availability of EPA's proposed interim registration review decisions for bromine, chlorothalonil and triadimefon, and the proposed final registration review decisions for Agrobacterium rodiobacter, and porcine zona pellucida (PZP). This notice also opens a 60-day public comment period on the proposed decisions.

The Environmental Protection Agency is finalizing its denial of a rulemaking petition from American Forest and Paper Association et al. requesting amendments to the Non-Hazardous Secondary Materials regulations, initially promulgated on March 21, 2011, and amended on February 7, 2013, February 8, 2016, and February 7, 2018, under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act. These regulations establish standards and procedures for identifying whether non-hazardous secondary materials are solid wastes when legitimately used as fuels or ingredients in combustion units. The petition requested the following amendments: Change the legitimacy criterion for comparison of contaminants in the non-hazardous secondary material against those in the traditional fuel the unit is designed to burn from mandatory to ``should consider''; remove associated designed to burn and other limitations for creosote-treated railroad ties; and revise the definition of ``paper recycling residuals'' to remove the limit on non- fiber materials in paper recycling residuals that can be burned as a non-waste fuel. The Environmental Protection Agency proposed to deny the petition on January 28, 2022. After review of the public comments, the Agency is finalizing its denial of the requested amendments. In addition to denying this rulemaking petition, the Agency is revising the definition of paper recycling residuals to limit the impact non- fiber materials may have on the heat value of paper recycling residuals in order for them to be considered a non-waste fuel.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is approving a state implementation plan (SIP) revision submitted by the Commonwealth of Virginia (Commonwealth or Virginia). This revision pertains to the Commonwealth's plan, submitted by the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality (VADEQ), for maintaining the 1997 8-hour ozone national ambient air quality standards (NAAQS) (referred to as the ``1997 ozone NAAQS'') in the Norfolk-Virginia Beach-Newport News (Hampton Roads), VA Area (Hampton Roads Area). EPA is approving this revision to the Virginia SIP in accordance with the requirements of the Clean Air Act (CAA).

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator signed an order dated September 18, 2023, on two petitions, each dated March 6, 2023, granting in part and denying in part a petition from the Environmental Integrity Project (EIP), the Clean Air Council (CAC), and Pennsylvania's Future (PennFuture) (the EIP Petition), and granting in full a separate petition from the Group Against Smog and Pollution (GASP) (the GASP Petition). The petitions requested that the EPA object to a Clean Air Act (CAA) title V operating permit issued by the Allegheny County Health Department (ACHD) to the U.S. Steel Mon Valley Works Clairton Plant (U.S. Steel, Clairton) for its by-products coke plant located in Clairton, Allegheny County, Pennsylvania.

In accordance with the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA), EPA is issuing a notice of receipt of requests by the registrants to voluntarily cancel their registrations of certain pesticide products and to amend their pesticide product registrations to terminate one or more uses. EPA intends to grant these requests at the close of the comment period for this announcement unless the Agency receives substantive comments within the comment period that would merit its further review of the requests, or unless the registrants withdraw their requests. If these requests are granted, any sale, distribution, or use of products listed in this notice will be permitted after the registrations have been cancelled or uses terminated only if such sale, distribution, or use is consistent with the terms as described in the final order.

EPA has authorized the following contractor and subcontractors to access information which has been submitted to EPA under all sections of the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), some of which may be claimed or determined to be confidential business information (CBI): Battelle Memorial Institute of Columbus, OH and its subcontractors as listed in Unit III.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) will host a meeting of the Interagency Steering Committee on Radiation Standards (ISCORS) on Tuesday, November 28, 2023, in Washington, DC.

