Clarifications Regarding the 2004 Extreme Ozone Attainment 

Demonstration Plan

July 21, 2008 

Background

On October 8, 2004 the Governing Board of the San Joaquin Valley Unified Air 

Pollution Control District (District) adopted the 2004 Extreme Ozone Attainment 

Demonstration Plan (EOADP), which fulfilled the District’s plan commitment for 

the federal 1-hr ozone standard as outlined by the U.S. Environmental Protection 

Agency (EPA) in their final rule approving the state of California’s request to 

classify the San Joaquin Valley Air Basin as extreme nonattainment for the 

federal 1-hr ozone standard (69 FR 20551). Submittal of this plan to EPA also 

fulfilled one of three options for fulfilling 1-hr ozone planning requirements as 

outlined by EPA in their Phase I Implementation Rule for the federal 8-hr ozone 

standard [40 CFR 51.905(a)(1)]. On October 28, 2004, the California Air 

Resources Board (ARB) approved this plan and forwarded it to EPA by the 

November 15, 2004 deadline established by EPA (69 FR 20551). EPA found the 

transportation conformity budgets in the plan to be adequate on February 15, 

2005 (70 FR 7734). The 2004 EOADP became complete by operation of law on 

May 15, 2005 (Section 110(k)(b) of the federal Clean Air Act). 

On June 15, 2005, EPA’s revocation of the federal 1-hr ozone ambient air quality 

standard became effective (40 CFR 50.9(b)), as described in the Phase I 

Implementation Rule for 8-hr ozone (69 FR 23951). On December 22, 2006 the 

U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit vacated the entire 

Phase I Implementation Rule for 8-hr ozone, but later (June 8, 2007) let stand 

EPA’s revocation of the federal 1-hr ozone standard. In part because of 

uncertainties associated with litigation on the Phase I Implementation Rule for 8-

hr ozone, and in part because of a collective focus on challenges associated with 

developing state implementation plans (SIPs) for 8-hr ozone and PM2.5, EPA 

delayed its approval action on the 2004 EOADP. In early 2008, EPA resumed 

their review of the plan, which was intensified due to a lawsuit filed by the 

Association of Irritated Residents and the Natural Resources Defense Council 

[No. CV 08-0227-SC (N. D. Cal.)]. This lawsuit seeks to compel the EPA 

administrator to take action on three SIP revisions submitted to EPA by the State 

of California, one of which is the 2004 EOADP (73 FR 39288). EPA developed a 

proposed consent decree with the plaintiffs and agreed to fulfill its obligations 

under Section 110(k) of the federal Clean Air Act to act on the three California 

SIPs by mutually agreed upon deadlines. EPA has agreed to sign Federal 

Register notices for the proposed approval actions by October 15, 2008, and to 

sign Federal Register notices of final actions by January 15, 2009. 

1 
After conducting a thorough review of the 2004 EOADP, EPA requested specific 

information, which if provided by ARB and the District, would facilitate their 

approval action on the 2004 EOADP. A June 6, 2008 letter from Deborah Jordan 

(Director of the Air Division for EPA’s Region 9) to Seyed Sadredin (Air Pollution 

Control Officer for the San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District), outlines 

these information needs. Because many of the items requested by EPA are for 

recent and updated information not available at the time the 2004 EOADP was 

developed, or reflect post-2004 changes in law, regulation or policy, ARB and the 

District largely view them as clarifications to the original plan, and do not consider 

them as SIP revisions. However, to accommodate EPA’s requests as outlined in 

the June 6, 2008 letter, the District is requesting that ARB transmit the 

clarifications to EPA, if accepted by the District Governing Board, for 

incorporation as part of the SIP. 

