Federal Register / Vol. 76, No. 244 / Tuesday, December 20, 2011 / Rules and Regulations 78829 

thereof; or (4) Raise novel legal or policy 

issues arising out of legal mandates, the 

President’s priorities, or the principles 

set forth in this Executive Order.’’ 

The economic, interagency, 

budgetary, legal, and policy 

implications of this regulatory action 

have been examined and it has been 

determined not to be a significant 

regulatory action under Executive Order 

12866. 

Regulatory Flexibility Act 

The Secretary hereby certifies that 

this final rule would not have a 

significant economic impact on a 

substantial number of small entities as 

they are defined in the Regulatory 

Flexibility Act, 5 U.S.C. 601–612. The 

vast majority of VA loans are serviced 

by very large financial companies. Only 

a handful of small entities service VA 

loans and they service only a very small 

number of loans. This final rule, which 

only impacts veterans, other individual 

obligors with guaranteed loans, and 

companies that service VA loans, will 

have very minor economic impact on a 

very small number of small entities 

servicing such loans. Therefore, 

pursuant to 5 U.S.C. 605(b), this rule is 

exempt from the initial and final 

regulatory flexibility analysis 

requirements of sections 603 and 604. 

Catalog of Federal Domestic Assistance 

The Catalog of Federal Domestic 

Assistance number and title for the 

program affected by this document is 

64.114, Veterans Housing—Guaranteed 

and Insured Loans. 

Signing Authority 

The Secretary of Veterans Affairs, or 

designee, approved this document and 

authorized the undersigned to sign and 

submit the document to the Office of the 

Federal Register for publication 

electronically as an official document of 

the Department of Veterans Affairs. John 

R. Gingrich, Chief of Staff, Department 

of Veterans Affairs, approved this 

document on October 24, 2011, for 

publication. 

List of Subjects in 38 CFR Part 36 

Condominiums, Handicapped, 

Housing, Indians, Individuals with 

disabilities, Loan programs—housing 

and community development, Loan 

programs—Indians, Loan programs— 

veterans, Manufactured homes, 

Mortgage insurance, Reporting and 

recordkeeping requirements, Veterans. 

Dated: December 15, 2011. 

Robert C. McFetridge, 

Director of Regulation Policy and 

Management, Office of the General Counsel, 

Department of Veterans Affairs. 

For the reasons stated in the 

preamble, VA amends 38 CFR part 36 as 

follows: 

PART 36—LOAN GUARANTY 

■ 1. The authority citation for part 36 

continues to read as follows: 

Authority: 38 U.S.C. 501 and as otherwise 

noted. 

■ 2. Amend § 36.4315 by: 

■ a. In paragraph (a)(8)(i) removing 

‘‘executed’’ and adding, in its place, 

‘‘approved’’. 

■ b. In paragraph (a)(10) removing 

‘‘canceled foreclosure;’’ and adding, in 

its place, ‘‘canceled foreclosure; (subject 

to the maximum amounts prescribed in 

§ 36.4314)’’. 

[FR Doc. 2011–32528 Filed 12–19–11; 8:45 am] 

BILLING CODE 8320–01–P 

ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION 

AGENCY 

40 CFR Part 52 

[EPA–R09–OAR–2011–0897; FRL–9499–9] 

Revisions to the California State 

Implementation Plan, South Coast Air 

Quality Management District 

AGENCY: Environmental Protection 

Agency (EPA). 

ACTION: Direct final rule. 

SUMMARY: EPA is taking direct final 

action to approve a revision to the South 

Coast Air Quality Management District 

(SCAQMD) portion of the California 

State Implementation Plan (SIP). This 

revision concerns oxides of nitrogen 

(NOX) and oxides of sulfur (SOx) 

emissions from facilities emitting 4 tons 

or more per year of NOX or SOx in the 

year 1990 or any subsequent year under 

the SCAQMD’s Regional Clean Air 

Incentives Market (RECLAIM) program. 

We are approving a local rule that 

regulates these emission sources under 

the Clean Air Act as amended in 1990 

(CAA or the Act). 

DATES: This rule is effective on February 

21, 2012 without further notice, unless 

EPA receives adverse comments by 

January 19, 2012. If we receive such 

comments, we will publish a timely 

withdrawal in the Federal Register to 

notify the public that this direct final 

rule will not take effect. 

ADDRESSES: Submit comments, 

identified by docket number EPA–R09– 

OAR–2011–0897, by one of the 

following methods: 

1. Federal eRulemaking Portal: 

www.regulations.gov. Follow the on-line 

instructions. 

