[Federal Register Volume 86, Number 151 (Tuesday, August 10, 2021)]
[Proposed Rules]
[Pages 43615-43617]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2021-16665]



[[Page 43615]]

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ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY

40 CFR Part 52

[EPA-R09-OAR-2021-0371; FRL-8746-01-R9]


Air Plan Approval; California; San Diego Air Pollution Control 
District

AGENCY: Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

ACTION: Proposed rule.

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SUMMARY: The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is proposing to 
approve revisions to the San Diego Air Pollution Control District 
(SDAPCD) portion of the California State Implementation Plan (SIP). 
These revisions concern emissions of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) 
from cold solvent cleaning and stripping operations and from vapor 
degreasing operations. We are proposing to approve changes to SIP-
approved local rules to regulate these emission sources under the Clean 
Air Act (CAA or the Act). We are taking comments on this proposal and 
plan to follow with a final action.

DATES: Comments must be received on or before September 9, 2021.

ADDRESSES: Submit your comments, identified by Docket ID No. EPA-R09-
OAR-2021-0371 at https://www.regulations.gov. For comments submitted at 
Regulations.gov, follow the online instructions for submitting 
comments. Once submitted, comments cannot be edited or removed from 
Regulations.gov. The EPA may publish any comment received to its public 
docket. Do not submit electronically any information you consider to be 
Confidential Business Information (CBI) or other information whose 
disclosure is restricted by statute. Multimedia submissions (audio, 
video, etc.) must be accompanied by a written comment. The written 
comment is considered the official comment and should include 
discussion of all points you wish to make. The EPA will generally not 
consider comments or comment contents located outside of the primary 
submission (i.e. on the web, cloud, or other file sharing system). For 
additional submission methods, please contact the person identified in 
the FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT section. For the full EPA public 
comment policy, information about CBI or multimedia submissions, and 
general guidance on making effective comments, please visit https://www.epa.gov/dockets/commenting-epa-dockets. If you need assistance in a 
language other than English or if you are a person with disabilities 
who needs a reasonable accommodation at no cost to you, please contact 
the person identified in the FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT section.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Robert Schwartz, EPA Region IX, 75 
Hawthorne St., San Francisco, CA 94105. By phone: (415) 972-3286 or by 
email at schwartz.robert@epa.gov.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: Throughout this document, ``we,'' ``us'' and 
``our'' refer to the EPA.

Table of Contents

I. The State's Submittal
    A. What rules did the State submit?
    B. Are there other versions of these rules?
    C. What is the purpose of the submitted rule revisions?
II. The EPA's Evaluation and Action
    A. How is the EPA evaluating the rules?
    B. Do the rules meet the evaluation criteria?
    C. The EPA's recommendations to further improve the rules
    D. Public comment and proposed action
III. Incorporation by Reference
IV. Statutory and Executive Order Reviews

I. The State's Submittal

A. What rules did the State submit?

    Table 1 lists the rules addressed by this proposal with the dates 
that they were adopted by the local air agency and submitted by the 
California Air Resources Board (CARB).

                                            Table 1--Submitted Rules
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                                                    Revised and
             Local agency                   Rule #             Rule title             adopted        Submitted
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
SDAPCD................................          67.6.1  Cold Solvent Cleaning         02/10/2021      04/20/2021
                                                         and Stripping
                                                         Operations.
SDAPCD................................          67.6.2  Vapor Degreasing              02/10/2021      04/20/2021
                                                         Operations.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

    On June 7, 2021, the EPA determined that the submittal for SDAPCD 
Rule 67.6.1 and Rule 67.6.2 met the completeness criteria in 40 CFR 
part 51 Appendix V, which must be met before formal EPA review.

B. Are there other versions of these rules?

    We approved earlier versions of Rule 67.6.1 and Rule 67.6.2 into 
the SIP on October 13, 2009.\1\ The SDAPCD adopted revisions to the 
SIP-approved versions on February 10, 2021 and CARB submitted them to 
us on April 20, 2021. If we take final action to approve the February 
10, 2021 versions of Rule 67.6.1 and Rule 67.6.2, these versions will 
replace the previously approved versions of these rules in the SIP.
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    \1\ 74 FR 52427.
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C. What is the purpose of the submitted rule revisions?

