Source: https://www.everycrsreport.com/changes/20180510_R43092_f5cb7c6303a94ed09f161523263a8762e41e0588__20180816_R43092_db4691074629a0f286fa8635aaa13c1567cf820a.html
Timestamp: 2019-04-21 20:29:01+00:00

Document:
Implementation of revised ozone standards by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is now moving forward, after the agency designated 5152 areas with just over 200 counties or partial counties and two tribal areas as "nonattainment" for the standards on April 30, 2018. The standards—formally known as National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) for ground-level ozone—are standards for outdoor (ambient) air. In 2015, EPA tightened both the primary (health-based) and secondary (welfare-based) standards from 75 parts per billion (ppb) to 70 ppb after concluding that protecting public health and welfare requires lower concentrations of ozone than were previously judged to be safe. Ozone aggravates heart and lung diseases and may contribute to premature death; the primary standard addresses these concerns. Ozone can also have negative effects on forests and crop yields, which the secondary NAAQS is intended to protect.
Source: U.S. EPA Green Book, https://www3.epa.gov/airquality/greenbook/map/map8hr_2008.pdf. Map shows areas designated nonattainment with respect to the 2008 ozone standard by EPA as of June 30by EPA as of February 28, 2018.
Notes: Nonattainment designations were based on 2008-2010 monitoring data in most cases. FifteenEighteen of the 38 areas shown now have monitoring data indicating attainment of the standard, but, as of FebruaryJune 2018, had not completed administrative requirements to be reclassified to "attainment."
The pollutants for which NAAQS have been set are generally referred to as "criteria" pollutants. The act defines them as pollutants that "endanger public health or welfare," and whose presence in ambient air "results from numerous or diverse mobile or stationary sources."18 Six pollutants (or categories of pollutants) are currently identified as criteria pollutants: ozone, particulates, carbon monoxide, sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, and lead. The EPA Administrator can add to this list if he determines that additional pollutants meet the definition, or delete pollutants from the list if they no longer meet the definition. There have been no changes to the list, however, since the late 1970s.
The review completed in 2008 found evidence of health effects, including mortality, at levels of exposure below the then-current 0.08 ppm standard. As a result, both EPA staff and CASAC recommended strengthening the standard. CASAC stated, "There is no scientific justification for retaining the current [0.08 ppm] primary 8-hr NAAQS."27 The panel unanimously recommended a range of 0.060 to 0.070 ppm (60 to 70 parts per billion) for the primary (health-based) 8-hour standard.
The Regulatory Impact Analysis that accompanied the final 2008 standard identified 345 counties in 36 states and the District of Columbia in exceedance of the 0.075 ppm standard, using data for 2004-2006 (the most recent available at the time). By May 2012, when the nonattainment areas were actually designated, the number of counties in nonattainment had fallen to 232 in 26 states and the District of Columbia, based mostly on data for 2008-2010.31 In the intervening years, emissions declined in most areas as more stringent standards for both mobile and stationary sources took effect. The 2008-2009 recession and other economic factors also contributed to the lower numbers. When the economy is operating well below capacity, emissions generally decline; and changes in the economy (e.g., fewer vehicle miles traveled and a switch to cleaner fuels) have also resulted in lower emissions. As of April 2016, only 115 counties in 12 states exceeded the 2008 ozone NAAQS, although about double that number remained classified as nonattainment pending completion of administrative requirements.
As part of the review completed in 2008, the 2009-2011 reconsideration process, and the review completed in 2015, EPA also assessed the secondary NAAQS for ozone. As explained above, secondary NAAQS are standards necessary to protect public welfare, a broad term that includes damage to crops, vegetation, property, building materials, climate, etc.33 Prior to 2008, the secondary standard was identical to the primary standard—0.08 ppm beginning in 1997.
A first major step occurred in October 2016, when the states (and six authorized Indian tribes), using monitoring data and other information, submitted to EPA lists showing recommended attainment/nonattainment area designations. As shown in Table 2, the states identified 213 counties in 55 potential nonattainment areas. The list included areas in 21 states and the District of Columbia. Indian tribes with designated Clean Air Act authority identified two additional areas as nonattainment.
Source: U.S. EPA, Nonattainment Area Designations for the 2015 Ozone Standards, April 30July 17, 2018, available at https://www.epa.gov/sites/production/files/2018-0407/documents/placeholder_3ozone_designations_national_map_with_san_antonio_added.pdf.
byon July 17, 2018, the agency is required to makemade final designation decisions for an eight-county area that includes San Antonio, TX.
