State and Federal Operating Permits Program: Amendments to Compliance Certification Requirements

The EPA is taking final action on a March 2001 proposal to amend the State Operating Permits Program and the Federal Operating Permits Program. The amendments respond to a decision of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit (October 29, 1999) remanding to us those revisions to the compliance certification requirements that accompanied promulgation of the compliance assurance monitoring (CAM) rule (October 22, 1997) and that tailored the ongoing compliance certification content to the monitoring imposed by CAM. In particular, the Court ruled that the compliance certification must include whether the facility or source has been in continuous or intermittent compliance. We are removing the language in the 1997 revisions that addressed this requirement implicitly and replacing it with an express requirement tracking the statute.