Dated 12/14/00

MEMORANDUM

SUBJECT: Additional Submission on RACM from States with Severe 1-hour Ozone 

Nonattainment Area SIPs

FROM: Mr. John S. Seitz, Director

Office of Air Quality Planning and Standards 

Ms. Margo Oge, Director 

Office of Transportation and Air Quality 

TO: Regional Air Division Directors, Regions I, II, III, V and VI

SUMMARY

In order for States to demonstrate attainment of a national ambient air quality standard 

(NAAQS), EPA’s long-standing policy has been that States must address whether there are reasonably 

available control measures (RACM) that may advance the attainment date. In December 1999, EPA 

proposed action on 1-hour ozone attainment demonstration SIPs submitted by 14 States for 10 serious 

and severe 1-hour ozone nonattainment areas. The purpose of this memorandum is to ask the Regions 

to work with their States that have severe ozone nonattainment areas to ensure that the State’s current 

submission (or a revised submission) meets the Clean Air Act requirement that areas attain the NAAQS 

as expeditiously as practicable, including consideration of the availability of RACM that may advance 

the attainment date. Attachment 1 provides background on this issue and guidance.

ACTION

 There are several actions that need to be taken for severe areas, that are described below. It is 

important to remember that failure to address this issue could result in disapproval of the attainment 

demonstration SIPs for areas within the State. Under the terms of a recent consent decree, EPA would 

be obligated to propose by October 15, 2001 and promulgate by June 14, 2002 attainment 

demonstration Federal Implementation Plans (FIPs) if EPA has not fully approved attainment 

demonstration SIPs by the relevant dates. 
First, the Regional Offices should inform each State as soon as possible that comments have 

been raised regarding RACM. Second, the Region should work with their States to develop a 

supplement to the docket and/or a SIP revision that addresses whether TCMs and other possible 

stationary measures are RACM.1

The EPA believes that the docket should be supplemented no later than May 31, 2001. At that 

time, EPA will issue a supplemental notice of proposed rulemaking, providing the public with an 

opportunity to comment before EPA would be required to fully approve the SIP or propose a FIP in 

October 2001.

Existing EPA guidance provides some help in identifying the type of measures that might be 

considered. For example, the General Preamble contains a discussion of the relationship between the 

RACM requirement of section 172(c)(1) and the list of TCMs in section 108(f) (see Attachment 2). 

The thrust of this guidance is that section 108(f) TCMs are not presumptively RACM, but these should 

be considered in assessing whether they have applied RACM. Also, the General Preamble states:

 . . . any measure that a commenter indicates during a public comment period is 

reasonably available for a given area should be closely reviewed by the planning agency to 

determine if it is in fact reasonably available for implementation in the area in light of local 

circumstances.

Comments on the EPA proposed rulemaking on all of these SIPs included a list of measures that the 

commenter believes should be considered RACM; the relevant portions of one of these comments 

appears in Attachment 3. The General Preamble also contains a citation to an EPA-generated list of 

TCMs other than those in section 108(f). Our proposals in December included a document containing 

a list of measures to be considered by States needing additional measures to cover a shortfall. 

The Regional Offices should make clear that States need to give serious consideration to 

additional measures that might be reasonably available and advance the attainment date.

It is important for the Regional Offices to support and work closely with the States as they 

address this issue. Our staff will be available to provide any necessary assistance. Additionally, the 

environmental organizations that raised this comment have indicated that they are willing to assist the 

States in their efforts and other stakeholders may also be willing to provide assistance.

 

1

 For purposes of the attainment demonstration SIPs, measures could be justified as not meeting 

RACM if a measure (a) is not technologically or economically feasible, or (b) does not advance the 

attainment date for the area. 

