On December 20, 2017, EPA took the next step in completing the area designation process under the 2015 ozone standard.   Specifically, the Agency issued “120-day letters” to the states proposing designations for all areas of the U.S. that were not designated as part of the Agency’s November 6, 2017 rulemaking designating 2,646 areas as either attainment or unclassifiable under the 2015 ozone standard.  Under the Clean Air Act, states recommend area designations and if EPA intends to modify a state’s recommended designation, it must notify the state no later than 120 days prior to making the final designation and give the state an opportunity to respond.

The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals has ordered EPA, in the context of ongoing litigation regarding the issuance of designations under the 2015 ozone standard, to present a timetable for designating the remaining areas of the country that were not addressed in the Agency’s November 16, 2017 final rule. In…

EPA issued what the Agency is calling “Round 1” of final area designations under the 2015 ozone standard on November 6, 2017. The designations, which will be published in the Federal Register tomorrow, November 16, and become effective 60 days later, include only those counties, tribal areas, and territories that EPA has designated “attainment/unclassifiable” — totaling 2,646 counties. EPA also designated 3 counties in the state of Washington as “unclassifiable.” EPA did not designate any nonattainment areas as part of the final rule, but simply noted that it is “not yet prepared to issue designations” for the remaining areas of the U.S.

EPA is currently facing litigation over its June 2017 announcement extending the deadline for designating areas under the 2015 ozone NAAQS by one year, to October 2018, even though the Agency later reversed that decision. On July 12, 2017, a dozen environmental and public health groups sued EPA in the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, claiming the Agency did not have authority to extend the deadline for designating areas under the Clean Air Act. Fifteen states followed in their footsteps, filing their own lawsuit challenging the delay on August 1. EPA responded the following day by publicly announcing its intent to withdraw the deadline extension and published official notification of the withdrawal in the Federal Register on August 10. (82 Fed. Reg. 37,218.)

On August 22, 2017, EPA released its proposed area designations in the latest round of designations under the 2010 SO2 National Ambient Air Quality Standard (NAAQS).  The proposed designations largely track the states’ recommendations; however, EPA has identified a number of areas, recommended by states as “attainment,” that EPA believes “may be violating” the standard, including areas in Florida, Guam, Indiana, Louisiana, Minnesota, Ohio, Puerto Rico, and Wisconsin.  In addition, EPA has proposed to designate some areas as unclassifiable as opposed to unclassifiable/attainment.  EPA has published a table that compares its intended designations with the state recommended designations.  https://www.epa.gov/sulfur-dioxide-designations/intended-sulfur-dioxide-area-designations-august-2017

Yesterday, June 6, 2017, EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt announced a one-year delay of EPA’s final designation of areas under the 2015 ozone standard.  The 2015 standard was issued on October 26, 2015 and tightened the existing 2008 standard from 75 ppb to 70 ppb.  In general, EPA is required to issue designations within two years of publication of a new standard. Designations for the 2015 standard were originally due by this October, and EPA would have been required to preview for the states its intended designations at least 120 days in advance of the October deadline – by this August.