The clarifications consist of the following principal components: 

• Withdrawal of the Reasonably Available Control Technology (RACT) 

portion of the plan (Section 4.2.5), which will be fulfilled when the District 

addresses the RACT requirements by enhancing the 8-hr ozone RACT 

SIP (40 CFR 51.912); 

• Updated control measure calculations demonstrating actual emission 

reductions from adopted rules, which provide a surplus of emissions 

reductions that is more than sufficient to fulfill the long-term measure 

commitment in the 2004 EOADP, thus eliminating the need for 

contingency measures to backstop the long-term measure commitment; 

• Updated ROP calculations reflecting recent EPA policy decisions 

regarding emission reductions associated with pre-1990 motor vehicle 

emission standards; and 

• Updated contingency measure discussion that reflects the excess 

reductions not needed to demonstrate ROP and excess reductions from 

the state’s motor vehicle emission control program. Additional reductions 

are also available from new control measures developed for the 2007 

Ozone Plan (addressing the federal 8-hr ozone standard) and the 2008 

PM2.5 Plan, that can be used for contingency measures for the 2004 

EOADP; upon adoption, these measures would provide reductions that 

were not used in ROP or attainment demonstration for 1-hr ozone and that 

would go into effect without further action by the District, ARB or EPA, 

therefore meeting the definition of contingency measures. 

In addition to the above items, EPA in July 2008 identified one additional 

clarification item requiring updating: 

• Motor vehicle emission data showing downward trends for all years in the 

planning horizon covered by the 2004 EOADP, not just the ROP and 

attainment years. 

The following paragraphs discuss each of these in more detail. 

2 
Reasonably Available Control Technology (RACT)

The 2004 EOADP was intended to meet the RACT requirements as outlined in 

EPA’s final rule approving California’s request to reclassify the San Joaquin 

Valley Air Basin to extreme nonattainment for the federal 1-hr ozone standard 

(70 FR 20551-20552), as well as prior Federal Register rulemakings regarding 

severe nonattainment (67 FR 61784). In developing its Phase 2 Implementation 

Rule for the federal 8-hr ozone standard (published November 29, 2005 and 

effective January 30, 2006), EPA articulated new and more robust interpretations 

of RACT requirements first presented in the 1990 amendments to the federal 

Clean Air Act. These interpretations included development of a RACT SIP to be 

submitted to EPA by September 15, 2006. The District developed its RACT SIP 

in 2006 and the District Governing Board adopted it on August 17, 2006 and 

transmitted it promptly to ARB for submittal to EPA. ARB submitted the adopted 

RACT SIP to EPA on January 31, 2007 as part of a package of five California 

RACT SIPs. This RACT SIP reflected a major source cutoff of 25 tpy, which was 

the major source cutoff in effect for the SJVAB under state law (California Health 

and Safety Code 42504) at the time of RACT SIP development. The 2007 

Ozone Plan prepared subsequent to the RACT SIP identified a need for future 

emission reductions to come from advanced technology, thereby necessitating 

the reclassification of the SJVAB to extreme nonattainment for 8-hr ozone, which 

has a major source cutoff of 10 tpy. Consequently, upon EPA issuance of a final 

rule approving the request to reclassify the SJVAB to extreme nonattainment for 

the federal 8-hr ozone standard, the District is required to revise the RACT SIP to 

reflect a major source cutoff of 10 tpy. In anticipation of this action, the District 

began work on revising the RACT SIP in the fall of 2007. In December 2007, the 

District issued a revised Draft RACT SIP reflecting the lower major source cutoff 

and also incorporating new Control Techniques Guidelines (CTGs) issued by 

EPA. The District is now working with EPA to finalize this RACT SIP that will 

reflect extreme nonattainment for the federal 8-hr ozone standard and will fulfill 

applicable CTG requirements. 

Because EPA has stated that the RACT discussion in the 2004 EOADP is not 

approvable under EPA’s post-2004 RACT implementation, the District is hereby 

formally withdrawing the RACT portion of the 2004 EOADP (Section 4.2.5) and 

will fill the resulting 1-hr ozone RACT gap with the revised 8-hr ozone RACT SIP 

now under development. EPA and the District agree that this approach is the 

best use of agency resources in fulfilling federal Clean Air Act requirements. 

Rate of Progress (ROP) and Updated Emission Reductions

The District has prepared and submitted to EPA all required federal 1-hr ozone 

Rate of Progress (ROP) documentation. The District has adopted and 

implemented the control measure commitments in the 2004 EOADP (Table 4-1 

of the 2004 EOADP). Analysis of actual emission reductions obtained during the 

rule development process shows that the District was able to secure emission 

reductions greatly exceeding those predicted in the 2004 EOADP, even after 

3 
4 

accounting for the different emission inventories used in plan development vs 

rule development. Table 1 shows the analysis of predicted vs. actual reductions 

for volatile organic compounds (VOC) and nitrogen oxides (NOx) emissions for 

each of the District control measures in the 2004 EOADP. Results indicate that 

the rule development process 

• Met the plan’s commitment for VOC reductions and obtained over 6 tpd of 

excess reductions above and beyond those predicted. 