, designating one county as nonattainment and the remaining seven counties as attainment. This action completed the area designations with respect to the 2015 ozone standard.50Once EPA designates nonattainment areas, it classifies the areas into categories based on the severity of nonattainment. The classifications are, in increasing order of severity: Marginal, Moderate, Serious, Severe, and Extreme. EPA also sets a schedule for states to submit State Implementation Plans (SIPs), which outline the measures that will reduce emission levels. In a Fact Sheet accompanying the designations, EPA states that "Areas classified as Marginal are not required to submit plans demonstrating how they will meet the ozone standards. For all other nonattainment areas, states have three to four years after the effective date of final designations to develop and submit required SIP elements to EPA."4951 Finalizing SIPs, through EPA review and approval, often takes longer than the three- to four-year period.
Source: U.S. EPA, 2015 Ozone Standards—State Recommendations, EPA Responses, and Technical Support Documents and 2015 Ozone Standards—Tribal—Tribal Recommendations and EPA Responses, accessed April 3, 2018, available at https://www.epa.gov/ozone-designations/2015-ozone-standards-state-recommendations.
U.S. EPA, Ozone Designations Regulatory Actions, accessed August 8, 2018, available at https://www.epa.gov/ozone-designations/ozone-designations-regulatory-actions.
Notes: Most states submitted initial recommendations to EPA on or about October 1, 2016, using monitoring data for 2013-2015 to make their recommendations. In some cases, the submission letter included preliminary information for 2016, through August 31 of the year. EPA notified states that they could submit more recent data (e.g., for years 2015-2017) by February 28, 2018. Final designations will bewere based on 2014-2016 or 2015-2017 data.
a. The term "county" includes non-countynoncounty administrative or statistical areas that are comparable to counties. Louisiana parishes; the organized boroughs of Alaska; the District of Columbia; and the independent cities of the states of Virginia, Maryland, Missouri, and Nevada are equivalent to counties for administrative purposes. Alaska's Unorganized Borough is divided into 10 census areas that are statistically equivalent to counties. Using this definition, as of 2017, there are 3,142 counties and county-equivalents in the United States.
b. EPA designated the entire state as attainment/unclassifiable. See EPA, "Air Quality Designations for the 2015 Ozone National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS)," 82 Federal Register 54232, November 16, 2017.
c. EPA has not yet completed the designation process for eight counties in the San Antonio, TX, area. The agency is under a court order to promulgate a final decision for these counties by July 17, 2018Several areas include counties in more than one state, including areas in Kentucky and Ohio (Cincinnati nonattainment area); Connecticut, New Jersey, and New York (metropolitan New York City nonattainment area); Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania (Philadelphia nonattainment area); Illinois and Missouri (St. Louis nonattainment area); and the District of Columbia, Maryland, and Virginia (Washington, DC, nonattainment area). To avoid double-counting the number of nonattainment areas, the total counts each of these areas only once.
d. The number of counties includes 159160 whole nonattainment counties and county equivalents and 41 partial nonattainment counties. Parts of five counties are included in multiple areas but are only counted once in this total. In addition, EPA designated nonattainment areas in two tribal areas. Source: EPA, Nonattainment and Unclassifiable Area Designations for the 2015 Ozone Standards—April 30, 2018, May 2018, p. 5, https://www.epa.gov/sites/production/files/2018-04/documents/placeholder_1.pdf.
e. Several areas include counties in more than one state, including areas in Kentucky and Ohio (Cincinnati nonattainment area); Connecticut, New Jersey, and New York (metropolitan New York City nonattainment area); Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania (Philadelphia nonattainment area); Illinois and Missouri (St. Louis nonattainment area); and the District of Columbia, Maryland, and Virginia (Washington, DC, nonattainment area). To avoid double-counting the number of nonattainment areas, the Total counts each of these areas only once.
An emerging set of issues has arisen in regard to wintertime ozone pollution in rural areas of the western United States. Ozone is generally considered a summertime pollutant, but winter exceedances of the ozone NAAQS have recently been found to occur near oil and gas fields in the West.5153 At times, ozone concentrations as high as those in Los Angeles, the nation's smoggiest city, have been found in these areas—principally the Upper Green River Basin of Wyoming, the Uintah Basin of Utah, and a nearby area of Colorado.