2. Email: steckel.andrew@epa.gov. 

3. Mail or deliver: Andrew Steckel 

(Air-4), U.S. Environmental Protection 

Agency Region IX, 75 Hawthorne Street, 

San Francisco, CA 94105–3901. 

Instructions: All comments 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 

Confidential Business Information (CBI) 

or other information whose disclosure is 

restricted by statute. Information that 

you consider CBI or otherwise protected 

should be clearly identified as such and 

should not be submitted through 

www.regulations.gov or email. 

www.regulations.gov is an ‘‘anonymous 

access’’ system, and EPA will not know 

your identity or contact information 

unless you provide it in the body of 

your comment. If you send email 

directly to EPA, your email address will 

be automatically captured and included 

as part of the public comment. 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. 

Docket: Generally, documents in the 

docket for this action are available 

electronically at www.regulations.gov 

and in hard copy at EPA Region IX, 75 

Hawthorne Street, San Francisco, 

California. While all documents in the 

docket are listed at 

www.regulations.gov, some information 

may be publicly available only at the 

hard copy location (e.g., copyrighted 

material, large maps), and some may not 

be publicly available in either location 

(e.g., CBI). To inspect the hard copy 

materials, please schedule an 

appointment during normal business 

hours with the contact listed in the FOR

FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT section. 

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Lily 

Wong, EPA Region IX, (415) 947–4114, 

wong.lily@epa.gov. 

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: 

Throughout this document, ‘‘we,’’ ‘‘us,’’ 

and ‘‘our’’ refer to EPA. 

Table of Contents 

I. The State’s Submittal 

A. What rule did the State submit? 

B. Are there other versions of this rule? 

C. What is the purpose of the submitted 

rule revision? 


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78830 Federal Register / Vol. 76, No. 244 / Tuesday, December 20, 2011 / Rules and Regulations 

1The RECLAIM program at Rule 2000(c)(3) 

defines ‘‘allocation’’ as ‘‘the number of RECLAIM 

Trading Credits (RTCs) [as defined in paragraph 

(c)(63)] a RECLAIM facility holds for a specific 

compliance year, as referenced in the Facility 

Permit.’’ Consequently, ‘‘annual allocation’’ means 

the amount of RTCs the facility holds for a 

compliance year, as authorized by its permit. 

II. EPA’s Evaluation and Action 

A. How is EPA evaluating the rule? 

B. Does the rule meet the evaluation 

criteria? 

C. EPA Recommendations To Further 

Improve the Rule 

D. Public Comment and Final Action 

III. Statutory and Executive Order Reviews 

I. The State’s Submittal 

A. What rule did the State submit? 

Table 1 lists the rule we are approving 

with the date that it was adopted by the 

local air agency and submitted by the 

California Air Resources Board (CARB). 

TABLE 1—SUBMITTED RULES

Local agency Rule No. Rule title Adopted Submitted 

SCAQMD ........................................................ 2005 New Source Review for RECLAIM ................ 06/03/11 09/27/11 

On October 24, 2011, EPA determined 

that the submittal for SCAQMD Rule 

2005 met the completeness criteria in 40 

CFR Part 51 Appendix V, which must be 

met before formal EPA review. 

B. Are there other versions of this rule? 

Table 2 lists the previous version of 

this rule approved into the SIP. 

TABLE 2—CURRENT SIP APPROVED VERSION OF RULE

Rule No. Rule title Adopted Submitted Approved FR citation 

2005 ................................................ New Source Review for RECLAIM 05/06/2005 10/20/2005 08/29/2006, 71 FR 51120

C. What is the purpose of the submitted 

rule revision? 

NOX helps produce ground-level 

ozone, smog and particulate matter, 

which harm human health and the 

environment. Section 110(a) of the CAA 

requires States to submit regulations 

that control NOX emissions. 

The RECLAIM program was initially 

adopted by SCAQMD in October 1993. 

The program established for many of the 

largest NOX and SOx facilities in the 

South Coast Air Basin a regional NOX

and regional SOx emissions cap and 

trade program, with the regional 

emissions caps declining over time until 

2003. SCAQMD amended RECLAIM to 

lower the NOX and SOx emissions caps 

in 2005 and 2010 respectively. The 

program was designed to provide 

incentives for facilities to reduce 

emissions and advance pollution 

control technologies by giving facilities 

added flexibility in meeting emission 

reduction requirements. A NOX or SOx

RECLAIM Trading Credit (RTC) is a 

limited authorization to emit one pound 

of NOX or SOx during a specified one 

year period. A RECLAIM facility’s 

emissions may not exceed its RTC 

holding in any compliance year. A 

RECLAIM facility may comply with this 

requirement by installing control 

equipment, modifying their activities, or 

purchasing RTCs from other facilities. 

