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Briefing Paper PSD Policies - Redesignating/Redefining Section 107 Areas And Increment Tracking August 5, 2002

Purpose

The purpose of this briefing paper is to recommend actions to address the two issues assigned to the PSD Workgroup – policies/guidance related to 1) redesignating or redefining areas, and 2) increment tracking.

Background

The Clean Air Act (CAA) allows State Governors to submit lists of areas designated as either nonattainment, attainment, or unclassifiable for air quality planning purposes, (Section 107 areas). For example, areas designated as nonattainment require air quality control plans or “SIPs” for the protection of public health and welfare because air quality standards have been violated. Areas designated as attainment/unclassifiable are those areas generally considered to meet or exceed air quality standards. Descriptions of these areas are published in 40 CFR Part 81 as a matter of public record.

The CAA created three air quality area classifications for air quality protection programs: Class I, Class II, and Class III, and established allowable pollution “increments” that may be added to the air in each area while still protecting air quality. Currently, the only federal program for protecting the increments is the PSD permitting program. The CAA established the PSD permitting program to prevent areas in the vicinity of major sources that currently have clean air from experiencing significant deterioration. The PSD permitting program requires permits for major stationary air pollution sources and limits the amount impact of major and minor source emissions that may be added to the increment in an affected area around the sourcein an area where the minor source baseline date has been established.

For increment tracking purposes, the PSD permitting program creates relies on “baseline areas,” which are those Section 107 attainment and unclassifiable areas in which a major stationary source subject to PSD constructs or would have an air quality impact of at least of modeled 1µg/m³ (annual average) for the pollutant triggering the minor source baseline dateimpact for a major stationary source locating in a Section 107 area designated as attainment/unclassifiable. States are required to track increment consumption in these baseline areas.

Policy Development

In order to mitigate delays currently associated with proposals to redesignate/redefine Section 107 areas, States and EPA have a common interest in developing guidelines and/or rules to make the process more predictable and timely. Because there is limited national guidance, EPA Regional Offices use different processes and evaluation criteria in their review of redesignation/redefinition proposals. This can complicate State implementation of programs and other State actions to protect air in attainment/unclassifiable areas, including PSD permitting programs, minor source permitting programs, and increment tracking in baseline areas.

1. A. Redesignation/Redefinition Proposals

Updated guidelines and/or rules should be provided to EPA Regional Offices to assist in the evaluation of redesignation/redefinition requests. The guidance should be specific enough to assist States in developing rationale supporting the redesignation/redefinition while at the same time providing enough flexibility to recognize each State’s authority to manage internal growth and increment consumption. EPA has indicated a need for response to the following questions in State redesignation/redefinition proposals:

1. How does the action relate to air quality planning, i.e., is the proposal protective of existing clean air?

2. If minor source dates are reset (“re-triggering”) in baseline areas, what are the applicable baseline concentrations in re-triggered areas? How does re-triggering affect Class I/Class II areas?

3. Do any of the newly redesignated/redefined areas create baseline areas that intersect with existing baseline areas or reduce the size of any existing baseline areas?

4. Is the action taken for the sole purpose of fostering state economic development?

5. Is the public involved in the process?

2. B. Increment Tracking Issues

<Brock’s suggested addition – workgroup members please comment >

The term “Increment Tracking” is somewhat of a misnomer. This is because as defined in PSD guidance the analysis to determine how much increment has been consumed is based on the actual emissions rather than allowable emissions. Since actual emissions continually change, strictly speaking, the results of the analysis are an estimate of the consumption for a given point in time. Thus, the increment consumed or tracked is tied to the time of the last analysis. Depending on how long ago this analysis was completed and the amount of intervening development, it may or may not be representative of the increment currently consumed. To help with this problem, the EPA has recommended that States use a 2-year contemporaneous period on which to base the actual emissions and has recommended an analysis be completed more frequently on areas of rapid growth. Still, there is a wide variation in how States incorporate increment tracking guidance. This has lead to state-to-state inconsistency and disagreement with the EPA and FLMs on adequacy.

Tracking increment consumption is resource intensive, especially in States with large PSD baseline areas. States require an approach to tracking increment consumption that balances the need for reasonable estimates of increment consumed against the resources required to track increment consumption.

EPA guidance on increment tracking should be updated to reflect the current state of the science, and should be informed by the experiences States have had implementing the policy over the past 20 years. Consistent methodologies are needed to address a variety of technical issues. For example: Which air quality model should be used? How do we transition from one model to another? How do we convert emission inventories from tons per year todetermine short term rates? What role should monitoring play? Can the National Emission Inventory be modified to track increment consumption? How do we track increment across state and tribal boundaries?

Next Steps

1) With WESTAR Council approval, the PSD Workgroup will collaborate with EPA in the development of Section 107 area guidelines expanding on EPA’s expectations regarding State responses to the five questions summarized above.

2) With WESTAR Council approval, the PSD Workgroup will sponsor a specialty conference or workshop to evaluate different approaches to tracking increment.

August 15, 2002