In 2012, EPA promulgated standards requiring the reduction of VOC emissions from new and modified oil and gas production and transmission operations, including a requirement to use "green completions" on hydraulically fractured onshore natural gas wells. In 2016, these standards were extended to cover hydraulically fractured oil wells. Further, in 2015, EPA proposed Control Techniques Guidelines intended to provide state, local, and tribal air agencies with information to assist them in determining "reasonably available control technology" for reducing VOC emissions from existing oil and natural gas sources in ozone nonattainment areas and states in the Ozone Transport Region.5456 (For a discussion, see CRS Report R42986, Methane and Other Air Pollution Issues in Natural Gas Systems, by [author name scrubbed].) The impact of these regulations on wintertime ozone concentrations is yet to be determined, but interestingly the Upper Green River Basin, which was designated nonattainment under the 2008 ozone NAAQS, has been designated attainment for the 2015 standard.
As noted elsewhere in this report ("The Role of Cost," below), EPA is prohibited by statute from taking cost into account in setting NAAQS. Despite that prohibition, in order to comply with an executive order (E.O. 12866),5557 the agency produces a Regulatory Impact Analysis (RIA) analyzing in detail the costs and benefits of new or revised NAAQS standards when the NAAQS are proposed and promulgated.
The benefit estimates include benefits of reduced fine particle (PM2.5) concentrations associated with ozone controls, in addition to the benefits of reduced ozone itself. The RIA states that "PM2.5 co-benefits account for approximately half to three-quarters of the estimated benefits, depending on the standard analyzed and on the choice of ozone and PM mortality functions used."6163 Including these co-benefits is consistent with the methodology EPA has used in valuing benefits of many other proposed and promulgated standards, but some observers are critical of this approach, noting that including these co-benefits results in a net benefit, whereas an analysis that considered the costs and benefits of ozone reductions in isolation would not.64 The control technologies used to capture ozone precursors do capture particles and their precursors, however. Since they do so at no additional cost, EPA considershas considered this a benefit of the controls.
The NAM study concluded that more than half of the emission reductions needed to reach attainment would have to come from "unknown controls,"6871 which, in an earlier version of its study, it estimated could cost as much as $500,000 per ton of emissions reduced.6972 EPA's modeling of the rule's costs found that unknown controls would play a much smaller role: both the number of tons to which such controls would apply and the cost per ton would be substantially less.
In 2015, the American Petroleum Institute (API), the American Chemistry Council, and NAM all released state maps showing potential nonattainment areas and the potential cost of the rule on a state-by-state basis.7275 A map of the entire country distributed by API identified 958 counties nationwide as potentially in violation of a 70 ppb ozone NAAQS.7376 The larger number of affected counties (by comparison, in 2015, EPA projected only 241 counties7477) would also contribute to higher cost estimates.
As shown in Table 2, the number of nonattainment counties recommended by states (213) and designated by EPA (200, as of April 30, 2018201) are less than one-fourth of the number assumed in industry projections.
At the state level, the contrast between industry projections and state data is particularly striking: API's map showed 59 of Oklahoma's 77 counties potentially in nonattainment; the state data (submitted one year later) indicated that all 77 counties have already attained the 2015 standard. Similarly, API's map showed Kansas with 75 counties in nonattainment; according to the state's 2016 submission, the standard has already been attained at every monitored location. In other states—Arizona, Colorado, Indiana, Michigan, Missouri, Texas, and Utah among them—the number of counties identified on the API map is substantially higher than the number identified by the state and ultimately designated nonattainment by EPA.
The 2015 ozone NAAQS review has raised issues regarding the cost of attainment, background ozone levels, and the schedule for NAAQS reviews. The adequacy of the ozone monitoring network and the role of federal versus state and local pollution control measures are other important issues. More recently, EPA cited concerns about NAAQS review and implementation and identified "NAAQS reform" as one of four initiatives that the agency plans to undertake to reduce "unnecessary burdens on the development and use of domestic energy resources."75 EPA also noted that it has 78 In particular, EPA's "Back-to-Basics" memorandum identified principles to guide forthcoming NAAQS reviews.79 Among other things, EPA seeks to streamline the NAAQS review process and obtain Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee advice regarding background pollution and potential adverse effects from NAAQS compliance strategies.80 EPA has also formed the "Ozone Cooperative Compliance Task Force" to review issues related to the ozone NAAQS and that the task force "is reviewing administrative options to enable states to enter into cooperative agreements with EPA to provide regulatory relief and meaningfully improve ozone air quality."76 As of early May 2018, EPA has not announced anything further about either the NAAQS reform initiative or the Ozone Cooperative Compliance Task Force.