The purpose of Rule 2005 was to 

address how the New Source Review 

(NSR) program requirements would be 

implemented in the context of a cap and 

trade program. Rule 2005 sets forth the 

pre-construction review requirements 

for new or modified equipment or 

processes at RECLAIM facilities. 

The rule revision affects existing 

RECLAIM facilities subject to Rule 2005 

whose annual allocations 1 do not 

exceed its 1994 starting allocation plus 

non-tradable credits. While such 

facilities are required to hold sufficient 

RTCs to offset emissions increases by 

the beginning of the first year, this rule 

revision eliminates the requirement to 

hold sufficient RTCs to offset emissions 

increases at the beginning of the second 

and subsequent years. SCAQMD states 

that the primary purpose of the revision 

to Rule 2005 was to alleviate the 

disincentives to existing facilities to 

modernize and replace older, more 

polluting equipment with newer and 

cleaner equipment. 

II. EPA’s Evaluation and Action 

A. How is EPA evaluating the rule? 

Generally, SIP rules must be 

enforceable (see section 110(a) of the 

Act), must require Reasonably Available 

Control Technology (RACT) for each 

category of sources covered by a Control 

Techniques Guidelines (CTG) document 

as well as each NOX or VOC major 

source in nonattainment areas (see 

sections 182(a)(2) and 182(f) of the Act), 

and must not relax existing 

requirements (see sections 110(l) and 

193 of the Act). The SCAQMD regulates 

an ozone nonattainment area classified 

as extreme for the 8-hour ozone NAAQS 

(40 CFR 81.305), so the RECLAIM 

Program must fulfill RACT. 

Guidance and policy documents that 

we use to evaluate enforceability and 

RACT requirements consistently 

include the following: 

1. ‘‘State Implementation Plans; General 

Preamble for the Implementation of Title 

I of the Clean Air Act Amendments of 

1990,’’ 57 FR 13498 (April 16, 1992); 57 

FR 18070 (April 28, 1992). 

2. ‘‘State Implementation Plans; Nitrogen 

Oxides Supplement to the General 

Preamble; Clean Air Act Amendments of 

1990 Implementation of Title I; Proposed 

Rule’’ (the NOX Supplement), 57 FR 

55620, November 25, 1992. 

3. ‘‘Issues Relating to VOC Regulation 

Cutpoints, Deficiencies, and Deviations,’’ 

EPA, May 25, 1988 (the Bluebook). 

4. ‘‘Guidance Document for Correcting 

Common VOC & Other Rule 

Deficiencies,’’ EPA Region 9, August 21, 

2001 (the Little Bluebook). 

5. ‘‘Economic Incentive Programs—EPA 

published the guidance, ‘‘Improving Air 

Quality with Economic Incentive 

Programs’’ on January 2001 (EPA–452/R– 

01–001). The guidance available at 

http://www.epa.gov/ttncaaa1/t1/meta/ 

m1201.html. This guidance applies to 

discretionary economic incentive 

programs (EIPs) and represents the 

agency’s interpretation of what EIPs 

should contain in order to meet the 

requirements of the Clean Air Act. 

Because this guidance is non-binding 

and does not represent final agency 

action, EPA is using the guidance as an 

initial screen to determine whether 

potential approvability issues arise. 

B. Does the rule meet the evaluation 

criteria? 

We believe this rule is consistent with 

the relevant policy and guidance 

regarding enforceability and SIP 


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Federal Register / Vol. 76, No. 244 / Tuesday, December 20, 2011 / Rules and Regulations 78831 

relaxations. While the CAA RACT 

requirements apply to the RECLAIM 

program as a whole, the requirements 

do not specifically apply to Rule 2005 

because Rule 2005 addresses the NSR 

permit program requirements. In EPA’s 

original approval of the RECLAIM 

program, EPA determined that the 

RECLAIM program met the CAA RACT 

requirements. This amendment does not 

change EPA’s previous determination. 

This revision has no effect on allowable 

emissions and would not result in 

emissions increases. Furthermore, this 

revision is consistent with EPA’s 

original understanding of how the NSR 

offset requirement would be 

implemented in the RECLAIM program. 

