The EPA announced on Thursday a public hearing to be held for the Proposed Rule to Implement the 1997 8-Hour Ozone National Ambient Air Quality Standard.

Specifically, the hearing will discuss a proposed revision on Subpart 1: Area Reclassification and Anti-Backsliding Provisions Under Former one-hour Ozone Standard; Proposed Deletion of Obsolete one-hour Ozone Standard Provision, which was published in the Federal Register on Jan. 16, 2009. The hearing will be held in Washington, D.C., on Monday, March 2, 2009. The extended comment period will close on April 1, 2009.

In its notice of proposed rulemaking, the EPA proposed to revise the rule for implementing the 1997 8-hour ozone national ambient air quality standard (NAAQS) for several of the limited portions of the rule vacated by the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. The proposal addresses the classification system for the subset of initial 8-hour ozone nonattainment areas that the implementation rule originally covered under Clean Air Act (CAA) title I, part D, subpart 1.

The proposal also addresses how one-hour ozone contingency measures that apply for failure to attain or make reasonable progress toward attainment of the one-hour standard should apply under the anti-backsliding provisions of the implementation rule.

In addition, the proposal removes language relating to the vacated provisions of the rule that provided exemptions from the requirements of nonattainment new source review (NSR) and CAA section 185 penalty fees under the one-hour standard. The public hearing will provide interested parties the opportunity to present data, views, or arguments concerning these proposed changes.

The proposal was published in the Federal Register on Jan. 16, 2009, (74 FR 2936) and is available at: http://www.epa.gov/ttn/naaqs/ozone/ o3imp8hr/