• Met the plan’s commitment for NOx reductions and obtained over 16 tpd 

of excess reductions above and beyond those predicted. 
Control 

Measure 

ID

Pollutant Rule # Description Commitment 

(2010 - tpd)

Achieved 

Emission 

Reductions 

(2010 - tpd)

Local 

Adoption

C NOx 9310 Fleet rule - School 

buses 0.1 1.6 21-Sep-2006

D NOx 9510, 

3180

Indirect Source 

Mitigation * 4.0 4.0 15-Dec-2005

E NOx 4307 Small Boilers (2 -5 

MMBTU) 1.0 5.1 20-Apr-2006

G NOx 4352 Solid fuel boilers 0.0 0.0 18-May-2006

H NOx 4702 Stat. IC engines 8.0 16.8 18-Jan-2007

I NOx 4309 Commercial Dryers 1.0 0.7 15-Dec-2005

N NOx New Water Heaters 0.075 - 0.2 0.8 20-Oct-2005

Q NOx 4103 Open Burning 1.1 1.7 17-May-2007

S NOx 4703 Sta. Gas Turbines 0.6 1.9 17-Aug-2006

NOx totals 16.0 32.6

Control 

Measure 

ID

Pollutant Rule # Description Commitment 

(2010 - tpd)

Achieved 

Emission 

Reductions 

(2010 - tpd)

Local 

Adoption

A VOC 4409 Oil & Gas Fug. 4.7 5.1 20-Apr-2005

B VOC 4455 Ref. & Chem Fug. 0.2 0.3 20-Apr-2005

F VOC 4694 Wineries 0.7 0.8 15-Dec-2005

J VOC 4565 Composting/Biosolids 0.1 0.3 15-Mar-2007

4602 Automotive Coating 21-Sep-2006

New 

4612

(note: rule is also 

listed in M below for 

solvents only)

20-Sep-2007

L VOC 4570 CAFO Rule 15.8 17.7 15-Jun-2006

4662 Org. Solvent 

Degreasing

4663 Org. Sol. Cleaning

4603 Metal Parts/Products

4604 Can and Coil Coating

4605 Aerospace Coating

4606 Wood Products 

Coating

4607 Graphic Arts

4612 Automotive Coating

4653 Adhesives

4684 Polyester Resin 

Operation

O VOC 4401 Steam-Enhanced Oilwell 1.4 0.3 14-Dec-2006

P VOC 4651 Soil Decontamination <0.05 0.0 20-Sep-2007

Q VOC 4103 Open Burning 2.9 3.9 17-May-2007

R VOC 4682 Polymeric Foam Mfg. 0.1 0.1 20-Sep-2007

T VOC 4621 & 

4624

Gasoline storage + 

Trans. 0.9 1.9 20-Dec-2007

U VOC New Aviation Fuel Transf <0.05

VOC totals 28.2 34.5

Table 1

Status of Implementation:

San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District

2004 Extreme Ozone Attainment Plan "New Measure" Commitments

NOx Control Measures

VOC Control Measures

20-Sep-2007

1.0

M VOC 1.3 3.1

* The District staff tracks reductions from ISR and reports them to the Governing Board on an annual basis. The 2007-2008 ISR annual report shows 5.7 tpd 

of NOx reductions for the year, which already exceeds the plan commitment of 4 tpd in 2010. District staff believes that it is on track to meet its 2010 

reduction commitment. However, to be conservative, District staff estimates achievement of the 2010 commitment without additional surplus reductions 

from this rule.

K VOC 0.1

5 
ROP and Updated Pre-1990 Motor Vehicle Standards

In Table 2, the District is providing an additional ROP analysis using U.S. EPA’s now-preferred 

methodology (related to pre-1990 adjustments) that demonstrates sufficient emission reductions to 

satisfy the ROP requirement, relying only on the emission control program as it existed when the 

Valley’s 2004 SIP was submitted, with at minimum three percent surplus reductions to satisfy the 

contingency measure requirement. This additional analysis successfully demonstrates that ROP is 

achieved and that sufficient surplus emission reductions occur to satisfy the contingency measure 

requirements of the Act. 

