Adequacy Status of the Fort Collins, Colorado Carbon Monoxide
Maintenance Plan for Transportation Conformity Purposes
[Federal Register: February 4, 2003 (Volume 68, Number 23)]
[Notices]
[Page 5638-5639]
From the Federal Register Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]
[DOCID:fr04fe03-42]
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ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY
[CO-001-0073; FRL-7447-9 ]
Adequacy Status of the Fort Collins, Colorado Carbon Monoxide
Maintenance Plan for Transportation Conformity Purposes
AGENCY: Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
ACTION: Notice of adequacy.
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SUMMARY: In this document, EPA is notifying the public that we have
found that the motor vehicle emissions budgets in the Fort Collins,
Colorado carbon monoxide (CO) maintenance plan, that was submitted by
the Governor on August 9, 2002, are adequate for conformity purposes.
On March 2, 1999, the DC Circuit Court ruled that budgets in submitted
State Implementation Plans (SIPs) cannot be used for conformity
determinations until EPA has affirmatively found them adequate. As a
result of our finding, the North Front Range Transportation & Air
Quality Planning Council, the City of Fort Collins, the Colorado
Department of Transportation and the U.S. Department of Transportation
are required to use the motor vehicle emissions budgets from this
submitted maintenance plan for future conformity determinations.
DATES: This finding is effective February 19, 2003.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Kerri Fiedler, Air & Radiation Program
(8P-AR), United States Environmental Protection Agency, Region 8, 999
18th Street, Suite 300, Denver, Colorado 80202-2466, (303) 312-6493.
The letter documenting our finding is available at EPA's conformity Web
site: http://www.epa.gov/otaq/transp/conform/adequacy.htm.
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: Throughout this document wherever ``we'',
``us'', or ``our'' are used we mean EPA.
This action is simply an announcement of a finding that we have
already made. We sent a letter to the Colorado Air Pollution Control
Division
[[Page 5639]]
on January 15, 2003, stating that the motor vehicle emissions budgets
in the submitted Fort Collins CO maintenance plan are adequate. This
finding has also been announced on our conformity Web site at
http://www.epa.gov/otaq/transp/conform/adequacy.htm.
Transportation conformity is required by section 176(c) of the
Clean Air Act. Our conformity rule requires that transportation plans,
programs, and projects conform to SIPs and establishes the criteria and
procedures for determining whether or not they do. 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). Please note that an adequacy review is separate
from our completeness review, and it also should not be used to
prejudge our ultimate approval of the SIP. Even if we find a budget
adequate, the SIP could later be disapproved, and vice versa.
We've described our process for determining the adequacy of
submitted SIP budgets in a memo entitled, ``Conformity Guidance on
Implementation of March 2, 1999 Conformity Court Decision,'' dated May
14, 1999. We followed this guidance in making our adequacy
determination.
Authority: 42 U.S.C. 7401 et seq.
Dated: January 23, 2003.
Robert E. Roberts,
Regional Administrator, Region VIII.
[FR Doc. 03-2535 Filed 2-3-03; 8:45 am]
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