The invocation of these regulatory relief measures, as even EPA acknowledgesacknowledged, is not burden-free: each would require some level of assessment or demonstration by a state and/or EPA. States that have tried to invoke the "exceptional event" exceptions have expressed frustration with the lack of clarity and the burden involved in meeting EPA's data requirements and, thus, may not be confident in the agency's offer of regulatory relief.8590 But, as noted earlier (in Figure 3), EPA does not believe it will be necessary in most cases to invoke such measures. EPA modeling shows only 14 counties outside of California exceeding a 70 ppb standard without any emission control measures additional to those already promulgated as of this date.
Section 109(d) of the Clean Air Act requires EPA to conduct reviews of the NAAQS and "make such revisions ... as may be appropriate" at five-year intervals. This required schedule is rarely adhered to: the 2015 ozone review took more than sevenseven and a half years, and as shown in Table 1, previous ozone reviews have taken as long as 14 years. Once a review is complete, implementation of a revised standard (i.e., the designation of nonattainment areas and the submittal and review of SIPs) generally takes longer than five years; so if EPA were to meet the statutory NAAQS review schedule, it would be likely that the previous review would still be being implemented at the time the next revised NAAQS was being promulgated.
The agency, in a 2009 rulemaking separate from the NAAQS, proposed changing the minimum ozone monitoring requirements for both urban and nonurban areas.8691 That proposal would have required that each state operate at least three ozone monitors in nonurban areas. It would also have required at least one ozone monitor in each urban area with a population between 50,000 and 350,000. The requirements were not finalized.
The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals found fault with both the CAIR and CSAPR rules, although it allowed CAIR to take effect pending promulgation of an acceptable replacement.9196 Whether EPA, in the CSAPR rule, had correctly interpreted its authority to control emissions leading to downwind pollution ultimately reached the Supreme Court. On April 29, 2014, in a 6-2 decision (EPA v. EME Homer City Generation, LLP), the Court upheld the methodology at the heart of EPA's CSAPR standard-setting process.9297 The rule was remanded to the D.C. Circuit for consideration of additional issues, but it is now being implemented.
98S. 263 (Senator Capito)/H.R. 806 (Representative Olson), the Ozone Standards Implementation Act, would delay the deadline for designation of nonattainment areas under the 2015 ozone NAAQS revision until October 2025 and the date for State Implementation Plan revisions under the standard until October 2026; would require future reviews of the NAAQS at 10-year rather than 5five-year intervals; would allow the Administrator to consider, as a secondary consideration, likely technological feasibility in establishing and revising primary NAAQS in cases where the Administrator concludes that a range of levels of air quality for a pollutant are requisite to protect public health with an adequate margin of safety; would require the Administrator to publish regulations and guidance for implementing a new or revised NAAQS concurrently with the publication of the standard; would make changes to EPA's authority to exclude from air quality monitoring data used to determine attainment of NAAQS certain data influenced by "exceptional events"; would require a report to Congress on the impact of emissions originating outside the United States on attainment and maintenance of NAAQS; and other provisions. H.R. 806, but not S. 263, would require an EPA report to Congress on ozone formation, including the factors contributing to winter ozone formation, and effective control strategies, and would require EPA to incorporate the report's results into regulations and guidance implementing the 2015 ozone NAAQS. H.R. 806 was reported by the Energy and Commerce Committee on July 14, 2017; the bill passed the House on July 18, 2017.
The ozone NAAQS has also been challenged in court. Twenty-six parties, including 10 states, have challenged the standards in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia (D.C. Circuit). A nearly equal number of parties, including six states and the District of Columbia, have sided with EPA. Oral argument in the case (Murray Energy v. EPA) was scheduled for April 19, 2017,9399 but 12 days before the argument, EPA requested a delay in the proceedings to review the standards. The court granted the agency's request to delay the oral argument and will holdheld the case in abeyance pending further orders. EPA mustwas required to file status reports with the D.C. Circuit every 90 days as it reviews the rule.
14, Green Book 8-Hour Ozone (2008) Area Information, Designated Area/State Information, June 30, 2018, https://www3.epa.gov/airquality/greenbook/hbtc.html.
EPA may issue a determination of attainment, sometimes referred to as a "Clean Data Determination," after notice and comment rulemaking determining that a specific area is attaining the relevant standard. This is not the same as redesignation to attainment, however. EPA does not formally redesignate areas as attainment until the state meets statutory criteria, including submission of a certified monitoring data and obtaining EPA approval for a Maintenance Plan. The Maintenance Plan shows how the nonattainment area will maintain compliance with the NAAQS for a 10-year period. For additional discussion see EPA, "Determinations of Attainment by the Attainment Date, Extensions of the Attainment Date, and Reclassification of Several Areas for the 2008 Ozone National Ambient Air Quality Standards," 86 Federal Register 26697, 26701, May 4, 2016. For list of areas with Clean Data Determinations/Attainment Determinations that are designated as nonattainment with respect to the 2008 ozone standard (as of June 30, 2008), see EPA Green Book, https://www3.epa.gov/airquality/greenbook/hfr2rpt5.html.