    Emissions of VOCs contribute to the production of ground-level 
ozone and smog, which harm human health and the environment. Section 
110(a) of the CAA requires states to submit regulations that control 
VOC emissions. The District revised Rule 67.6.1 to include more 
stringent solvent cleaning VOC limits, increase the stringency of a 
qualifying VOC limit for an exemption to the rule, and remove an 
inappropriate exemption for sources covered by a National Emission 
Standards for Hazardous Air Pollutants (NESHAP) standard. Rule 67.6.2 
was revised to increase the stringency of a qualifying VOC limit for an 
exemption to the rule and to add several housekeeping updates.
    Additionally, on December 3, 2020 (85 FR 77996), the EPA partially 
approved and partially disapproved SDAPCD's reasonably available 
control technology (RACT) demonstrations for the 2008 8-hr ozone 
national ambient air quality standards (NAAQS) (also referred to as the 
``2016 RACT SIP''). These deficiencies were identified in our August 
10, 2020 proposed partial approval and partial disapproval.\2\ For Rule 
67.6.1, the deficiency identified was an inappropriate exemption for 
sources covered by the NESHAP standard. Revisions to Rule 67.6.1 were 
submitted on April 20, 2021, in part to correct this deficiency. The 
EPA's technical support document (TSD) has more information about these 
rules.
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    \2\ 85 FR 48127.
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II. The EPA's Evaluation and Action

A. How is the EPA evaluating the rules?

    Rules in the SIP must be enforceable (see CAA section 110(a)(2)), 
must not interfere with applicable requirements

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concerning attainment and reasonable further progress or other CAA 
requirements (see CAA section 110(l)), and must not modify certain SIP 
control requirements in nonattainment areas without ensuring equivalent 
or greater emissions reductions (see CAA section 193).
    Generally, SIP rules must require RACT for each category of sources 
covered by a Control Techniques Guidelines (CTG) document as well as 
each major source of VOCs in ozone nonattainment areas classified as 
Moderate or above (see CAA section 182(b)(2)). The SDAPCD regulates an 
ozone nonattainment area classified as a Severe nonattainment area for 
the 2008 and 2015 8-hour ozone NAAQS (40 CFR 81.305).\3\ Therefore, 
these rules must implement RACT. In addition, we evaluated the rule to 
ensure it cured the deficiencies we identified in the partial 
disapproval of the SDAPCD's 2016 RACT SIP \4\ with respect to the 
requirement to establish RACT-level controls for sources covered by the 
``Control Techniques Guidelines for Industrial Cleaning Solvents.''
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    \3\ 86 FR 29522 (June 2, 2021).
    \4\ 85 FR 77996 (December 3, 2020) and 85 FR 48127 (August 10, 
2020).
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    Guidance and policy documents that we used to evaluate 
enforceability, revision/relaxation and rule stringency requirements 
for the applicable criteria pollutants include the following:

    1. ``State Implementation Plans; General Preamble for the 
Implementation of Title I of the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990,'' 
57 FR 13498 (April 16, 1992); 57 FR 18070 (April 28, 1992).
    2. ``Issues Relating to VOC Regulation Cutpoints, Deficiencies, 
and Deviations,'' EPA, May 25, 1988 (the Bluebook, revised January 
11, 1990).
    3. ``Guidance Document for Correcting Common VOC & Other Rule 
Deficiencies,'' EPA Region 9, August 21, 2001 (the Little Bluebook).
    4. ``Control of Volatile Organic Emissions from Solvent Metal 
Cleaning,'' EPA-450/2-77-022, November 1977.
    5. ``Control Techniques Guidelines for Industrial Cleaning 
Solvents,'' EPA-453/R-06-001, September 2006.

B. Do the rules meet the evaluation criteria?

    These rules meet CAA requirements and are consistent with relevant 
guidance regarding enforceability, RACT, and SIP revisions. The 
revisions to Rule 67.6.1 cure the deficiency identified in our partial 
disapproval of SDAPCD's 2016 RACT SIP with respect to the requirement 
to establish RACT-level controls for sources covered by the Industrial 
Cleaning Solvents CTG. Additionally, the District revised Rule 67.6.1 
to include more stringent solvent cleaning VOC limits and to increase 
the stringency of a qualifying VOC limit for an exemption to the rule. 
The District revised Rule 67.6.2 to increase the stringency of a 
qualifying VOC limit for an exemption to the rule. The TSD has more 
information on our evaluation.

C. The EPA Recommendations to Further Improve the Rules

    We recommend that the District add a reference to SDAPCD Rule 67.17 
that contains provisions for this source category supplementary to Rule 
67.6.1 and Rule 67.6.2. The TSD includes additional recommendations for 
the next time the local agency modifies the rules.

