A Notice of Proposed Rulemaking was published in the District of Columbia Register (DCR) for a thirty (30) day public notice and comment on August 12, 2022 at 69 DCR 010401. The Department of Energy and Environment (DOEE or Department) received no comments during the comment period.
Summary of Final Rulemaking
Section 111 of the federal Clean Air Act (CAA) requires that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) identify certain categories of sources that “may reasonably be anticipated to endanger public health or welfare” and set standards that new sources in these categories must meet. Additionally, section 111(c) of the CAA allows states to develop “a procedure for implementing and enforcing standards of performance for new sources located in [the] State,” and once a state develops a procedure, for EPA to delegate enforcement of the new source performance standards (NSPS) to the states. This final rulemaking amends certain sections of the air quality regulations that pertain to NSPS in order to establish the authority to regulate current NSPS, and subsequently seek delegation authority from EPA.
DOEE adopted 40 C.F.R. part 60, subpart A and the standards for sixty-nine (69) source categories as codified in the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) without modification, and for two (2) source categories – stationary spark ignition internal combustion engines (Subpart JJJJ) and stationary compression ignition internal combustion engines (Subpart IIII), with modifications as they were in effect on October 11, 2022. The proposed rulemaking cited to 40 C.F.R. part 60 as of July 2021. On August 10, 2022, EPA published two final rules for Subpart JJJJ and Subpart IIII, which removed the same “emergency demand response” language that the Department proposed to remove on August 12, 2022. For clarity and consistency, DOEE removed the repetitive exemptions from the final rule. Between July 29, 2021, and October 11, 2022, there were no changes made to Subpart A or the other sixty-nine (69) source categories.
The Director of DOEE adopted these rules as final on November 17, 2022. The final rulemaking took effect on November 25, 2022 through publication in the District of Columbia Register. The Final Rulemaking can be found in the D.C. Register.