Certification of State Implementation Plan Adequacy 

Regarding Clean Air Act Section 110(a)(1) and (2) 

December 2007 

Prepared by 

The New Hampshire 

Department of Environmental Services 

~~"~ NEW HAMPSHIRE 

DEPARTMENT OF 

4PEnvironmental 

Services 
Certification of New Hampshire's State Implementation Plan Adequacy 

Regarding Clean Air Act Sections 110(a)(1) and (2) 

The purpose of this document is to provide the U.S . Environmental Protection Agency 

(EPA) with certification that New Hampshire's State Implementation Plan (SIP) for air quality 

adequately meets the "infrastructure" requirements of sections 110(a)(1) and (2) of the Clean Air 

Act (CAA). This certification was requested in an October 2, 2007 EPA memo from William 

Harnett, Director of EPA's Air Quality Policy Division . 

As discussed in the Harnett memo, on July 18, 1997, the EPA promulgated new and 

revised National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) for ozone and particulate matter 

(PM) . For ozone, EPA revised the NAAQS to provide an 8-hour averaging period (versus a 1-

hour averaging period for the pre-existing NAAQS), and set the level of the standard at 0 .08 ppm 

(versus 0.12 ppm for the pre-existing NAAQS). For PM, EPA promulgated a new 24-hour and a 

new annual NAAQS for PM2.5 (particles with an aerodynamic diameter less than or equal to a 

nominal 2 .5 micrometers) . Under sections 110(a)(1) and (2) of the CAA, all States are required to 

submit plans SIPs to provide for the implementation, maintenance, and enforcement of the 8-hour 

ozone and PM2.5 standards . Sections 110(a)(1) and (2) require States to address basic SIP 

requirements, including emissions inventories, monitoring, and modeling to assure attainment and 

maintenance of the standards . By statute, SIPs meeting the requirements of sections 110(a)(1) and 

(2) are to be submitted by States within 3 years after promulgation of a new or revised standard. 

This being the case, States were required to submit such SIPs for the 1997 standards to EPA no 

later than July 2000. However, intervening litigation over the 1997 8-hour ozone and PM2.5 

NAAQS created uncertainty about how to proceed and, to date, states have not submitted SIPs to 

meet the basic or infrastructure requirements enumerated in sections 110(a)(1) and (2) . 

In March of 2004, Earth Justice initiated a lawsuit against EPA for failure to take action 

against States that had not made SIP submissions to meet the requirements of sections 110(a)(1) 

and (2), i .e ., failure to make a "finding of failure to submit." On March 10, 2005, EPA entered 

into a Consent Decree with Earth Justice that obligated EPA to determine whether States have 

made SIP submissions required to meet CAA section 110(a)(2)(D)(i) relating to interstate 

transport by no later than March 15, 2005. The Consent Decree also obligated EPA to make a 

determination whether States have made submissions necessary to meet the remaining 

requirements of sections 110(a)(1) and (2) by December 15, 2007, for the 8-hour ozone NAAQS, 

and by October 5, 2008, for the PM2,5 NAAQS. To the extent that existing SIPs for ozone and 

particulate matter already meet these requirements, States need only certify that fact to the EPA. 

The New Hampshire Department of Environmental Services is submitting this document 

to certify that its SIP already meets most of these requirements. The State of New Hampshire 

Implementation Plan, officially submitted to EPA on January 27, 1972 and numerous subsequent 

revisions, explicitly fulfilled most of these requirements. Other section 110(a)(2) requirements 

are fulfilled in sections from the New Hampshire Revised Statutes Annotated (RSA) pertaining to 

the duties and powers of the Commissioner of the Department of Environmental Services 

(NHDES) as well as the New Hampshire Rules Governing the Control of Air Pollution, NH 

Admin. Rules Env-A 100 et seq., which have been incorporated into the New Hampshire SIP in 

40 CFR Part 52 Subpart EE. 
A draft of the Revision to the New Hampshire State Implementation Plan, addressing the 

Interstate Air Pollution Transport Requirements of CAA section 110(a)(2)(D)(i), was submitted to 

EPA on November 1, 2007 . The remainder of this document outlines how the New Hampshire 

program fulfills the requirements of CAA section I 10(a)(1) and (2) .