110 West C Street, Suite 900 San Diego, CA 92101 

Ms. Gina McCarthy

Assistant Administrator 

Environmental Protection Agency 

Office of Air and Radiation

Ariel Rios Building

1200 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W.

Washington, DC 20460

Email: mccarthy.gina@epa.gov

January 5, 2012

Subject: Reclassification of San Diego County to Serious Nonattainment Area for the 1997 

Ozone Standard

Dear Ms. McCarthy,

On behalf of our members, the Industrial Environmental Association (IEA) is writing to express 

our concern about the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA’s) recent decision to move 

forward with reclassifying San Diego County as a "serious nonattainment area" for the 1997 

National Ambient Air Quality Standard (NAAQS) for ground-level ozone. 

IEA was formed in 1983 to promote responsible, cost-effective environmental laws and 

regulations, facilitate environmental compliance among member companies and provide related 

education activities for the community at large. IEA actively insists on strong environmental 

compliance efforts among member companies as a matter of written policy. Consequently, IEA 

urges reliance on scientific, analytical data to evaluate the regulations necessary to protect the 

public and the environment.

We urge you to reconsider this decision, as EPA's ruling is unnecessary and would generate 

tremendous negative economic and regulatory impacts on businesses in our region without 

providing any air quality benefits. This reclassification is contrary to the fact that San Diego 

County has already attained this standard (i.e., 84 parts per billion) with an ozone value of 82

ppb based on data collected in 2009-2011. Some of these impacts are described below.
110 West C Street, Suite 900 San Diego, CA 92101 

A serious nonattainment classification would lower the applicability threshold for the Title V 

Operating Permit program by 50% from 100 tons per year (tpy) to 50 tpy. This change would 

require approximately one dozen businesses to apply for Title V Operating Permits. In addition, 

many businesses in the region would potentially need to apply for synthetic minor permits. The 

process of preparing, applying, reviewing and negotiating a Title V permit could cost a facility 

from $50,000 to $100,000. Affected businesses would also incur significant ongoing expenses 

for recordkeeping, reporting, monitoring, and permit renewals. This is clearly an unnecessary 

expenditure of resources with no air quality benefits, in very tough economic times. 

Businesses in San Diego County are already subject to operating permits from San Diego Air 

Pollution Control District (SDAPCD), as required by state law. These local permits limit 

emissions and require specific actions to ensure compliance with applicable air pollution control 

requirements. The additional federal operating permit requirement, resulting from a ruling that

appears to be strictly administrative-based, would be surplus to the local permits with no added 

value or emissions reductions and would come with considerable costs. 

The serious nonattainment classification would also lower the General Conformity threshold to 

50 tpy, significantly affecting the military’s mission and possibly postponing or diverting 

planned actions in the region, again resulting from an unnecessary classification for a standard 

that San Diego County has already attained.

In addition to the regulatory and economic burdens, the reclassification would introduce 

uncertainty to businesses in San Diego County. In summer of 2012, San Diego County is 

expected to be classified by EPA as a marginal nonattainment area for the 2008 ozone standard 

(i.e., 75 ppb). The marginal reclassification will not alter the current major source threshold in 

the region and will not affect regulatory requirements for businesses operating in the region. If

the EPA proceeds with reclassification of the region to serious nonattainment for the 1997 

standard, businesses would be faced with having to plan and budget resources for a temporary 

reduction in major source threshold and its associated regulatory impact for an unknown period 

of time. This type of uncertainty could dissuade businesses from locating or expanding their 

operations in the region and thus prevent the creation of new jobs in San Diego County. 

The reclassification would also divert SDAPCD’s already overextended resources from focusing 

on beneficial regulatory efforts to unnecessary rulemaking efforts to require the federal permits, 

and subsequent review and approval of the permit applications. In light of the region’s 
110 West C Street, Suite 900 San Diego, CA 92101 

attainment with the 1997 standard and the upcoming marginal classification expected for the 

2008 standard, all effort expended by SDAPCD staff towards addressing the serious 

nonattainment classification of San Diego County would be essentially wasted effort. 

In summary, IEA believes that reclassification to serious nonattainment area for an ozone 

standard that our region has already attained is a move that introduces significant regulatory and 

economic burden to businesses in our region. This decision diverts resources to senseless 

regulatory efforts; resources that could otherwise be used for business expansion, job creation, 

and beneficial regulatory actions. San Diego County has attained the 1997 federal ozone 

standard and, therefore, IEA requests that EPA withdraw its ruling to classify the region as a 

serious nonattainment area. Instead, EPA should find that the region has attained the standard 

after the monitoring data are analyzed and approved.

Thank you for your time and consideration of this important matter. If you have any questions, 

please do not hesitate to contact the undersigned at 619-544-9684 or iea@iea.sdcoxmail.com.

Sincerely,

Vilmarie Rodriguez

IEA President

cc: Senator Barbara Boxer - faxed

Senator Diane Feinstein - faxed

Congressman Darrel Issa - faxed

Congressman Brian Bilbray - faxed

Congressman Bob Filner - faxed

Congressman Duncan Hunter - faxed

Congresswoman Susan Davis - faxed

Amy Zimpfer, Associate Director USEPA Region 9, Air Division - emailed

Supervisor Greg Cox - emailed

Supervisor Diane Jacobs - emailed

Supervisor Ron Roberts - emailed

Supervisor Bill Horn - emailed

Supervisor Pam Slater-Price - emailed

Mary Nichols, CARB - emailed

Bob Kard, Air Pollution Control Officer - emailed