D. Public Comment and Proposed Action

    As authorized in section 110(k)(3) of the Act, the EPA proposes to 
fully approve the submitted rules because they fulfill all relevant 
requirements. We will accept comments from the public on this proposal 
until September 9, 2021. If we take final action to approve the 
submitted rules, our final action will incorporate these rules into the 
federally enforceable SIP. In addition, if we finalize our approval of 
Rule 67.6.1, it will address our obligation to promulgate a Federal 
Implementation Plan for the Industrial Cleaning Solvent CTG source 
category associated with our partial disapproval of the District's 2008 
RACT SIP, and satisfy the District's requirement to establish RACT-
level controls for this source category.\5\
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    \5\ Sanctions and FIP clocks still apply as they relate to 
deficiencies in other CTG source categories identified elsewhere in 
our partial disapproval of the District's 2008 RACT SIP (85 FR 
77996).
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III. Incorporation by Reference

    In this rule, the EPA is proposing to include in a final EPA rule 
regulatory text that includes incorporation by reference. In accordance 
with requirements of 1 CFR 51.5, the EPA is proposing to incorporate by 
reference the SDAPCD rules described in Table 1 of this preamble. The 
EPA has made, and will continue to make, these materials available 
through https://www.regulations.gov and at the EPA Region IX Office 
(please contact the person identified in the FOR FURTHER INFORMATION 
CONTACT section of this preamble for more information).

IV. Statutory and Executive Order Reviews

    Under the Clean Air Act, the Administrator is required to approve a 
SIP submission that complies with the provisions of the Act and 
applicable federal regulations. 42 U.S.C. 7410(k); 40 CFR 52.02(a). 
Thus, in reviewing SIP submissions, the EPA's role is to approve state 
choices, provided that they meet the criteria of the Clean Air Act. 
Accordingly, this proposed action merely proposes to approve state law 
as meeting federal requirements and does not impose additional 
requirements beyond those imposed by state law. For that reason, this 
proposed action:
     Is not a ``significant regulatory action'' subject to 
review by the Office of Management and Budget under Executive Orders 
12866 (58 FR 51735, October 4, 1993) and 13563 (76 FR 3821, January 21, 
2011);
     Does not impose an information collection burden under the 
provisions of the Paperwork Reduction Act (44 U.S.C. 3501 et seq.);
     Is certified as not having a significant economic impact 
on a substantial number of small entities under the Regulatory 
Flexibility Act (5 U.S.C. 601 et seq.);
     Does not contain any unfunded mandate or significantly or 
uniquely affect small governments, as described in the Unfunded 
Mandates Reform Act of 1995 (Pub. L. 104-4);
     Does not have federalism implications as specified in 
Executive Order 13132 (64 FR 43255, August 10, 1999);
     Is not an economically significant regulatory action based 
on health or safety risks subject to Executive Order 13045 (62 FR 
19885, April 23, 1997);
     Is not a significant regulatory action subject to 
Executive Order 13211 (66 FR 28355, May 22, 2001);
     Is not subject to requirements of Section 12(d) of the 
National Technology Transfer and Advancement Act of 1995 (15 U.S.C. 272 
note) because application of those requirements would be inconsistent 
with the Clean Air Act; and
     Does not provide the EPA with the discretionary authority 
to address disproportionate human health or environmental effects with 
practical, appropriate, and legally permissible methods under Executive 
Order 12898 (59 FR 7629, February 16, 1994).
    In addition, the SIP is not approved to apply on any Indian 
reservation land or in any other area where the EPA or an Indian tribe 
has demonstrated that a tribe has jurisdiction. In those areas of 
Indian country, the rule does not have tribal implications and will not 
impose substantial direct costs on tribal governments or preempt tribal 
law as specified by Executive Order 13175 (65 FR 67249, November 9, 
2000).

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List of Subjects in 40 CFR Part 52

    Environmental protection, Air pollution control, Incorporation by 
reference, Intergovernmental relations, Ozone, Reporting and 
recordkeeping requirements, Volatile organic compounds.

    Authority: 42 U.S.C. 7401 et seq.

    Dated: July 19, 2021.
Deborah Jordan,
Acting Regional Administrator, Region IX.
[FR Doc. 2021-16665 Filed 8-9-21; 8:45 am]
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