29784 Federal Register / Vol. 83, No. 123 / Tuesday, June 26, 2018 / Notices 

1Available at: https://www.epa.gov/sites/ 

production/files/2018-05/documents/image2018- 

05-09-173219.pdf. 

2The Supreme Court has held that section 109(b) 

‘‘unambiguously bars cost considerations from the 

NAAQS-setting process.’’ Whitman v. Am. Trucking 

Associations, 531 U.S. 457, 471 (2001). 

ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION 

AGENCY 

[EPA–HQ–OAR–2018–0365; FRL–9979–05– 

OAR] 

Call for Information on Adverse Effects 

of Strategies for Attainment and 

Maintenance of National Ambient Air 

Quality Standards 

AGENCY: Environmental Protection 

Agency (EPA). 

ACTION: Notice; call for information. 

SUMMARY: The U.S. Environmental 

Protection Agency (EPA), Office of Air 

Quality Planning and Standards 

(OAQPS), is soliciting information to 

facilitate the Clean Air Scientific 

Advisory Committee’s (CASAC) 

consideration of any adverse public 

health, welfare, social, economic, or 

energy effects which may result from 

various strategies for attainment and 

maintenance of national ambient air 

quality standards (NAAQS). 

DATES: All comments and information 

submitted in response to this call for 

information should be received by the 

EPA by October 24, 2018. 

ADDRESSES: Submit your comments and 

related information, identified by 

Docket ID No. EPA–HQ–OAR–2018– 

0365, to the Federal eRulemaking Portal: 

https://www.regulations.gov. 

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Ms. 

Robin Langdon, Office of Air Quality 

Planning and Standards (Mail Code C– 

439–02), U.S. Environmental Protection 

Agency, Research Triangle Park, NC 

27711; telephone number: 919–541– 

5695; fax number 919–541–0804; or 

email: langdon.robin@epa.gov. 

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: 

I. Background Information 

Sections 109(d)(2)(A) and (B) of the 

Clean Air Act (CAA or the Act) require 

appointment of an independent 

scientific review committee that is 

charged with periodically reviewing the 

existing air quality criteria and NAAQS 

and recommending any new standards 

and revisions of existing criteria and 

standards as may be appropriate. Since 

the early 1980s, the requirement for an 

independent scientific review 

committee has been fulfilled by the 

CASAC. 

Sections 109(d)(2)(C)(i)–(iii) of the Act 

additionally require the independent 

scientific review committee to advise 

the EPA Administrator of areas in which 

additional knowledge is required to 

appraise the adequacy and basis of 

existing, new, or revised NAAQS; 

describe the research efforts necessary 

to provide the required information; and 

advise the EPA Administrator on the 

relative contribution to air pollution 

concentrations of natural as well as 

anthropogenic activity. Section 

109(d)(2)(C)(iv) of the Act further 

requires the independent scientific 

review committee to ‘‘advise the EPA 

Administrator of any adverse public 

health, welfare, social, economic, or 

energy effects which may result from 

various strategies for attainment and 

maintenance of such’’ NAAQS. As 

noted in the Administrator’s May 9, 

2018, memorandum, ‘‘Back-to-Basics 

Process for Reviewing National Ambient 

Air Quality Standards,’’ 1 these topics 

may include information which is not 

relevant to the standard-setting 

process,2 but they provide important 

policy context for the public, coregulators, and the EPA. 

To facilitate the CASAC’s 

consideration of such effects, the EPA 

requests interested parties to submit 

information on any adverse public 

health, welfare, social, economic, or 

energy effects which may result from 

various strategies for attainment and 

maintenance of existing, new, or revised 

NAAQS for consideration by the 

CASAC. 

Interested parties are encouraged to 

identify all relevant information, with a 

particular emphasis on peer-reviewed 

research studies that have been 

published or accepted for publication 

and other analyses in the following 

categories: Assessments of the impacts 

of various types of strategies for 

attainment and maintenance of NAAQS, 

including requirements for stationary 

sources, area sources, and/or mobile 

sources of emissions; evaluations of the 

effects of permitting requirements, both 

new source review and prevention of 

significant deterioration requirements, 

on economic growth and other relevant 

effects listed; examinations of the 

potential impacts of nonattainment 

status, including the effects on overall 

economic growth and employment; and 

evaluations of potential impacts on 

public health, public welfare, energy 

production and consumption, and other 

social effects of interest. 

