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[Federal Register Volume 76, Number 244 (Tuesday, December 20, 2011)]
[Proposed Rules]
[Pages 78869-78871]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2011-32561]

[[Page 78869]]

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ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY

40 CFR Part 52

[EPA-R07-OAR-2011-0627; FRL-9608-5]

Approval and Promulgation of Implementation Plans and 
Designations of areas for Air Quality Planning Purposes; Missouri and 
Illinois; St. Louis Nonattainment Area; Determination of Attainment by 
Applicable Attainment Date for the 1997 Annual Fine Particulate 
Standards

AGENCY: Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

ACTION: Proposed rule.

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SUMMARY: EPA is proposing to determine, pursuant to the Clean Air Act 
(CAA), that the bi-state St. Louis, Missouri-Illinois, fine particulate 
(PM2.5) nonattainment area (hereafter referred to as ``the 
St. Louis area'' or ``the area'') has attained the 1997 annual 
PM2.5 national ambient air quality standards (NAAQS) by its 
applicable attainment date of April 5, 2010. This proposed 
determination is based on quality-assured and certified monitoring data 
for the 2007-2009 monitoring period. Based on this data, EPA previously 
determined on May 23, 2011, that the area attained the 1997 standards, 
and EPA suspended certain planning requirements for the area based on 
that determination. EPA is now proposing to find that the St. Louis 
area attained the 1997 annual PM2.5 NAAQS by its applicable 
attainment date. EPA is proposing this action because it is consistent 
with the CAA and its implementing regulations.

DATES: Comments must be received on or before January 19, 2012.

ADDRESSES: Submit your comments, identified by Docket ID No. EPA-R07-
OAR-2011-0627, by one of the following methods:
    1. www.regulations.gov: Follow the on-line instructions for 
submitting comments.
    2. Email: brown.steven@epa.gov
    3. Fax: (913) 551-9460.
    4. Mail: Steven Brown, Atmospheric Section, Air Planning and 
Development Branch, Air and Waste Management Division, U.S. 
Environmental Protection Agency, Region 7, 901 North 5th Street, Kansas 
City, Kansas 66101.
    5. Hand Delivery or Courier: Steven Brown, Atmospheric Section, Air 
Planning and Development Branch, Air and Waste Management Division, 
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Region 7, 901 North 5th Street, 
Kansas City, Kansas 66101. Such deliveries are only accepted during the 
Regional Office normal hours of operation, and special arrangements 
should be made for deliveries of boxed information. The Regional Office 
official hours of business are Monday through Friday, 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 
p.m., excluding Federal holidays.
    Instructions: Direct your comments to Docket ID No. EPA-R07-OAR-
2011-0627. EPA's policy is that all comments received will be included 
in the public docket without change and may be made available online at 
www.regulations.gov, including any personal information provided, 
unless the comment includes information claimed to be Confidential 
Business Information (CBI) or other information whose disclosure is 
restricted by statute. Do not submit through www.regulations.gov or 
email, information that you consider to be CBI or otherwise protected. 
The www.regulations.gov Web site is an ``anonymous access'' system, 
which means EPA will not know your identity or contact information 
unless you provide it in the body of your comment. If you send an email 
comment directly to EPA without going through www.regulations.gov, your 
email address will be automatically captured and included as part of 
the comment that is placed in the public docket and made available on 
the Internet. If you submit an electronic comment, EPA recommends that 
you include your name and other contact information in the body of your 
comment and with any disk or CD-ROM you submit. If EPA cannot read your 
comment due to technical difficulties and cannot contact you for 
clarification, EPA may not be able to consider your comment. Electronic 
files should avoid the use of special characters, any form of 
encryption, and be free of any defects or viruses. For additional 
information about EPA's public docket visit the EPA Docket Center 
homepage at http://www.epa.gov/epahome/dockets.htm.
    Docket: All documents in the electronic docket are listed in the 
www.regulations.gov index. Although listed in the index, some 
information is not publicly available, i.e., CBI or other information 
whose disclosure is restricted by statute. Certain other material, such 
as copyrighted material, is not placed on the Internet and will be 
publicly available only in hard copy form. Publicly available docket 
materials are available either electronically in www.regulations.gov or 
in hard copy at the Atmospheric Section, Air Planning and Development 
Branch, Air Waste and Management Division, U.S. Environmental 
Protection Agency, Region 7, 901 North 5th Street, Kansas City, Kansas 
66101. EPA requests that if at all possible, you contact the person 
listed in the FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT section to schedule your 
inspection. The Regional Office's official hours of business are Monday 
through Friday, 8:30 to 4:30, excluding Federal holidays.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: In Region 7, Steven Brown, Atmospheric 
Section, Air Planning And Development Branch, Air and Waste Management 
Division, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Region 7, 901 North 5th 
Street, Kansas City, Kansas 66101. Steven Brown may be reached by 
telephone at (913) 551-7718 or via electronic mail at 
brown.steven@epa.gov. In Region 5, John Summerhays, Attainment Planning 
and Maintenance Section, Air Programs Branch (AR 18J), U.S. 
Environmental Protection Agency, Region 5, 77 West Jackson Boulevard, 
Chicago, Illinois 60604. The telephone number is (312) 886-6067. Mr. 
Summerhays can also be reached via electronic mail at 
summerhays.john@epa.gov.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:

I. What action is EPA taking?
II. What is the background for this action?
III. What is the air quality in the St. Louis area for the 1997 
annual PM2.5 NAAQS for the 2007-2009 monitoring period?
IV. What is the proposed action, and what is the effect of this 
action?
V. Statutory and Executive Order Reviews

I. What action is EPA taking?

    Based on EPA's review of the quality-assured and certified 
monitoring data for 2007-2009, and in accordance with section 179(c)(1) 
of the CAA, EPA proposes to determine that the St. Louis area has 
attained the 1997 annual PM2.5 NAAQS by the applicable 
attainment date of April 5, 2010. The St. Louis area is comprised of 
Jefferson County, Franklin County, St. Louis County, St. Louis City, 
and St. Charles in Missouri, and Madison, Monroe and St. Clair 
Counties, and Baldwin Township in Randolph County in Illinois.
    It is important to distinguish between two different types of 
attainment determinations that EPA makes for areas that are designated 
nonattainment. Both types require notice-and-comment rulemaking.
    (1) Determinations of attainment by an area's attainment date, and
    (2) Determinations of attainment for purposes of suspending the 
State's obligation to submit certain planning SIPs linked to 
attainment.
    This proposed action is with respect to Type 1 above. The CAA 
requires EPA to determine whether a nonattainment

[[Page 78870]]

area has attained the standard as of its applicable attainment date. 
These determinations of attainment provide a historical snapshot--they 
evaluate attainment only as of an area's attainment deadline, and are 
issued to comply with section 181(b)(2)of the CAA for ozone and 
sections 172 and 179 of the CAA for PM2.5. Determinations of 
attainment by an attainment deadline are separate and independent of 
the second type of attainment determinations, as described below.
    On May 23, 2010, EPA published a final rulemaking making a 
determination that the St. Louis area attained the 1997 annual 
PM2.5 NAAQS based on quality-assured, quality controlled and 
certified ambient air monitoring data for the 2007-2009 monitoring 
period and thereby suspended the requirements for the St. Louis area to 
submit an attainment demonstration and associated reasonably available 
control measures (RACM), a reasonable further progress (RFP) plan, 
contingency measures, and other planning State Implementation Plan 
(SIP) revisions related to attainment of the 1997 annual 
PM2.5 NAAQS so long as the area continues to attain the 1997 
Annual PM2.5 NAAQS. See 76 FR 29652. Further information 
regarding that action is available in the notice proposing that action, 
published on March 7, 2011, at 76 FR 12302.
    Today's proposed action merely makes a determination that the St. 
Louis area has attained the 1997 annual PM2.5 NAAQS by its 
applicable attainment date. This action is not a re-proposal of the 
prior attainment determination or of the effects of suspending the 
requirements for the St. Louis area to submit an attainment 
demonstration and associated RACM, an RFP plan, contingency measures, 
and other planning SIP revisions related to attainment of the standard. 
More information regarding the 1997 annual PM2.5 NAAQS and 
the area's attainment of that NAAQS is available at 76 FR 29652 (May 
23, 2011). A detailed discussion of EPA's review of the monitoring data 
showing attainment of the standard can be found in the March 7, 2011 
proposed action and the May 23, 2011 final action.

II. What is the background for this action?

    On January 5, 2005, EPA designated the St. Louis area as 
nonattainment for the 1997 annual PM2.5 NAAQS. (70 FR 944) 
The designation was effective April 5, 2005. Section 172(a) of the CAA 
requires a state to achieve attainment no later than 5 years from the 
nonattainment designation. Thus, the St. Louis area had an applicable 
attainment date of April 5, 2010. Pursuant to section 179(c) of the 
CAA, EPA is required to make a determination whether the area attained 
the standard by its applicable attainment date. Specifically, section 
179(c)(1) of the CAA reads as follows: ``As expeditiously as 
practicable after the applicable attainment date for any nonattainment 
area, but not later than 6 months after such date, the Administrator 
shall determine, based on the area's air quality as of the attainment 
date, whether the area attained the standard by that date.'' Today's 
action makes this determination.

III. What is the air quality in the St. Louis area for the 1997 annual 
PM2.5 NAAQS for the 2007-2009 monitoring period?

    Under EPA regulations at 40 CFR 50.7, the 1997 annual primary and 
secondary PM2.5 standards are met when the annual arithmetic mean 
concentration, as determined in accordance with 40 CFR part 50, 
Appendix N, is less than or equal to 15.0 micrograms per cubic meter 
([mu]g/m3) at all relevant monitoring sites in the subject area.
    EPA reviewed the ambient air monitoring data for the St. Louis area 
in accordance with the provisions of 40 CFR part 50, Appendix N. All 
data considered have been quality-assured, certified, and recorded in 
EPA's Air Quality System database. This review addresses air quality 
data collected in the 3-year period from 2007-2009. The 3-year period 
from 2007-2009 provides the latest 3-year set of data that EPA may use 
to determine whether the St. Louis area attained the standard by its 
applicable attainment date of April 5, 2010.

