Approval and Promulgation of Implementation Plans; State of Alabama; Regional Haze State Implementation Plan

EPA is finalizing a limited approval of a revision to the Alabama State Implementation Plan (SIP) submitted by the State of Alabama through the Alabama Department of Environmental Management (ADEM) on July 15, 2008. Alabama's July 15, 2008, SIP revision addresses regional haze for the first implementation period. Specifically, this SIP revision addresses the requirements of the Clean Air Act (CAA or Act) and EPA's rules that require states to prevent any future and remedy any existing anthropogenic impairment of visibility in mandatory Class I areas (national parks and wilderness areas) caused by emissions of air pollutants from numerous sources located over a wide geographic area (also referred to as the "regional haze program"). States are required to assure reasonable progress toward the national goal of achieving natural visibility conditions in Class I areas. EPA is finalizing a limited approval of Alabama's July 15, 2008, SIP revision to implement the regional haze requirements for Alabama on the basis that this SIP revision, as a whole, strengthens the Alabama SIP. Additionally, EPA is rescinding the federal regulations previously approved into the Alabama SIP on November 24, 1987, and approving the provisions in Alabama's July 15, 2008, SIP submittal to meet the long- term strategy (LTS) requirements for reasonably attributable visibility impairment (RAVI). In a separate action published on June 7, 2012, EPA finalized a limited disapproval of this same SIP revision because of the deficiencies in the State's regional haze SIP revision arising from the remand by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit (DC Circuit) to EPA of the Clean Air Interstate Rule (CAIR).