The EPA also seeks information on 

inter-pollutant trade-offs from strategies 

to attain and maintain existing, new or 

revised NAAQS, and information on 

distributional effects, including changes 

in exposures and risk, resulting from 

alternate attainment strategies for 

NAAQS, as well as other information 

related to adverse public health, 

welfare, social, economic, or energy 

effects that may result from attainment 

of existing, new or revised NAAQS. 

Some aspects of this information may 

also be relevant to the EPA’s review of 

the air quality criteria, which section 

108(a)(2) of the Act describes as 

reflecting ‘‘the latest scientific 

knowledge useful in indicating the kind 

and extent of all identifiable effects on 

public health or welfare which may be 

expected from the presence of such 

pollutant in the ambient air, in varying 

quantities.’’ Section 109(d)(1) of the Act 

requires that the EPA review these 

criteria periodically. To ensure this 

statutory requirement is met for ozone 

and other photochemical oxidants, 

elsewhere in today’s Federal Register 

we are announcing initiation of a new 

periodic review of the criteria for ozone 

and other photochemical oxidants and 

issuing a call for information that would 

facilitate the EPA’s review of these 

criteria. 

II. How To Submit Information to the 

Docket 

Submit information, identified by 

Docket ID No. EPA–HQ–OAR–2018– 

0365, to the Federal eRulemaking Portal: 

https://www.regulations.gov. Follow the 

online instructions for submissions. 

Once submitted, information cannot be 

edited or withdrawn. 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 (e.g., on the Web, 

Cloud, or other file sharing system). For 

additional submission methods, the full 

EPA public comment policy, 

information about CBI or multimedia 

submissions, and general guidance on 

making effective comments, please visit 

https://www2.epa.gov/dockets/ 

commenting-epa-dockets. 

When submitting comments, 

remember to: 

• Identify the action by docket 

number and other identifying 

information (subject heading, Federal 

Register date and page number). 

• Describe any assumptions and 

provide any technical information and/ 

or data that you used. 


sradovich on DSK3GMQ082PROD with NOTICES
Federal Register / Vol. 83, No. 123 / Tuesday, June 26, 2018 / Notices 29785 

• Provide specific examples to 

illustrate your concerns, and suggest 

alternatives. 

• Explain your views as clearly as 

possible, avoiding the use of profanity 

or personal threats. 

• Make sure to submit your 

comments by the comment period 

deadline identified. 

When considering submitting CBI, do 

not submit this information to the EPA 

through www.regulations.gov or email. 

Clearly mark the part or all of the 

information that you claim to be CBI. 

For CBI information in a disk or CD– 

ROM that you mail to the EPA, mark the 

outside of the disk or CD–ROM as CBI 

and then identify electronically within 

the disk or CD–ROM the specific 

information that is claimed as CBI. In 

addition to one complete version of the 

comment that includes information 

claimed as CBI, a copy of the comment 

that does not contain the information 

claimed as CBI must be submitted for 

inclusion in the public docket. 

Information so marked will not be 

disclosed except in accordance with 

procedures set forth in 40 Code of 

Federal Regulations (CFR) part 2. 

Dated: June 12, 2018. 

Panagiotis Tsirigotis, 

Director, Office of Air Quality Planning and 

Standards. 

[FR Doc. 2018–13718 Filed 6–25–18; 8:45 am] 

BILLING CODE 6560–50–P 

ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION 

AGENCY 

[Docket ID No. EPA–HQ–ORD–2018–0274; 

FRL–9979–56–ORD] 

Review of the National Ambient Air 

Quality Standards for Ozone—Call for 

Scientific and Policy-Relevant 

Information 

AGENCY: Environmental Protection 

Agency (EPA). 

ACTION: Notice; call for information. 

SUMMARY: The U.S. Environmental 

Protection Agency (EPA) is announcing 

that the Office of Air Quality Planning 

and Standards (OAQPS) and the Office 

of Research and Development’s National 

Center for Environmental Assessment 

(NCEA) are preparing an Integrated 

Review Plan (IRP) and an Integrated 

Science Assessment (ISA) as part of the 

review of the air quality criteria and the 

National Ambient Air Quality Standards 

(NAAQS) for ozone (O3) and related 

photochemical oxidants. The IRP will 

summarize the plan for the review, 

including the initial identification of 

policy-relevant issues and questions to 

frame the review. The ISA will build on 

the scientific assessment conducted for 

the last O3 review, focusing on assessing 

newly available information since the 

last assessment. Interested parties are 

invited to assist the EPA by submitting 

information regarding significant new 

O3 research and policy-relevant issues 

for consideration in this review of the 

primary (health-based) and secondary 

(welfare-based) O3 standards. 

