Friday, January 14, 2011

EPA Revokes State Air Plans In Order To Include GHG Plans

The EPA on Thursday, Dec. 30, 2010, revoked its prior approval of state implementation plans (SIPs) for almost half of the states in the union, part of its plan to revamp the agency's implementation of its Prevention of Significant Deterioration (PSD) program for greenhouse gas (GHG)-emitting sources.

The states for whose SIPs EPA is narrowing approval are:

Alabama, California, Colorado, Georgia, Indiana, Iowa, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Mississippi, Missouri, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, Vermont, Virginia and Wisconsin.

The agency in a Federal Register notice announced it is finalizing its proposed rulemaking to narrow its previous approval of SIP PSD programs in 24 states that apply to GHG-emitting sources. Specifically, the agency is withdrawing its previous approval of those programs to the extent they apply PSD to GHG-emitting sources below the thresholds in the final Tailoring Rule, which theEPA promulgated by Federal Register notice dated June 3, 2010. Having narrowed its prior approval, the EPA is asking that each affected state withdraw from EPA consideration the part of its SIP that is no longer approved.

The action is effective on Dec. 30, 2010.

SOURCE: Federal Register

The agency also passed a final rule on Thursday to give itself authority to provide a step-by-step implementation strategy for its new Tailoring Rule.

SOURCE: Federal Register

(Pollution Enginnering, 12/20/2011)

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