Table 2 

San Joaquin Valley Rate of Progress (ROP) 

With California Pre-1990 Motor Vehicle Control Program Adjustments 

Using adopted measures only 

(Summer Planning tons per day)

 1990 2008 2010 

Baseline ROG 633.2 369.4 362.7 

California Pre-1990 Adjustment 0.0 120.1 123.8 

RACT Corrections 0.0 0.0 0.0 

Adjusted 1990 Baseline ROG in milestone year 633.2 513.1 509.4 

ROP commitment for ROG reductions from new measures 0 0 0 

Required % change since previous milestone year (ROG or NOx) compared to 

1990 51% 6% 

Required % change since 1990 (ROG or NOx) 51% 57% 

Target ROG levels 251.4 219.0 

Apparent shortfall in ROG 118.0 143.7 

Apparent shortfall in ROG, % 23.0% 28.2% 

ROG shortfall previously provided by NOx substitution, % 0 23.0% 

Actual ROG shortfall, % 23.0% 5.2% 

 

Baseline NOx 805.1 411.0 384.5 

California Pre-1990 Adjustment 0.0 114.0 116.6 

Adjusted 1990 Baseline NOx in milestone year 805.1 691.1 688.5 

ROP commitment for NOx reductions from new measures 0 0 0 

Change in NOx since 1990 280.1 304.0 

Change in NOx since 1990, % 40.5% 44.2% 

NOx reductions since 1990 already used for ROP substitution and contingency 

through last milestone year, % 0.0% 26.0% 

NOx reductions since 1990 available for ROP substitution and contingency in this 

milestone year, % 40.5% 18.2% 

Change in NOx since 1990 used for ROG substitution in this milestone year, % 23.0% 5.2% 

Change in NOx since 1990 available for contingency in this milestone year, % 3.0% 3.0% 

Change in NOx since 1990 surplus after meeting substitution and contingency 

needs in this milestone year, % 14.5% 12.9% 

ROP shortfall, if any 0.0% 0.0% 

ROP Met? YES YES 

Contingency Met? YES YES 

6 
Section 182(g) of the federal Clean Air Act requires nonattainment areas to determine if they have 

achieved the emission reductions identified during previous three-year ROP intervals as being 

needed to meet the ROP milestones for the intervals in question. The District has complied with this 

requirement. Of principal interest to the 2004 EOADP are the ROP milestone years of 2002, 2005, 

2008 and the attainment year of 2010. The District’s Section 182(g) report for the 2002 milestone 

year is presented in Section 7.6.2 of the 2004 EOADP, which shows that reductions achieved their 

targets. For the 2005 ROP milestone year, the District sent to EPA, through ARB, a milestone 

compliance demonstration report showing that the District met its 2005 ROP emission reduction 

targets.1 The next required Section 182(g) milestone compliance demonstration report is for calendar 

year 2008 and is due to EPA by March 31, 2009. 

Contingency Measures

As noted above, contingency measure requirements refer to those needed for ROP and attainment 

milestones [Sections 127(c)(9) and 182(c)(9)] as well as the need for long-term measure 

contingencies [Section 182(e)(5)]. The ROP analysis submitted with this Clarification Package and 

discussed above shows that excess emission reductions were available from adopted measures at 

the time of plan development to meet the ROP and attainment contingency requirements. In addition, 

the state’s motor vehicle emission control program provides excess reductions that can be used for 

attainment year contingencies (see next section). 

The 2007 Ozone Plan and the 2008 PM2.5 Plan all contain control measures that the District is 

committed to adopting and that were not used in demonstrating ROP or attainment in the 2004 

EOADP. For these reasons, the reductions from the post-2004 plans meet the definition for 

contingency measures, provided the timing of the 2007 Ozone Plan and 2008 PM2.5 Plan reductions 

is helpful for 1-hr ozone milestones (i.e., the reductions occur in time to help meet 1-hr ozone 

milestones for ROP or attainment). Inspection of Table 6-1 in the 2007 Ozone Plan shows that 

District control measures will achieve about 2.3 tpd of NOx reductions in 2008, and 4.4 tpd in 2011 

(expressed as summer emissions). The 2008 reductions would represent contingency reductions for 

the 2008 ROP milestone, and later reductions through 2011 would represent contingency reductions 

for attainment. Inspection of Table 6-3a in the 2008 PM2.5 Plan shows annual NOx reductions of 

about 2.4 tpd in 2009, 3.2 tpd in 2010, and 4.3 tpd in 2011. Because these PM2.5 Plan reductions 

are from the same control measures as those used from the 2007 Ozone Plan, the reductions are not 

cumulative. For the purposes of this Clarification documentation, the PM2.5 Plan reductions will be 

used since they reflect a more up to date inventory. Thus the 2008 PM2.5 Plan provides attainment 

year contingency reductions of about 4.3 tpd of NOx. 

