[Federal Register: October 28, 2009 (Volume 74, Number 207)]
[Proposed Rules]
[Page 55505-55506]
From the Federal Register Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]
[DOCID:fr28oc09-27]
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ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY
40 CFR Parts 9 and 63
[EPA-HQ-OAR-2003-0146; FRL-8972-3]
RIN 2060-AO55
National Emission Standards for Hazardous Air Pollutants From
Petroleum Refineries
AGENCY: Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
ACTION: Proposed partial withdrawal of final rule.
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SUMMARY: EPA is proposing to withdraw the residual risk and technology
review portions of the final rule amending the National Emission
Standards for Hazardous Air Pollutants From Petroleum Refineries, which
was signed by then Administrator Stephen Johnson, on January 16, 2009.
DATES: Written comments must be received on or before November 27,
2009, unless a public hearing is requested by November 9, 2009. If a
hearing is requested on the proposed partial withdrawal, written
comments must be received by December 14, 2009.
ADDRESSES: Submit your comments, identified by Docket ID No. EPA-HQ-
OAR-2003-0146, by one of the following methods:
E-mail: Comments may be sent by electronic mail (e-mail)
to a-and-r-Docket@epa.gov, Attention Docket ID No. EPA-HQ-OAR-2003-
0146.
Fax: Fax your comments to: (202) 566-9744, Attention
Docket ID No. EPA-HQ-OAR-2003-0146.
Mail: Send your comments to: Air and Radiation Docket and
Information Center, Environmental Protection Agency, Mailcode: 2822T,
1200 Pennsylvania Ave., NW., Washington, DC 20460, Attention Docket ID
No. EPA-HQ-OAR-2003-0146. Please include a total of two copies. We
request that a separate copy also be sent to the contact person
identified below (see FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT).
Hand Delivery: In person or by courier, deliver comments
to: EPA Docket Center, EPA West, Room 3334, 1301 Constitution Avenue,
NW., Washington, DC 20004. Such deliveries are only accepted during the
Docket's normal hours of operation, and special arrangements should be
made for deliveries of boxed information. Please include a total of two
copies.
Instructions: Direct your comments to Docket ID No. EPA-HQ-OAR-
2003-0146. EPA's policy is that all comments received will be included
in the public docket without change and may be made available online at
http://www.regulations.gov, including any personal information
provided, unless the comment includes information claimed to be
confidential business information (CBI) or other information whose
disclosure is restricted by statute. Do not submit information that you
consider to be CBI or otherwise protected through http://
www.regulations.gov or e-mail. The http://www.regulations.gov Web site
is an ``anonymous access'' system, which means EPA will not know your
identity or contact information unless you provide it in the body of
your comment. If you send an e-mail comment directly to EPA without
going through http://www.regulations.gov, your e-mail address will be
automatically captured and included as part of the comment that is
placed in the public docket and made available on the Internet. If you
submit an electronic comment, EPA recommends that you include your name
and other contact information in the body of your comment and with any
disk or CD-ROM you submit. If EPA cannot read your comment due to
technical difficulties and cannot contact you for clarification, EPA
may not be able to consider your comment. Electronic files should avoid
the use of special characters, any form of encryption, and be free of
any defects or viruses.
Docket: All documents in the docket are listed in the http://
www.regulations.gov index. Although listed in the index, some
information is not publicly available, e.g., CBI or other information
whose disclosure is restricted by statute. Certain other material, such
as copyrighted material, will be publicly available only in hard copy.
Publicly available docket materials are available either electronically
in http://www.regulations.gov or in hard copy at the EPA Docket Center,
Public Reading Room, EPA West Building, Room 3334, 1301 Constitution
Ave., NW., Washington, DC. The Public Reading Room is open from 8:30
a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Eastern Standard Time (EST), Monday through Friday,
excluding legal holidays. The telephone number for the Public Reading
Room is (202) 566-1744, and the telephone number for the Air and
Radiation Docket is (202) 566-1742.
We request that you also send a separate copy of each comment to
the contact persons listed below (see FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT).
CBI: Do not submit information containing CBI to EPA through http:/
/www.regulations.gov or e-mail. Send or deliver information identified
as CBI only to the following address: Roberto Morales, OAQPS Document
Control Officer (C404-02), Office of Air Quality Planning and
Standards, Environmental Protection Agency, Research Triangle Park, NC
27711, Attention Docket ID No. EPA-HQ-OAR-2003-0146. Clearly mark the
part of all of the information that you claim to be CBI. For CBI
information in a disk or CD-ROM that you mail to EPA, mark the outside
of the disk or CD-ROM as CBI and then identify electronically within
the disk or CD-ROM the specific information that is claimed as CBI. In
addition to one complete version of the comment that includes
information claimed as CBI, a copy of the comment that does not contain
the information claimed as CBI must be submitted for inclusion in the
public docket. Information so marked will not be disclosed except in
accordance with procedures set forth in 40 CFR part 2.
Public Hearing: If anyone contacts EPA requesting to speak at a
public hearing by November 9, 2009, a public hearing will be held on
November 12, 2009. Persons interested in presenting oral testimony or
inquiring as to whether a public hearing is to be held should contact
Mr. Bob Lucas, listed in the FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT section,
at least 2 days in advance of the hearing. If a public hearing is held,
it will be held at 10 a.m. at the EPA's Environmental Research Center
Auditorium, Research Triangle Park, NC, or an alternate site nearby.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Mr. Robert B. Lucas, Office of Air
Quality Planning and Standards, Sector Policies and Programs Division,
Coatings and Chemicals Group (E143-01), Environmental Protection
Agency, Research Triangle Park, NC 27711, telephone number: (919) 541-
0884; fax number: (919) 541-0246; e-mail address: lucas.bob@epa.gov.
