Approval and Promulgation of Implementation Plans and Designation of Areas for Air Quality Planning Purposes; State of New Jersey; Revised Policy Regarding Applicability of Oxygenated Fuels Requirements

On September 28, 1995, the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (NJDEP) submitted requests to redesignate the Camden County nonattainment area and nine not-classified areas from nonattainment to attainment for carbon monoxide (CO). NJDEP also submitted the required plans to assure continued attainment of the CO standards in the redesignated areas. On December 7, 1995, EPA published a direct final rulemaking (60 FR 62741) approving New Jersey's redesignation requests along with several elements of the New Jersey State Implementation Plan (SIP) for CO. This action announced that the rulemaking would take effect on February 5, 1996 (60 days after publication), unless EPA received adverse comments by January 8, 1996 (30 days after publication), in response to a notice of proposed rulemaking published on the same day (60 FR 62792). EPA also committed to withdraw the direct final rule in the event that it received adverse comments, and to respond to any adverse comments in a subsequent final rulemaking action. EPA did receive adverse comments on this action, but failed to withdraw the final rule within the 60 days given in the notice of direct final rulemaking. Therefore, the rule took effect on February 5, 1996. EPA is responding to the comments it received; but, for the following reasons, EPA is not changing the final rule in response to those comments. Had EPA withdrawn the direct final rule prior to its going into effect, EPA would have taken final action based on the proposal to promulgate a rule identical to the direct final rule that went into effect. Rather than now take the action of withdrawing the direct final rule only to repromulgate simultaneously an identical rule, in this action EPA is deciding to maintain the rule unchanged. EPA believes that withdrawal and repromulgation are unnecessary since the results would be identical to that obtained simply by leaving the rule unchanged and responding to the comments. This action provides interested pa