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Federal Register / Vol. 86, No. 156 / Tuesday, August 17, 2021 / Rules and Regulations
budgets are required to be developed for either area.
Comment B6: With respect to Hamilton County,28 a commenter states Tennessee appears to be taking credit for closures of three Tennessee Valley Authority TVA power plants in its non-interference demonstration. The commenter then goes on to assert that EPA cannot allow offsets for Hamilton County from outside of the nonattainment area because that would be a violation of the South Coast decision. The commenter concludes that EPA must only consider offsets to the I/
M program that occur within the nonattainment area.
Response B6: EPA disagrees with this comment. While the commenter does not provide a citation for the South Coast decision, EPA assumes the commenter is referring to the decision of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit D.C.
Circuit in South Coast Air Quality Management District v. EPA, 882 F.3d 1138, 1146 D.C. Cir. 2018, which addressed section 182 of the CAA and upheld EPAs interpretation that states may not take credit for reductions outside a nonattainment area for purposes of interim milestones towards attainment. This decision is not relevant to this action, as it addressed a different statutory provision not at issue here.
Moreover, as discussed above, Tennessee is not providing offsets for the removal of the I/M program and, thus, no credits are being taken into account for facility closures or any other actions.
Comment B7: A commenter asserts that the trends in air quality in the two areas are inconsistent with reductions in precursor emissions, claiming that although emissions estimates for motor vehicles are decreasing, air quality is stagnant in Hamilton County and deteriorating in the Middle Tennessee Area. The commenter also expresses concern about relying on the assumption that each ton of a pollutant precursor emission has an equal impact on air quality as compared to every other ton of the same pollutant precursor, regardless of emission source and where in the state the emissions occur, citing the uniqueness and nonlinearity of ozone precursors. The commenter states that on-road emission increases would have a greater impact on regional air quality than calculated and that an increase in emissions due to the removal of the I/M program may have an accelerated deterioration impact on the Areas air quality.
28 This comment was received in docket EPA
R04OAR20190619 only.

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Response B7: The air quality data summarized in Response A3
demonstrates that ozone air quality in Hamilton County and the Middle Tennessee Area is not worsening and is well below the 2015 8-hour ozone NAAQS. As discussed in the April 2021
SNPRM, removal of the I/M program from the Tennessee SIP will not interfere with attainment or maintenance of the NAAQS or any other applicable requirement of the CAA. In addition, as discussed in Response A4, I/M programs do not mandate emission controls systems on motor vehicles, unlike Federal motor vehicle emissions standards such as the Tier 3 rule. These Federal vehicle emission standards will remain with or without the I/M program in the Tennessee SIP for the Middle Tennessee Area and Hamilton County.
Comment B8: A commenter asserts that EPA must take into account recent court decisions that will have a devastating impact on the states ability to ensure non-interference. The commenter specifically points to the Wisconsin and New York decisions, which vacated and remanded these programs back to EPA, essentially wiping them out entirely. The commenter claims that Tennessee cannot claim credit for any reductions attributable to the programs. Further, the commenter states EPA must check to make sure the state does not interfere with any downwind states ability to meet the NAAQS.
Response B8: EPA has confirmed that the changes being approved by EPA in this action do not interfere with other states ability to meet the 2008 ozone NAAQS. Although it is unclear from the comment, in describing programs promulgated under the good neighbor provision, CAA section 110a2DiI, EPA assumes the commenter is referring to the CrossState Air Pollution Rule CSAPR
Update. The CSAPR Update addresses NOX pollution transported to other states that significantly contributes to nonattainment or interferes with maintenance of the 2008 ozone NAAQS.29 Among other things, the 29 The CSAPR Update is a rule that followed the original CSAPR rulemaking in 2011. CSAPR
requires certain states in the eastern half of the U.S.
to improve air quality by reducing power plant emissions of NOX and SO2 that cross state lines and contribute to smog and soot pollution in downwind states. On September 7, 2016, EPA revised the CSAPR ozone season NOX program by finalizing an update to CSAPR for the 2008 ozone National Ambient Air Quality Standards, known as the CSAPR Update. The CSAPR Update ozone season NOX program was designed to largely replace the original CSAPR ozone season NOX program starting on May 1, 2017, and further reduce summertime NOX emissions from power plants in the eastern U.S.

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CSAPR Update requires reductions of NOX from power plants during the annual ozone season from May 1 to September 30 in 22 states, including Tennessee. Although EPA found the CSAPR Update may only partially address the good neighbor obligations for most covered states, EPA found the rule fully addresses Tennessees good neighbor obligation for this NAAQS. See 81 FR 74504, 74540 October 26, 2016.
That conclusion was based on an assessment of air quality in the eastern U.S. with implementation of the CSAPR
Update, and it accounted for emissions from all source sectors, including mobile sources.
The CSAPR Update was reviewed and generally upheld in Wisconsin v. EPA, 983 F.3d 303 D.C. Cir. 2019. Contrary to the commenters assertion that the rule was vacated, the D.C. Circuit merely remanded the rule without vacatur because, for states other than Tennessee, the rule did not provide a full remedy by the next relevant attainment date under CAA section 181.
Thus, the CSAPR Update remains in effect. The decision in New York v. EPA, 781 F. Appx 4 D.C. Cir. 2019 vacated a separate rule, the CSAPR Close-Out, but this rule did not impose additional reductions and only purported to demonstrate, based on new modeling analysis of the year 2023, that the CSAPR Update was a full remedy for 20
states. In the New York case cited by commenter, the D.C. Circuit found this conclusion incorrect as a matter of law in light of its holding in Wisconsin because EPA analyzed a year beyond the next attainment date without sufficient justification. Tennessees obligations were not at issue in the Close-Out rule.
EPA notes that the aspects of the CSAPR
Update affecting Tennessee were not challenged in the litigation over the rule and are not affected by the remand of the rule in Wisconsin.
EPA believes the projected increase in mobile source emissions from the removal of Tennessees I/M program does not affect EPAs prior finding in the CSAPR Update that the State of Tennessee has no further interstate transport obligations for the 2008 8-hour ozone NAAQS. In the section 110l analysis for this action, EPA analyzed the impacts of removing the I/M
program in Hamilton County and the Middle Tennessee Area from the subject final rule and found that the largest projected increase in mobile source emissions in these areas would result in a combined projected increase of 579
tons in 2022, or a 2 percent increase in total anthropogenic NOX emissions in
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