Questions on this memorandum may be directed to John Silvasi of OAQPS at 919-541-5666 

or Mark Simons of OTAQ at 734-214-4025.
3

Attachments

cc: Regional Air Division Directors, Regions IV, VII, VIII, IX, X, John Silvasi, Denise Gerth, Rich 

Ossias, Kevin McLean, Jan Tierney, Sara Schneeberg, Tom Helms, Sharon Reinders, Meg 

Patulski, Laura Berry, M. Simons, M. Zaw-Mon

Bcc via email: Dave Conroy, Bob Judge, Bill Baker, Ray. Werner, Rudy Kapichak, Paul Truchan, 

Marcia Spink, Dave Arnold, Chris Cripps, Kay Prince, Karen Borel, Ed Doty, Jay 

Bortzer, Tom Diggs, Guy Donaldson

EPA/OAR/OAQPS/AQSSD/OPSG/JSILVASI\LLassiter: NCM Rm 510A:(MD-15) 1-5526 

File Name: I:\SEC\SILVASI\RACM.MEM November 14, 2000/Rev. December 7, 

2000/Rev. December 13, 2000
ATTACHMENT 1

BACKGROUND ON RACM REQUIREMENT ISSUE

During the comment period on the 1-hour attainment demonstrations and, in some instances, the 

separate comment period on the adequacy of the SIP for purposes of conformity, comments were 

received that questioned whether the States considered RACM. In general, the comments claimed that 

EPA cannot find the emissions budgets associated with the attainment demonstrations to be adequate 

because the attainment demonstrations are not approvable, in part because the SIP does not contain all 

RACM. The comments specifically focused on the failure of the SIPs to address transportation control 

measures (TCMs) that are RACM, but the comment was directed to stationary source measures as 

well. In light of EPA’s existing guidance, the comments contend that RACM is necessary to ensure that 

the attainment date is “as expeditious as practicable,” and therefore EPA cannot approve an attainment 

date–and its associated attainment demonstration–without having all RACM in the SIP. The comments 

also pointed out that some candidate TCMs have been included in transportation improvement 

programs (TIPs)--but not in the SIP–and the comments claim that at a minimum such measures are 

reasonably available and should be in the SIP.

The EPA policy stated in the General Preamble, 57 FR13498 at 13560 (Apr. 16, 1992) (which 

interpreted the court’s decision in the Delaney case, 898 F.2d 687 (9th Cir.)), is that States must 

consider available control measures, adopt such measures as are reasonably available, and provide a 

justification why measures that may be available were not considered RACM and adopted in the SIP 

(see Attachment 2). The EPA reconfirmed that policy in a November 30, 1999 policy memorandum 

from John Seitz that reiterates the statutory requirement for States to adopt as part of their attainment 

demonstrations all RACM necessary to advance the area’s attainment date.2 The memo further 

provides:

In order for the EPA to determine whether a State has adopted all RACM necessary for 

attainment as expeditiously as practicable, the State will need to provide a justification as to 

why measures within the arena of potentially reasonable measures have not been 

adopted. The justification would need to support that a measure was not “reasonably 

 

2Memorandum, “Guidance to Clarify EPA’s Policy on What Constitutes ‘As Expeditiously as 

Practicable’ for Purposes of Attaining the One-Hour Ozone Standard for Serious and Severe Ozone 

Nonattainment Areas.” John S. Seitz, Director, Office of Air Quality Planning and Standards. 

November 1999.
available” for that area and could be based on technological or economic grounds. Sources of 

potentially reasonable measures include measures adopted in other nonattainment areas and 

measures that the EPA has identified in guidelines or other documents. [Emphasis added]

In response to comments regarding the adequacy of the SIP budgets for purposes of 

conformity, EPA provided that “as long as EPA is fairly certain that the attainment demonstration will 

result in attainment consistent with the statutory requirement of attainment as expeditiously as 

practicable, but no later than certain prescribed dates, EPA can find the motor vehicle emission budget 

adequate.” 

However, for purposes of fully evaluating the approvability of the attainment demonstrations, 

EPA will need to ensure that sufficient evidence exists in the docket for the rulemaking to determine 

whether there are reasonably available measures that could advance the attainment date. Because we 

believe that the SIPs for the severe 1-hour ozone nonattainment areas on which EPA proposed action in 

December do not contain sufficient analysis of RACM, the docket will need to be supplemented to 

address this issue. 

Note that EPA’s guidance provides that even measures that are included in a TIP may possibly 

be determined to not be RACM if they do not meet the RACM tests outlined in EPA guidance and the 

Clean Air Act.
ATTACHMENT 2

GENERAL PREAMBLE EXCERPT ON RACM
ATTACHMENT 3

EXCERPTS FROM COMMENT LETTER ON RACM