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: Section 112 of the Clean Air Act (CAA)
establishes a two-stage regulatory process to address emissions of
hazardous air pollutants (HAP) from stationary sources. In the first
stage, after EPA has identified categories of sources emitting one or
more of the HAP listed in section 112(b) of the CAA, section 112(d)
calls for us to promulgate national emission standards for
[[Page 55506]]
hazardous air pollutants (NESHAP) for those sources. The EPA is then
required to review these technology-based standards and to revise them
``as necessary (taking into account developments in practices,
processes, and control technologies)'' no less frequently than every 8
years, under CAA section 112(d)(6). The second stage in standard-
setting focuses on reducing any remaining ``residual'' risk according
to CAA section 112(f).
On January 16, 2009, then Administrator Stephen Johnson signed a
final rule amending the National Emission Standards for Hazardous Air
Pollutants From Petroleum Refineries and the signed rule was made
publicly available on EPA's Web site. The signed rule included several
different actions. First, it promulgated maximum achievable control
technology (MACT) standards under sections 112(d)(2) and (3) for heat
exchange systems, which EPA had not addressed in the original Refinery
MACT 1 rule. Second, pursuant to CAA section 112(f)(2), the rule
addressed residual risk for all Refinery MACT 1 sources, including heat
exchange systems, and it addressed the technology review pursuant to
CAA section 112(d)(6) for all sources addressed in the original
Refinery MACT 1 rule. Additionally, we updated the table in the
Refinery MACT 1 standards (Table 6) that cross-references the General
Provisions in 40 CFR part 63, subpart A, and made a few additional
clarifications to dates and cross-references in the Refinery MACT 1
standards.
The signed rule was submitted to the Office of the Federal Register
for publication. Rahm Emanuel, Assistant to the President and Chief of
Staff, issued a memorandum on January 20, 2009, directing Agencies to
withdraw from the Office of the Federal Register ``all proposed or
final regulations that have not been published in the Federal Register
so that they can be reviewed and approved by a department or agency
head.'' Although there was an exception for ``regulations subject to
statutory or judicial deadlines,'' the Agency chose not to apply the
exception in this case. One portion of the final rule, the CAA section
112(d)(6) review, was performed pursuant to the terms of a Consent
Decree, which, as modified, required that by January 16, 2009, EPA
``shall sign and promptly forward to the Federal Register for
publication either final revisions to the standards for petroleum
refineries in 40 CFR Part 63, Subpart CC pursuant to 42 U.S.C.
7412(d)(6) or a final determination that no revisions are necessary.''
Former Administrator Stephen Johnson signed the rule on January 16,
2009, and promptly forwarded it to the Federal Register office, thus,
fulfilling this obligation.\1\
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\1\ We note that on January 30, 2009, the litigants notified EPA
by letter that they believed the Agency had discharged its
obligation under the consent decree and that ``further review of the
rule pursuant to the Emanuel memo will not violate the consent
decree.''
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Upon further review, EPA has determined that the residual risk and
technology reviews may not accurately characterize the risk posed by
this source category. We recently responded to a Request for Correction
under EPA's Information Quality Guidelines from the City of Houston.
(Letter to U.S. EPA Information Quality Guidelines staff from the
Honorable Bill White, Mayor of Houston, July 9, 2008.) In that
response, we recognized that we are currently taking action (and plan
to take additional action) to gather better emissions information from
the refining industry. Additionally, we note that during the comment
period on the proposed rule, similar issues were raised concerning the
representativeness of the emissions data, and whether they provide an
accurate basis for characterizing the risks posed. Accordingly, after
additional consideration of these issues, we believe it is necessary to
withdraw the rule that was signed on January 16, 2009, so that we may
develop a more robust analysis based on the improved information we are
developing.
For these reasons, EPA is proposing to withdraw the signed final
rule that included the residual risk and technology review for Refinery
MACT 1 sources to provide the Agency with time to collect additional
data and perform these analyses. Once EPA has undertaken these
activities, we will provide the public with an opportunity to comment
on a new proposed rule that would be issued.
Simultaneous with the issuance of this proposal, we are publishing
in the Federal Register a final rule identical in substance to that
signed on January 16, 2009, for: (1) The technology-based MACT
standards for heat exchange systems under section 112(d)(2) and (3) of
the CAA; (2) revisions to Table 6 of the existing Refinery MACT 1 rule
(subpart CC), which describes the application of the NESHAP General
Provisions in 40 CFR part 63, subpart A to subpart CC; and (3) the
other conforming changes and corrections that were included as part of
the January 16, 2009 rule. The portions of the January 16, 2009 rule
that are being published as a final rule are included in a new Federal
Register notice signed by Administrator Jackson and, regarding those
issues, are identical in substance to the final rule that was signed by
former Administrator Stephen Johnson.
List of Subjects in 40 CFR Part 63
Environmental protection, Air pollution control, Hazardous
substances, Reporting and recordkeeping requirements.
Dated: October 15, 2009.
Lisa P. Jackson,
Administrator.
[FR Doc. E9-25453 Filed 10-27-09; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 6560-50-P