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Federal Register / Vol. 86, No. 53 / Monday, March 22, 2021 / Rules and Regulations
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area.14 The RPGs established by the State provide an assessment of the visibility improvement anticipated to result for that planning period.15
Section 51.308d3v requires that a state consider certain minimum factors the long-term strategy factors in developing its long-term strategy for each Class I area.16 States have significant flexibility in establishing RPGs during the first planning period and must determine whether additional measures beyond BART are needed for reasonable progress. Under CAA section 169Ag1, once a set of potential control measures have been identified for a selected source, the State must collect data on and apply the four statutory factors that will be considered in selecting the measures for that source that are necessary to make reasonable progress. The four statutory factors used to characterize potential emission controls are as follows: 1 The costs of compliance; 2 the time necessary for compliance; 3 the energy and non-air quality environmental 14 See 40 CFR 51.308d3i to iv. For the first planning period, contributing and impacted states must develop coordinated emission management strategies. Impacted states must demonstrate that they have included all measures necessary in their SIPs to obtain their share of emission reductions needed to meet the RPGs for a Class I area. States must document the technical basis that they relied upon to determine the apportionment of emission reduction obligations necessary and identify the baseline emissions inventory on which their strategies are based. States must also identify all anthropogenic sources of visibility impairment considered in developing the strategy, such as major and minor stationary sources, mobile sources, and area sources.
15 The process for setting RPGs is as follows: 1
Identify sources that impact visibility; 2 evaluate potential controls based on consideration of the four reasonable progress factors; 3 project the visibility conditions based on implementation of on-the-books and additional selected controls; 4
compare the projected visibility conditions to the uniform rate of progress URP needed to attain natural visibility conditions by year 2064 for each Class I area; 5 determine an RPG for each Class I area based on this analysis that will improve the visibility at or beyond the URP on the most impaired days and ensure no degradation for the least impaired days. The Regional Haze Rule allows for the selection of an RPG at a given Class I area that provides for a slower rate of improvement than the URP for that area, but in that case a state must demonstrate that the URP is not reasonable and that the RPG selected is. See 40 CFR 51.308d1ii.
16 These factors are: 1 Emission reductions due to ongoing air pollution control programs, including measures to address reasonably attributable visibility impairment RAVI; 2 measures to mitigate the impacts of construction activities; 3
emissions limitations and schedules for compliance to achieve the reasonable progress goal; 4 source retirement and replacement schedules; 5 smoke management techniques for agricultural and forestry management purposes including plans as currently exist within the state for these purposes;
6 enforceability of emissions limitations and control measures; and 7 the anticipated net effect on visibility due to projected changes in point, area, and mobile source emissions over the period addressed by the long-term strategy.

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impacts of compliance; and 4 the remaining useful life of any potentially affected sources. A state planning to consider visibility benefits will also need to characterize those benefits often referred to as the 5th factor.17
States must demonstrate in their regional haze SIPs how these factors are considered when selecting the controls for their long-term strategies and provide an assessment of the visibility improvement anticipated to establish RPGs for each applicable Class I area.
This is commonly referred to this as the reasonable progress analysis or fourfactor analysis.
F. Previous Actions on Arkansas Regional Haze The State of Arkansas submitted a regional haze SIP on September 9, 2008, intended to address the requirements of the first regional haze implementation period. On August 3, 2010, the State submitted a SIP revision with mostly non-substantive changes that addressed Arkansas Pollution Control and Ecology Commission APCEC Regulation 19, Chapter 15.18 On September 27, 2011, the State submitted a supplemental letter that clarified several aspects of the 2008 submittal. The EPA collectively refers to the original 2008 submittal, the supplemental letter, and the 2010
revision together as the 2008 Arkansas Regional Haze SIP. On March 12, 2012, the EPA partially approved and partially disapproved the 2008 Arkansas Regional Haze SIP.19 Specifically, the EPA disapproved certain BART
compliance dates; the States identification of certain BART-eligible sources and subject-to-BART sources;
certain BART determinations for NOX, SO2, and PM10; the States reasonable progress analysis; and a portion of the States long-term strategy. The remaining provisions of the 2008
Arkansas Regional Haze SIP were approved. The final partial disapproval started a two-year FIP clock that obligated the EPA to either approve a 17 Guidance for Setting Reasonable Progress Goals under the Regional Haze Program, June 1, 2007, memorandum from William L. Wehrum, Acting Assistant Administrator for Air and Radiation, to the EPA Regional Administrators, EPA Regions 110 pp. 42, 51.
18 The September 9, 2008 SIP submittal included APCEC Regulation 19, Chapter 15, which is the state regulation that identified the BART-eligible and subject-to-BART sources in Arkansas and established BART emission limits for subject-toBART sources. The August 3, 2010 SIP revision did not revise Arkansas list of BART-eligible and subject-to-BART sources or revise any of the BART
requirements for affected sources. Instead, it included mostly non-substantive revisions to the state regulation.
19 See the final action on March 12, 2012 77 FR
14604.