See "Ozone Secondary Standard," Memorandum of Marcus Peacock, EPA Deputy Administrator, to Susan Dudley, OMB, March 7, 2008, p. 2, at http://www.reginfo.gov/public/postreview/Steve_Johnson_Letter_on_NAAQs_final_3-13-08_2.pdf. For additional discussion, also see CRS Report R41062, Ozone Air Quality Standards: EPA's Proposed Revisions.
The 2016 state recommendations were based, in general, on 2013-2015 monitoring data. In 2017, some states submitted 2014-2016 data to EPA for consideration. For example, in April 2017, Pennsylvania submitted 2014-2016 monitoring data to EPA. See Cosmo Servidio, Regional Administrator, EPA Region 3, letter to The Honorable Tom Wolfe, Governor of Pennsylvania, December 20, 2017, https://www.epa.gov/sites/production/files/2018-01/documents/pa-epa-response-ozone2.pdf.
EPA, "Additional Air Quality Designations for the 2015 Ozone National Ambient Air Quality Standards," 83 Federal Register 25776, June 4, 2018.
EPA, "Additional Air Quality Designations for the 2015 Ozone National Ambient Air Quality Standards—San Antonio, Texas Area," 83 Federal Register 35136, July 25, 2018.
51. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Fact Sheet: Final Area Designations for the National Ambient Air Quality Standards for Ozone Established in 2015, May 2018, p. 1, https://www.epa.gov/sites/production/files/2018-04/documents/placeholder_0.pdf.
In 2017, EPA sought comment on an alternative way to account for human health co-benefits in its benefit-cost analysis of the proposal to repeal the Clean Power Plan. EPA's 2017 analysis reduced some estimates of the human health co-benefits by assuming no health benefits below specified thresholds for some air pollutants. EPA has not yet finalized the proposed repeal of the Clean Power Plan, nor is it clear whether and how the agency will apply this approach in other regulatory analyses. For more discussion about the treatment of human health co-benefits in the proposed repeal of the Clean Power Plan, see CRS Report R45119, EPA's Proposal to Repeal the Clean Power Plan: Benefits and Costs, by [author name scrubbed].
E. Scott Pruitt, EPA Administrator, "Back-to-Basics Process for Reviewing National Ambient Air Quality Standards," memorandum to EPA Assistant Administrators, May 9, 2018, https://www.epa.gov/sites/production/files/2018-05/documents/image2018-05-09-173219.pdf.
EPA, Final Report on Review of Agency Actions that Potentially Burden the Safe, Efficient Development of Domestic Energy Resources Under Executive Order 13783, October 25, 2017, p. 5, https://www.epa.gov/sites/production/files/2017-10/documents/eo-13783-final-report-10-25-2017.pdf.
See, for example, the comments of state and local officials on EPA's proposed 2012 Exceptional Events guidance, at http://www.regulations.gov/#!documentDetail;D=EPA-HQ-OAR-2011-0887-0051..
The Uintah Basin in Utah provides an example. Nonregulatory monitors indicated ozone levels that exceeded the NAAQS in December 2009, January-March 2010, and January-March 2011. The state began collecting regulatory monitoring data in April 2011. The area was not designated nonattainment until April 30, 2018.
In addition, an amendment to prohibit implementation and enforcement of the 2015 NAAQS was offered on 7/18/18—but not agreed to—in House deliberations about EPA's 2019 appropriation. See H. Amdt. 920 to H.R. 6147.
Clerk's Order, Murray Energy Corp. v. EPA, No. 15-1385 (D.C. Cir. Dec. 19, 2016).
Respondent EPA's Final Status Report at 1, 4, Murray Energy Corp. v. EPA, No. 15-1385 (D.C. Cir. Aug. 1, 2018).
Respondent EPA's Final Status Report at 4, Murray Energy Corp. v. EPA, No. 15-1385 (D.C. Cir. Aug. 1, 2018).
See Clerk's Order, Clean Wisconsin v. EPA, No. 18-1203 (D.C. Cir. Aug. 3, 2018) (consolidating cases challenging the attainment designation of an area of Wisconsin).

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