This notice announces that pesticide related information submitted to EPA's Office of Pesticide Programs (OPP) pursuant to the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA) and the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (FFDCA), including information that may have been claimed as Confidential Business Information (CBI) by the submitter, will be transferred to CGI Federal, Inc. and its subcontractor, Zachary Piper, LLC, in accordance with the CBI regulations. CGI Federal, Inc. and its subcontractor, Zachary Piper, LLC, have been awarded a contract to perform work for OPP, and access to this information will enable CGI Federal, Inc. and its subcontractor, Zachary Piper, LLC to fulfill the obligations of the contract.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is finalizing an update to the current ozone absorption cross-section to the recommended consensus-based cross-section value of 1.1329x10-17 cm\2\ molecule-1 or 304.39 atm-1 cm-1, with an uncertainty of 0.94 atm-1 cm-1. The new value is 1.2% lower than the current value of 308 atm-1 cm-1 and reduces the uncertainty in the value to 0.31%. The adoption of this updated ozone absorption cross-section could result in increases in measured ozone concentrations but given the existing sources of potential variability in monitoring data, it is unlikely that there will be any consistent measurable and predictable effect on reported data. The EPA is also updating the dates of publication for two references associated with the updated cross-section value, adding a new reference, and making a technical correction to move three figures inadvertently placed in section 6.0 References to a new section 7.0 Figures.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is proposing to approve a revision to the South Coast Air Quality Management District (SCAQMD or ``the District'') portion of the California State Implementation Plan (SIP) as SIP strengthening. This revision concerns emissions of oxides of nitrogen (NOX) and particulate matter (PM) from indirect sources associated with warehouses. The EPA is proposing to approve SCAQMD Rule 2305, ``Warehouse Indirect Source RuleWarehouse Actions and Investments to Reduce Emissions (WAIRE) Program,'' to regulate these emission sources under the Clean Air Act (CAA or the Act). The EPA is taking comments on this proposal and plans to follow with a final action.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is finalizing reporting and recordkeeping requirements for per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA). In accordance with obligations under TSCA, as amended by the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2020, EPA is requiring persons that manufacture (including import) or have manufactured these chemical substances in any year since January 1, 2011, to submit information to EPA regarding PFAS uses, production volumes, byproducts, disposal, exposures, and existing information on environmental or health effects. In addition to fulfilling statutory obligations under TSCA, this rule will enable EPA to better characterize the sources and quantities of manufactured PFAS in the United States.

Notice is hereby given that the State of Texas is revising its approved Public Water System Supervision (PWSS) program. Texas has adopted the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) drinking water rules for the Revised Total Coliform Rule (RTCR) and Ground Water Rule (GWR). Therefore, EPA intends to approve these PWSS program revision packages.

In accordance with the Clean Air Act, as amended (CAA or the Act), notice is given of a proposed consent decree in California Communities Against Toxics, et al. v. Regan, No. 1:22-cv-3005-RC (D.D.C.). On October 5, 2022, Plaintiffs California Communities Against Toxics, Missouri Coalition for the Environment Foundation, Natural Resources Defense Council, and Sierra Club filed a complaint in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia. On December 6, 2022, Plaintiffs filed an amended complaint. Plaintiffs alleged that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA or the Agency) failed to undertake certain non-discretionary duties under CAA to ``review, and revise as necessary . . . no less often than every 8 years'' the National Emission Standards for Hazardous Air Pollutants (NESHAP) From Secondary Lead Smelting because more than 8 years have passed since EPA completed the prior review of the NESHAP From Secondary Lead Smelting, (``the 2012 Rule''). In March 2012, Plaintiffs submitted a petition for reconsideration of the 2012 Rule. In December 2012, EPA granted Plaintiffs' request for reconsideration of the ``ample margin of safety'' analysis performed for the 2012 Rule and stated its intention to initiate a rulemaking addressing the same. Plaintiffs alleged that EPA failed to perform its obligations to reconsider the 2012 Rule and that this failure constitutes ``agency action unreasonable delayed'' under the CAA. The proposed consent decree would establish deadlines for EPA to sign a notice of final rulemaking containing all necessary revisions under the CAA and a notice of final rulemaking to address reconsideration of the ``ample margin of safety'' analysis in the 2012 Rule.