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SIP revision and/or promulgate a FIP to address the disapproved portions of the SIP.20 Because a SIP revision addressing the deficiencies was not approved and the FIP clock expired in April 2014, the EPA promulgated a FIP the Arkansas Regional Haze FIP on September 27, 2016, to address the disapproved portions of the 2008 Arkansas Regional Haze SIP.21 Among other things, the FIP
established SO2, NOX, and PM10
emission limits under the BART
requirements for nine units at six facilities: Arkansas Electric Cooperative Corporation AECC Carl E. Bailey Plant Unit 1 Boiler; AECC John L. McClellan Plant Unit 1 Boiler; American Electric Power/Southwestern Electric Power Company AEP/SWEPCO Flint Creek Plant Boiler No. 1; Entergy22 Lake Catherine Plant Unit 4 Boiler; Entergy White Bluff Plant Units 1 and 2 Boilers and the Auxiliary Boiler; and the Domtar Ashdown Mill Power Boilers No. 1 and 2. The FIP also established SO2 and NOX emission limits under the reasonable progress requirements for the Entergy Independence Plant Units 1 and 2.
Following petitions for reconsideration and administrative stay submitted by the State, industry, and ratepayers, on April 14, 2017,23 the EPA
announced our decision to reconsider several elements of the FIP 24 and on April 25, 2017, the EPA issued a partial administrative stay of the effectiveness of the FIP for ninety days.25 During that period, Arkansas started to address the disapproved portions of its regional haze SIP through several phases of SIP
revisions. On July 12, 2017, the State submitted its Phase I SIP submittal the Arkansas Regional Haze NOX SIP
revision to address NOX BART
requirements for all electric generating 20 Under CAA section 110c, the EPA is required to promulgate a FIP within two years of the effective date of a finding that a state has failed to make a required SIP submission or has made an incomplete submission, or of the effective date that the EPA disapproves a SIP in whole or in part. The FIP requirement is terminated only if a state submits a SIP, and the EPA approves that SIP as meeting applicable CAA requirements before promulgating a FIP.
21 See FIP final action on September 27, 2016 81
FR 66332 as corrected on October 4, 2016 81 FR
68319.
23 Copies of the petitions for reconsideration and administrative stay submitted by the State of Arkansas; Entergy; Arkansas Electric Cooperative Corporation AECC; and the Energy and Environmental Alliance of Arkansas EEAA are available in the docket of this action.
24 Letter from E. Scott Pruitt, Administrator, EPA, to Nicholas Jacob Bronni and Jamie Leigh Ewing, Arkansas Attorney Generals Office April 14, 2017.
A copy of this letter is included in the docket, https www.regulations.gov/document?D=EPAR06OAR-2015-0189-0240.
25 See 82 FR 18994.

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