Adequacy Determination for the Sacramento Eight-Hour Ozone
Reasonable Further Progress Plan for Transportation Conformity
Purposes; State of California
[Federal Register: March 14, 2006 (Volume 71, Number 49)]
[Notices]
[Page 13124]
From the Federal Register Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]
[DOCID:fr14mr06-82]
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ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY
[EPA-R09-OAR-2006-0147; FRL-8044-7]
Adequacy Determination for the Sacramento Eight-Hour Ozone
Reasonable Further Progress Plan for Transportation Conformity
Purposes; State of California
AGENCY: Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
ACTION: Notice of adequacy.
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SUMMARY: In this notice, EPA is notifying the public that EPA has found
that the motor vehicle emissions budgets in the Sacramento 8-hour ozone
reasonable further progress plan are adequate for conformity purposes.
As a result of our finding, the Sacramento 8-hour ozone nonattainment
area (which consists of all of Sacramento and Yolo counties, and
portions of Placer, El Dorado, Solano, and Sutter counties) must use
the motor vehicle emissions budgets from the submitted 8-hour ozone
reasonable further progress plan.
DATES: This determination is effective March 29, 2006.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Dave Jesson, Environmental Protection
Agency, Region IX, Air Planning Office (AIR-2), 75 Hawthorne Street,
San Francisco, CA 94105, (415) 972-3957, jesson.david@epa.gov.
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: Throughout this document, whenever ``we'',
``us'' or ``our'' is used, we mean EPA.
Today's notice is simply an announcement of a finding that we have
already made. EPA Region IX sent a letter to the California Air
Resources Board, dated February 24, 2006, stating that the motor
vehicle emissions budgets for the year 2008 for the Sacramento 8-hour
ozone reasonable further progress plan are adequate. This finding is
also posted on EPA's conformity Web site:
http://www.epa.gov/otaq/transp/conform/pastsips.htm.
Transportation conformity is required by section 176(c) of the
Clean Air Act. EPA's conformity rule requires that transportation
plans, programs, and projects conform to state air quality
implementation plans and establishes the criteria and procedures for
determining whether or not they demonstrate conformity. Conformity to a
SIP means that transportation activities will not produce new air
quality violations, worsen existing violations, or delay timely
attainment of the national ambient air quality standards.
The criteria by which we determine whether a SIP's motor vehicle
emission budgets are adequate for conformity purposes are outlined in
40 CFR 93.118(e)(4). One of these criteria is that the motor vehicle
emissions budgets, when considered together with all other emissions
sources, are consistent with applicable requirements for a SIP. We have
preliminarily determined that the Sacramento 8-hour ozone reasonable
further progress plan meets the necessary emission reduction
requirements and, therefore, the motor vehicle emissions budgets can be
found adequate. Please note that an adequacy review is separate from
EPA's completeness review which is required by section 110(k)(1) of the
Clean Air Act, and it also should not be used to prejudge EPA's
ultimate action (approval or disapproval) on the submitted plan itself.
Even if we find budgets adequate, the submitted plan could later be
disapproved.
We have described our process for determining the adequacy of
submitted SIP budgets in guidance (May 14, 1999 memo titled
``Conformity Guidance on Implementation of March 2, 1999 Conformity
Court Decision''). This guidance is now reflected in the transportation
conformity rule at 40 CFR 93.118(e), most recently amended on July 1,
2004 (69 FR 40004) and July 20, 2004 (69 FR 43325). We followed this
process in making our adequacy determination on the emissions budgets
contained in the Sacramento 8-hour ozone reasonable further progress plan.
The budgets for the Sacramento area for the year 2008 are as
follows: 41 tons per day of volatile organic compounds and 75 tons per
day of nitrogen oxides.
Authority: 42 U.S.C. 7401 et seq.
Dated: March 1, 2006.
Laura Yoshii,
Acting Regional Administrator, EPA Region IX.
[FR Doc. E6-3588 Filed 3-13-06; 8:45 am]
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