DATES: All communications and 

information submitted in response to 

this call for information should be 

received by the EPA by August 27, 2018. 

ADDRESSES: Submit your comments and 

related information, identified by 

Docket ID No. EPA–HQ–ORD–2018– 

0274 to the Federal eRulemaking Portal: 

http://www.regulations.gov. 

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: For 

information regarding the IRP, contact 

Dr. Deirdre L. Murphy, OAQPS, 

telephone: 919–541–0729, or email: 

murphy.deirdre@epa.gov. For 

information regarding the ISA, contact 

Dr. Tom Luben, NCEA, telephone: 919– 

541–5762, or email: luben.tom@epa.gov. 

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: 

I. Information About the Project 

Section 108(a) of the Clean Air Act 

(CAA or the Act) directs the 

Administrator to identify and list 

certain air pollutants and then issue ‘‘air 

quality criteria’’ for those pollutants. 

The air quality criteria are to 

‘‘accurately reflect the latest scientific 

knowledge useful in indicating the kind 

and extent of all identifiable effects on 

public health or welfare which may be 

expected from the presence of such 

pollutants in the ambient air . . . .’’ 

CAA section 108(a)(2). Under section 

109 of the Act, EPA is then to establish 

NAAQS for each pollutant for which 

EPA has issued criteria. Section 

109(d)(1) of the Act requires periodic 

review and, if appropriate, revision of 

existing air quality criteria to reflect 

advances in scientific knowledge on the 

effects of the pollutant on public health 

and welfare. Under the same provision, 

EPA is also to periodically review and, 

if appropriate, revise the NAAQS, based 

on the revised air quality criteria. 

Section 109(d)(2) of the Act requires 

appointment of an independent 

scientific review committee that is to 

periodically review the existing air 

quality criteria and NAAQS and to 

recommend any new standards and 

revisions of existing criteria and 

standards as may be appropriate. Since 

the early 1980s, the requirement for an 

independent scientific review 

committee has been fulfilled by the 

Clean Air Scientific Advisory 

Committee (CASAC). Section 

109(d)(2)(C) of the Act additionally 

requires the independent scientific 

review committee to advise the EPA 

Administrator of areas in which 

additional knowledge is required to 

appraise the adequacy and basis of 

existing, new, or revised NAAQS; 

describe the research efforts necessary 

to provide the required information; 

advise the EPA Administrator on the 

relative contribution to air pollution 

concentrations of natural as well as 

anthropogenic activity; and, advise the 

EPA Administrator of any adverse 

public health, welfare, social, economic, 

or energy effects which may result from 

various strategies for attainment and 

maintenance of such NAAQS. To ensure 

this final statutory requirement is fully 

met, elsewhere in today’s Federal 

Register we are issuing a call for 

information that would facilitate the 

committee’s consideration of these 

issues. 

In its periodic review of the air 

quality criteria, the EPA reviews the 

currently available scientific 

information and prepares an ISA. The 

ISA and other key documents prepared 

in the review receive independent and 

expert scientific review by the CASAC. 

Photochemical oxidants, including 

O3, are one of six ‘‘criteria’’ pollutants 

for which EPA has established NAAQS, 

and O3 is the current indicator for that 

NAAQS. The O3 NAAQS were most 

recently revised in fall of 2015. In 

consideration of the statutory deadline 

for the next periodic review of the air 

quality criteria and standards, the EPA 

is accelerating initiation of the planning 

phase for the review, including 

development of the IRP for the review. 

The IRP will describe the overall plan 

for the review, outlining the anticipated 

schedule, process, and approaches for 

evaluating the relevant scientific 

information, as well as the key policyrelevant issues that will frame the 

review. We intend that the IRP will 

build upon key documents from the last 

review (available from: https://

www.epa.gov/naaqs/ozone-o3-airquality-standards). Such documents 

include the preamble to the final 

rulemaking decision, which included 

detailed discussions of policy-relevant 

issues central to that review (80 FR 

65292, October 26, 2015), and the 

Integrated Science Assessment (ISA) for 

Ozone and Related Photochemical 

Oxidants (Final Report, Feb. 2013), 

EPA/600/R–10/076F. Interested parties 

are invited to assist the EPA by 

submitting information regarding 

significant new O3 research and policyrelevant issues for consideration in this 

review of the primary (health-based) 


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