                    Table 1--Annual Average Concentrations in the St. Louis area (2007-2009)
         [Annual PM2.5 design values for Saint Louis area monitors with complete data for 2007 to 2009]
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                                                                                                  Annual design
            State                     County               Monitor             Site name        value  2007-2009
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IL..........................  Madison...............       17-119-1007  23rd and Madison......              14.1
                                                           17-119-2009  1700 Annex St.........              12.5
                              ......................       17-119-3007  54 N. Walcott.........              12.5
                              Randolph..............       17-157-0001  ......................              11.4
                              Saint Clair...........       17-163-0010  13th and Tudor........              13.3
                                                           17-163-4001  1500 Caseyville Ave...              12.5
MO..........................  City of Saint Louis...       29-510-0007  Broadway..............              12.8
                                                           29-510-0085  Blair Street..........              12.7
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    As shown above in Table 1, during the 2007-2009 design period, the 
St. Louis area met the 1997 annual PM2.5 NAAQS. The official 
annual design value for the St. Louis area for the 2007-2009 period is 
14.1 [mu]g/m\3\. More detailed information on the monitoring data for 
the St. Louis area during the 2007-2009 design period is provided in 
EPA's March 7, 2011, proposed rulemaking, and EPA's May 23, 2011, final 
rulemaking regarding the determination of attainment for the St. Louis 
area for the 1997 annual PM2.5 NAAQS. See 76 FR 12302 and 76 
FR 29652.

IV. What is the proposed action, and what is the effect of this action?

    This action is a proposed determination that the St. Louis area has 
attained the 1997 annual PM2.5 NAAQS by its applicable 
attainment date of April 5, 2010, consistent with the CAA section 
179(c)(1). Finalizing this proposed action would not constitute a 
redesignation of the St. Louis area to attainment of 1997 annual 
PM2.5 NAAQS under section 107(d)(3) of the CAA because EPA 
would not have yet approved a maintenance plan for the St. Louis area 
as required under CAA section 175A, nor a determination that the St. 
Louis area has met all other requirements for redesignation under the 
CAA. Even if EPA finalizes today's proposed action, the designation 
status

[[Page 78871]]

of the St. Louis area will remain nonattainment for the 1997 annual 
PM2.5 NAAQS until such time as EPA determines that the CAA 
requirements for redesignation to attainment are met, and takes action 
to finalize that determination through a redesignation.

V. Statutory and Executive Order Reviews

    This action proposes to make a determination of attainment based on 
air quality, and would not impose additional requirements beyond those 
imposed by state law. For that reason, this proposed action:
     Is not a ``significant regulatory action'' subject to 
review by the Office of Management and Budget under Executive Order 
12866 (58 FR 51735, October 4, 1993);
     Does not impose an information collection burden under the 
provisions of the Paperwork Reduction Act (44 U.S.C. 3501 et seq.);
     Is certified as not having a significant economic impact 
on a substantial number of small entities under the Regulatory 
Flexibility Act (5 U.S.C. 601 et seq.);
     Does not contain any unfunded mandate or significantly or 
uniquely affect small governments, as described in the Unfunded 
Mandates Reform Act of 1995 (Pub. L. 104-4);
     Does not have Federalism implications as specified in 
Executive Order 13132 (64 FR 43255, August 10, 1999);
     Is not an economically significant regulatory action based 
on health or safety risks subject to Executive Order 13045 (62 FR 
19885, April 23, 1997);
     Is not a significant regulatory action subject to 
Executive Order 13211 (66 FR 28355, May 22, 2001);
     Is not subject to requirements of section 12(d) of the 
National Technology Transfer and Advancement Act of 1995 (15 U.S.C. 272 
note) because application of those requirements would be inconsistent 
with the CAA; and
     Does not provide EPA with the discretionary authority to 
address, as appropriate, disproportionate human health or environmental 
effects, using practicable and legally permissible methods, under 
Executive Order 12898 (59 FR 7629, February 16, 1994).
    In addition, this proposed determination that the St. Louis area 
attained the 1997 annual average PM2.5 NAAQS by its 
applicable attainment date does not have tribal implications as 
specified by Executive Order 13175 (65 FR 67249, November 9, 2000), 
because the SIPs are not approved to apply in Indian country located in 
the states, and EPA notes that it will not impose substantial direct 
costs on tribal governments or preempt tribal law.

List of Subjects in 40 CFR Part 52

    Air pollution control, Environmental protection, Particulate 
matter, Reporting and recordkeeping requirements.

    Authority: 42 U.S.C. 7401 et seq.

    Dated: November 1, 2011.
Mark Hague,
Acting Regional Administrator, Region 7.
    Dated: December 9, 2011.
Susan Hedman,
Regional Administrator, Region 5.
[FR Doc. 2011-32561 Filed 12-19-11; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 6560-50-P
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