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Federal Register / Vol. 86, No. 184 / Monday, September 27, 2021 / Rules and Regulations identification as a possible threat. The statement is required to be signed by the person purporting to act under this section and promptly forwarded to the Chief Postal Inspector. Any person purporting to act under this section who does not report his or her action to the Chief Postal Inspector under the requirements of this section, or whose action is determined after investigation not to have been authorized, is subject to disciplinary action or criminal prosecution or both.
Ruth Stevenson, Chief Counsel, Ethics & Legal Compliance.
FR Doc. 202120574 Filed 92421; 8:45 am BILLING CODE 771012P

ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION
AGENCY
40 CFR Part 52
EPAR09OAR20200254; FRL872702
R9

Clean Air Plans; 2008 8-Hour Ozone Nonattainment Area Requirements;
West Mojave Desert, California Environmental Protection Agency EPA.
ACTION: Final rule.
AGENCY:

The Environmental Protection Agency EPA is taking final action to approve portions of state implementation plan SIP revisions submitted by the State of California to meet Clean Air Act CAA or Act requirements for the 2008 8-hour ozone national ambient air quality standards NAAQS or standards in the Los Angeles-San Bernardino Counties West Mojave Desert, California ozone nonattainment area West Mojave Desert or WMD. The SIP revisions address the Severe-15 nonattainment area requirements for the 2008 ozone NAAQS, including the requirements for emissions inventories, attainment demonstration, reasonable further progress, reasonably available control measures, and contingency measures, among others; and establishes motor vehicle emissions budgets. The EPA is approving the SIP revisions as meeting all the applicable ozone nonattainment area requirements, except for the contingency measures requirement, for which the EPA is deferring action.
DATES: This rule is effective on October 27, 2021.
ADDRESSES: The EPA has established a docket for this action under Docket ID
No. EPAR09OAR20200254. All documents in the docket are listed on the https www.regulations.gov
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SUMMARY:

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website. Although listed in the index, some information is not publicly available, e.g., Confidential Business Information CBI or other information whose disclosure is restricted by statute.
Certain other material, such as copyrighted material, is not placed on the internet and will be publicly available only in hard copy form.
Publicly available docket materials are available through https
www.regulations.gov, or please contact the person identified in the FOR FURTHER
INFORMATION CONTACT section for additional availability information. If you need assistance in a language other than English or if you are a person with disabilities who needs a reasonable accommodation at no cost to you, please contact the person identified in the FOR
FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT section.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Tom Kelly, Air Planning Office AIR2, EPA
Region IX, 75 Hawthorne Street, San Francisco, CA 94105, 415 9723856, or by email at kelly.thomasp@epa.gov.
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:
Throughout this document, we, us, and our refer to the EPA.
I. Summary of the Proposed Action On May 10, 2021, the EPA proposed to approve, under CAA section 110k3, and to conditionally approve, under CAA section 110k4, two SIP
submittals from the California Air Resources Board CARB addressing planning obligations for the West Mojave Desert 1 as a Severe-15
nonattainment area for the 2008 ozone NAAQS.2 The first, submitted June 2, 2017, includes attainment plans prepared by the Antelope Valley Air Quality Management District AVAQMD and the Mojave Desert Air Quality Management District MDAQMD collectively, Districts, an accompanying staff report prepared by CARB CARB Staff Report, and other supporting documents.3 We refer 1 86 FR 24809 May 10, 2021. The West Mojave Desert consists of the northeast portion of Los Angeles County and the southwest portion of San Bernardino County. For a precise definition of the boundaries of the West Mojave Desert 2008 ozone nonattainment area, see 40 CFR 81.305.
2 In accordance with CAA section 181a1, 40
CFR 51.1102 and 51.1103a, nonattainment areas classified as Severe-15 must attain the NAAQS
within 15 years of the effective date of the nonattainment designation.
3 AVAQMD Federal 75 ppb Ozone Attainment Plan Western Mojave Desert Nonattainment Area, adopted on March 21, 2017, MDAQMD Federal 75
ppb Ozone Attainment Plan Western Mojave Desert Nonattainment Area, adopted on February 27, 2017, and CARB Review of the Mojave Desert AQMD and Antelope Valley AQMD Federal 75 ppb Ozone Attainment Plans for the Western Mojave Desert Nonattainment Area, released April 21, 2017.

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to all the documents submitted to the EPA on June 2, 2017, as the 2016 WMD
Attainment Plan.
The second submittal, sent on December 11, 2018, is the 2018
Updates to the California State Implementation Plan 2018 SIP
Update.4 CARB adopted the 2018 SIP
Update on October 25, 2018. CARB
developed the 2018 SIP Update in response to the courts decision in South Coast II 5 vacating the 2008 Ozone SIP Requirements Rule 2008 Ozone SRR 6 with respect to the use of an alternate baseline year for demonstrating reasonable further progress RFP, and to address contingency measure requirements in the wake of the decision by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in Bahr v. EPA
Bahr.7 The 2018 SIP Update includes updates for eight different California ozone nonattainment areas.
We have previously approved portions of the 2018 SIP Update related to other nonattainment areas.8 For the West Mojave Desert, the 2018 SIP Update includes an RFP demonstration using the required 2011 baseline year and revised motor vehicle emission budgets for the 2008 ozone NAAQS.9
In our proposed rule, we provided background information on the ozone standards,10 area designations, and 4 Letter dated December 5, 2018, from Richard Corey, Executive Officer, CARB, to Mike Stoker, Regional Administrator, EPA Region IX, and electronically transmitted to the EPAs State Planning Electronic Collaboration System on December 11, 2018.
5 South Coast Air Quality Management District v.
EPA, 882 F.3d 1138 D.C. Cir. 2018. The term South Coast II is used in reference to the 2018
court decision to distinguish it from a decision published in 2006 also referred to as South Coast.
The earlier decision involved a challenge to the EPAs Phase 1 implementation rule for the 1997
ozone NAAQS. South Coast Air Quality Management Dist. v. EPA, 472 F.3d 882 D.C. Cir.
2006.
6 2008 Ozone SRR, 80 FR 12264, 12283 March 6, 2015.
7 Bahr v. EPA, 836 F.3d 1218 9th Cir. 2016. In this case, the court rejected the EPAs longstanding interpretation of CAA section 172c9 as allowing for early implementation of contingency measures.
The court concluded that a contingency measure must take effect at the time the area fails to make RFP or attain by the applicable attainment date, not before. See also Sierra Club v. EPA, 985 F.3d 1055
D.C. Cir. 2021, reaching a similar decision. These cases are addressed below in Section III.G of this document.
8 See, e.g., 84 FR 11198 March 25, 2019 final approval of the San Joaquin Valley portion of the 2018 SIP Update and 84 FR 52005 October 1, 2019 final approval of the South Coast portion of the 2018 SIP Update.
9 CARB withdrew the 2016 WMD Attainment Plan RFP demonstration in a letter dated December 18, 2019, from Richard Corey, Executive Officer, CARB, to Michael Stoker, Regional Administrator, EPA Region IX.
10 The 1-hour ozone NAAQS is 0.12 parts per million ppm one-hour average, the 1997 ozone
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