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Federal Register / Vol. 86, No. 107 / Monday, June 7, 2021 / Rules and Regulations
ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION
AGENCY
40 CFR Part 81
EPAR09OAR20210340; FRL10024
58Region 9

Designation of Areas for Air Quality Planning Purposes; California; Eastern Kern Ozone Nonattainment Area;
Reclassification to Severe Environmental Protection Agency EPA.
ACTION: Final rule.
AGENCY:

Under the Clean Air Act CAA, the Environmental Protection Agency EPA is granting a request by the California Air Resources Board CARB to reclassify the Eastern Kern, California Eastern Kern ozone nonattainment area from Serious to Severe for the 2008 ozone national ambient air quality standard NAAQS.
DATES: This rule is effective on July 7, 2021.
ADDRESSES: The EPA has established a docket for this action under Docket ID
No. EPAR09OAR20210340. All documents in the docket are listed on the https www.regulations.gov 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: Ben Leers, Air Planning Office AIR2, EPA
Region IX, 415 9474279, Leers.Benjamin@epa.gov.
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:
Throughout this document, we, us, and our refer to the EPA.

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SUMMARY:

I. Reclassification of Eastern Kern to Severe Ozone Nonattainment In March 2008, the EPA strengthened the primary and secondary eight-hour ozone NAAQS from 0.08 parts per
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million ppm to 0.075 ppm 2008
ozone NAAQS.1 In accordance with section 107d of the CAA, the EPA
must designate an area nonattainment if it is violating the NAAQS or if it is contributing to a violation of the NAAQS in a nearby area. With respect to the ozone NAAQS, the EPA further classifies nonattainment areas as Marginal, Moderate, Serious, Severe, 2 or Extreme, depending upon the ozone design value for an area.3 See CAA section 181a1. As a general matter, higher classified ozone nonattainment areas are subject to a greater number of, and more stringent, CAA planning requirements than lower classified areas but are allowed more time to attain the ozone NAAQS. See, generally, subpart 2 of part D of title I
of the CAA.
Effective July 20, 2012, the EPA
designated and classified the Eastern Kern 4 area under the CAA as Marginal nonattainment for the 2008 ozone NAAQS.5 The EPAs classification of the Eastern Kern area as a Marginal ozone nonattainment area established a requirement that the area attain the 2008
ozone NAAQS as expeditiously as practicable, but no later than three years from the date of designation as nonattainment, i.e., July 20, 2015. Under CAA section 181b2, the EPA is required to determine whether an area attained the ozone NAAQS by the applicable attainment date. In May 2016, the EPA found that Eastern Kern failed to attain the 2008 ozone NAAQS
by the July 20, 2015 Marginal attainment date and reclassified the area as Moderate for the 2008 ozone NAAQS
1 73

FR 16436 March 27, 2008.
this document and in our final rule, we use the term Severe to refer to Severe areas that have up to 15 years to attain the ozone standards. The ozone area designation tables in 40
CFR part 81 specify Severe-15 to distinguish such areas from Severe-17 areas, which are Severe areas that have up to 17 years to attain the ozone standards.
3 For the 2008 ozone NAAQS, the design value at each monitoring site is the annual fourth-highest daily maximum 8-hour average ozone concentration, averaged over three years. The design value for an area is the highest design value among the monitoring sites.
4 Kern County is located in the southern-most portion of Californias Central Valley. The western portion of Kern County is part of the San Joaquin Valley air basin and is included within the San Joaquin Valley ozone nonattainment area. The eastern portion of Kern County is part of the Mojave Desert air basin. The Eastern Kern ozone nonattainment area covers the eastern portion of the county excluding Indian Wells Valley. For more detail on the boundaries of the Eastern Kern ozone nonattainment area, see the 2008 ozone table in 40
CFR 81.305.
5 77 FR 30088 May 21, 2012.
2 Throughout
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with a new maximum attainment date of July 20, 2018.6
On October 25, 2017, CARB submitted the Eastern Kern Air Pollution Control District 2017 Ozone Attainment Plan for the Federal 75 ppb 8-Hour Ozone Standard the Eastern Kern 2017
Ozone Plan. The Eastern Kern 2017
Ozone Plan includes a request for voluntary reclassification of the Eastern Kern ozone nonattainment area from Moderate to Serious. Effective August 6, 2018, the EPA granted CARBs request and reclassified the Eastern Kern ozone nonattainment area as Serious for the 2008 ozone NAAQS with a new maximum attainment date of July 20, 2021.7 By letter dated May 15, 2021, CARB submitted a request from the Eastern Kern Air Pollution Control District to the EPA to voluntarily reclassify the Eastern Kern ozone nonattainment area from Serious to Severe for the 2008 ozone NAAQS.8
Consistent with CAA section 181b3, we are granting Californias request and reclassifying the Eastern Kern area from Serious to Severe nonattainment for the 2008 ozone NAAQS. CAA section 181b3
provides for voluntary reclassification and states: The Administrator shall grant the request of any State to reclassify a nonattainment area in that State in accordance with table 1 of subsection a of this section to a higher classification. The Administrator shall publish a notice in the Federal Register of any such request and of action by the Administrator granting the request.
Under 40 CFR 51.1103b, a state may request, and the Administrator must approve, a higher classification for any reason in accordance with CAA section 181b3 and 40 CFR 51.1103a, Table 1. The EPA is therefore granting CARBs request for voluntary reclassification under section 181b3 for the Eastern Kern ozone nonattainment area, and the EPA is reclassifying the area from Serious to Severe for the 2008 ozone NAAQS. In the Proposed Rules section of this Federal Register, the EPA is proposing a schedule for CARB to submit the plan elements for a Severe ozone nonattainment area.
6 81

FR 26697 May 4, 2016.
FR 31334 July 5, 2018.
8 Letter dated May 15, 2021, from Richard W.
Corey, Executive Officer, CARB, to Deborah Jordan, Acting Regional Administrator, EPA Region IX. In the letter, CARB also requests reclassification of Eastern Kern to Serious for the 2015 ozone NAAQS.
The EPA will take action on the reclassification request with respect to the 2015 ozone NAAQS in a separate rulemaking.
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