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Federal Register / Vol. 86, No. 54 / Tuesday, March 23, 2021 / Rules and Regulations 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.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:
Serena Nichols, Planning &
Implementation Branch 3AD30, Air &
Radiation Division, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Region III, 1650
Arch Street, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19103. The telephone number is 215
8142053. Ms. Nichols can also be reached via electronic mail at Nichols.Serena@epa.gov.
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:
I. Background On October 14, 2020 85 FR 65008, EPA published a notice of proposed rulemaking NPRM for the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. In the NPRM, EPA proposed approval of Pennsylvanias plan for maintaining the 1997 ozone NAAQS in the State College Area through December 14, 2027, in accordance with CAA section 175A. The formal SIP revision was submitted by PADEP on March 10, 2020.
II. Summary of SIP Revision and EPA
Analysis On April 30, 2004 69 FR 23857, effective June 15, 2004, EPA approved a redesignation request and maintenance plan from PADEP for the State College Area. In accordance with CAA section 175Ab, at the end of the eighth year after the effective date of the redesignation, the state must also submit a second maintenance plan to ensure ongoing maintenance of the standard for an additional 10 years, and in South Coast Air Quality Management District v. EPA,1 the D.C. Circuit held that this requirement cannot be waived for areas, like the State College Area, that had been redesignated to attainment for the 1997 8-hour ozone NAAQS prior to revocation and that were designated attainment for the 2008
ozone NAAQS. CAA section 175A sets forth the criteria for adequate maintenance plans. In addition, EPA
has published longstanding guidance that provides further insight on the content of an approvable maintenance plan, explaining that a maintenance plan should address five elements: 1
An attainment emissions inventory; 2
a maintenance demonstration; 3 a commitment for continued air quality 1 882

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monitoring; 4 a process for verification of continued attainment; and 5 a contingency plan.2 PADEPs March 10, 2020 submittal fulfills Pennsylvanias obligation to submit a second maintenance plan and addresses each of the five necessary elements.
As discussed in the October 14, 2020
NPRM, EPA allows the submittal of a limited maintenance plan LMP to meet the statutory requirement that the area will maintain for the statutory period.
Qualifying areas may meet the maintenance demonstration by showing that the areas design value 3 is well below the NAAQS and that the historical stability of the areas air quality levels indicates that the area is unlikely to violate the NAAQS in the future. EPA evaluated PADEPs March 10, 2020 submittal for consistency with all applicable EPA guidance and CAA
requirements. EPA found that the submittal met CAA section 175A and all CAA requirements, and proposed approval of the LMP for the State College Area as a revision to the Pennsylvania SIP.
Other specific requirements of PADEPs March 10, 2020 submittal and the rationale for EPAs proposed action are explained in the NPRM and will not be restated here.
III. EPAs Response to Comments Received EPA received comments on the October 14, 2020 NPRM from three commenters. All comments received are in the docket for this rulemaking action.
A summary of the comments and EPAs responses are provided herein. The first commenter alleges that the plan should not be approved because PADEPs schedule is insufficient and the only two regulatory measures the state proposed are measures that have already been implemented, and provides specific comments in support of this assertion:
Comment 1: The commenter asserts that PADEPs schedule for promulgating and implementing the contingency measures is not fast enough to prevent a violation of the NAAQS. The commenter notes that the Pennsylvania LMP includes a requirement that Pennsylvania evaluate whether additional local emission control 2 Procedures for Processing Requests to Redesignate Areas to Attainment, Memorandum from John Calcagni, Director, Air Quality Management Division, September 4, 1992 Calcagni Memo.
3 The ozone design value for a monitoring site is the 3-year average of the annual fourth-highest daily maximum 8-hour average ozone concentrations. The design value for an ozone nonattainment area is the highest design value of any monitoring site in the area.

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measures are necessary when a monitor in the area exceeds the level of the NAAQS for two consecutive years.
Because an areas design value uses three years of data, the commenter argues that this requirement will not provide sufficient time for the States measures to affect air quality in the third year, which, if above the level of the NAAQS, would lead to a violation.
The commenter urges EPA to disapprove the LMP because the schedule does not ensure a violation of the NAAQS does not occur by the end of the third year.
Response 1: EPA does not agree that the plan should be disapproved. CAA
section 175Ad mandates that a maintenance plan must contain such contingency provisions as the Administrator deems necessary to assure that the State will promptly correct any violation of the standard which occurs after the redesignation of the area as an attainment area.
emphasis added. The statute therefore does not include any requirement that a maintenance plans contingency measures prevent a violation of the NAAQS, but rather only that those selected measures be available to address a violation of the NAAQS after it already occurs. As referred to in the comment, Pennsylvania also elected to adopt a warning level response, which states that PADEP will consider adopting contingency measures if, for two consecutive years, the fourth highest eight-hour ozone concentrations at any monitor in the area are above 84
parts per billion ppb. But this warning level response is not required under the CAA, and therefore we do not agree with the commenter that the plan should be disapproved based on the commenters allegation that the warning level responses implementation schedule is insufficient.
Moreover, as a general matter, we do not agree that the schedules for implementation of contingency provisions in the LMP are insufficient.
As noted, the CAA provides some degree of flexibility in assessing a maintenance plans contingency measuresrequiring that the plan contain such contingency provisions as the Administrator deems necessary to assure that any violations of the NAAQS
will be promptly corrected. EPAs longstanding guidance for redesignations, the Calcagni Memo, also does not provide precise parameters for what strictly constitutes prompt implementation of contingency measures, noting that, for purposes of CAA section 175A, a state is not required to have fully adopted contingency measures that will take
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