EPA’s November 8, 1996 limited 

approval and limited disapproval of 

RECLAIM (61 FR 57775) stated, ‘‘The 

NSR offset requirements would only be 

triggered if a particular facility exceeded 

its initial RECLAIM allocation plus 

nontradeable emission allocation.’’ (see 

61 FR 57777) The Technical Support 

Document (TSD) has more information 

on our evaluation. 

C. EPA recommendations to further 

improve the rule 

The TSD describes additional rule 

revisions that we recommend for the 

next time the local agency modifies the 

RECLAIM rules. 

D. Public comment and final action 

As authorized in section 110(k)(3) of 

the Act, EPA is fully approving the 

submitted rule because we believe it 

fulfills all relevant requirements. We do 

not think anyone will object to this 

approval, so we are finalizing it without 

proposing it in advance. However, in 

the Proposed Rules section of this 

Federal Register,we are simultaneously 

proposing approval of the same 

submitted rules. If we receive adverse 

comments by January 19, 2012, we will 

publish a timely withdrawal in the 

Federal Register to notify the public 

that the direct final approval will not 

take effect and we will address the 

comments in a subsequent final action 

based on the proposal. If we do not 

receive timely adverse comments, the 

direct final approval will be effective 

without further notice on February 21, 

2012. This will incorporate the rule into 

the federally enforceable SIP. 

Please note that if EPA receives 

adverse comment on an amendment, 

paragraph, or section of this rule and if 

that provision may be severed from the 

remainder of the rule, EPA may adopt 

as final those provisions of the rule that 

are not the subject of an adverse 

comment. 

III. Statutory and Executive Order 

Reviews 

Under the Clean Air Act, the 

Administrator is required to approve a 

SIP submission that complies with the 

provisions of the Act and applicable 

Federal regulations. 42 U.S.C. 7410(k); 

40 CFR 52.02(a). Thus, in reviewing SIP 

submissions, EPA’s role is to approve 

State choices, provided that they meet 

the criteria of the Clean Air Act. 

Accordingly, this action merely 

approves State law as meeting Federal 

requirements and does not impose 

additional requirements beyond those 

imposed by State law. For that reason, 

this 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 Clean Air Act; 

and 

• Does not provide EPA with the 

discretionary authority to address 

disproportionate human health or 

environmental effects with practical, 

appropriate, and legally permissible 

methods under Executive Order 12898 

(59 FR 7629, February 16, 1994). 

In addition, this rule does not have 

tribal implications as specified by 

Executive Order 13175 (65 FR 67249, 

November 9, 2000), because the SIP is 

not approved to apply in Indian country 

located in the State, and EPA notes that 

it will not impose substantial direct 

costs on tribal governments or preempt 

tribal law. 

The Congressional Review Act, 5 

U.S.C. 801 et seq., as added by the Small 

Business Regulatory Enforcement 

Fairness Act of 1996, generally provides 

that before a rule may take effect, the 

agency promulgating the rule must 

submit a rule report, which includes a 

copy of the rule, to each House of the 

Congress and to the Comptroller General 

of the United States. EPA will submit a 

report containing this action and other 

required information to the U.S. Senate, 

the U.S. House of Representatives, and 

the Comptroller General of the United 

States prior to publication of the rule in 

the Federal Register. A major rule 

cannot take effect until 60 days after it 

is published in the Federal Register. 

This action is not a ‘‘major rule’’ as 

defined by 5 U.S.C. 804(2). 

List of Subjects in 40 CFR Part 52 

Environmental protection, Air 

pollution control, Incorporation by 

reference, Intergovernmental relations, 

Nitrogen dioxide, Ozone, Reporting and 

recordkeeping requirements. 

Dated: November 18, 2011. 

Jared Blumenfeld, 

Regional Administrator, Region IX. 

Part 52, chapter I, title 40 of the Code 

of Federal Regulations is amended as 

follows: 

PART 52—[AMENDED] 

■ 1. The authority citation for Part 52 

continues to read as follows: 

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

Subpart F—California 

■ 2. Section 52.220, is amended by 

adding and reserving paragraph (c)(403) 

and by adding paragraph (c)(404) to read 

as follows: 

§ 52.220 Identification of plan. 

* * * * * 

(c) * * * 

(404) New and amended regulations 

for the following APCDs were submitted 

on September 27, 2011, by the 

Governor’s Designee. 

(i) Incorporation by Reference 

(A) South Coast Air Quality 

Management District 

(1) Rule 2005, ‘‘New Source Review 

for RECLAIM,’’ amended on June 3, 

2011. 

[FR Doc. 2011–32475 Filed 12–19–11; 8:45 am] 

BILLING CODE 6560–50–P 


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