In regards to the need for contingency measures for long-term or advanced technology measures, 

District rulemakings reduce emissions to a sufficient level to fulfill the advanced technology or longterm contingency measure requirement. In other words, the District’s adopted rules from the control 

measures in the 2004 EOADP exceed predictions of reductions by over 16 tpd of NOx and over 6 tpd 

of VOC; this excess more than covers the long-term measure reductions of 5 tpd of NOx and 5 tpd of 

VOC. Because these rules have been adopted locally and submitted by the State to U.S. EPA for 

inclusion into the SIP as required by section 182(e)(5), there is no need for additional contingency 

measures to satisfy the 182(e)(5) requirements. The specific requirement for contingency measures 

 

1

 Letter from Scott Nester, Director of Planning to Catherine Witherspoon, Executive Officer, California Air Resources 

Board, March 30, 2006. 

7 
to backstop the long-term measure commitments under Section 182(e)(5) of the federal Clean Air Act 

has been met because of the District adoption of rules that completely fulfill the long-term measure 

commitment. 

Motor Vehicle Emission Trends

Section 182(d)(1)(A) of the federal Clean Air Act requires nonattainment areas classified as severe or 

above to adopt and submit transportation control measures sufficient to offset any growth in 

emissions from growth in vehicle miles traveled or number of vehicle trips and to provide for ROP. 

EPA's interpretation of this provision allows areas to satisfy the requirement if they demonstrate that 

emissions from motor vehicles decline each year through the attainment year--see EPA's General 

Preamble for the Implementation of Title I of the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990, April 16, 1992 

(57 FR 13522). While the 2004 EOADP shows a decline in motor vehicle emissions from the base 

year through the attainment year (Table 3-1), it only does so for ROP years and the attainment year. 

Table 3 below presents data for the intervening years and further illustrates the downward trend in 

emissions. In addition, the table shows that existing motor vehicle emissions standards and normal 

fleet turnover combine to produce a significant surplus in emission reductions in 2011 beyond the 

levels assumed in the attainment demonstration (an additional 10 tpd of NOx and 5 tpd of VOC 

(ROG) from 2010 to 2011, as shown below in Table 3). As stated above, this reduction helps to fulfill 

the requirement for contingency measures for the attainment year. 

Table 3 

Baseline Motor Vehicle Emissions, 1 2000-2010 

(San Joaquin Valley, Summer Planning, in tons per day) 

Year 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011

ROG 115 107 100 93 88 82 77 72 67 63 59 54 

NOx 223 218 211 201 192 184 176 166 157 148 137 127 

1

Emissions shown here are from the CCOS emission inventory, v2.11_RF932PEI. Table 3-1 in the 2004 EOADP

presents output from that inventory for the year 2000 and the milestone years of 2008 and 2010. Emissions shown 

in this enclosure do not include reductions from new measure commitments in the 2004 EOADP. 

Conclusions

Much of the updated information gathered and developed for this Clarification package reflects the 

difficult work accomplished by the District and ARB in aggressively reducing emissions of ozone 

precursors in the time frame since the 2004 EOADP was developed and adopted. Virtually all of the 

updates confirm the approvability of the various components of the plan. Emission reductions exceed 

predictions, federal ROP milestones have been met, and all of the plan commitments, including 

sufficient emission reductions for contingency measures, have been met. The one exception is the 

RACT section, which was intended to meet RACT requirements specified by EPA at the time but 

does not meet EPA’s new and enhanced interpretation of RACT requirements in the federal Clean Air 

Act. Consequently, the District is formally withdrawing the RACT element of the 2004 EOADP, thus 

creating a federal 1-hr ozone RACT gap that will be filled by submitting to EPA a revised 8-hr ozone 

RACT SIP. 

8