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

EPA is finalizing a limited approval of a revision to the Georgia State Implementation Plan (SIP) submitted by the State of Georgia through the Georgia Department of Environmental Protection Division (GA EPD) on February 11, 2010, as supplemented November 19, 2010 (hereafter also referred to as "Georgia's regional haze SIP"). Georgia's SIP revisions address regional haze for the first implementation period. Specifically, these SIP revisions address 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 Georgia's SIP revisions to implement the regional haze requirements on the basis that these SIP revisions, as a whole, strengthen the Georgia SIP. In a separate action published on June 7, 2012, EPA proposed a limited disapproval of these same SIP revisions because of the deficiencies in the State's regional haze SIP arising from the remand by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit (D.C. Circuit) to EPA of the Clean Air Interstate Rule (CAIR).