TCEQ Adopts SIP Revisions for Houston and Dallas Eight-Hour Ozone Nonattainment Areas
Beveridge & Diamond, P.C. - Texas Environmental Update, May 2007
On May 23, 2007, the TCEQ Commission adopted amendments to the Texas State Implementation Plan (SIP) and clean air rules for the Houston-Galveston-Brazoria (HGB) and Dallas-Fort Worth (DFW) areas eight-hour ozone nonattainment areas.
The HGB area rules include three new control measures for the eight-hour ozone standard. The first revises rules in 30 TAC Chapter 114 to add certain marine fuels to the existing Texas Low Emission Diesel Program. The second revises rules in 30 TAC Chapter 115 to address what TCEQ determined to be underestimated, unreported, or under-reported VOC emissions from storage tank floating roof landings, flash emissions, degassing storage tanks, transport vessels, and marine vessels with liquid heels. The third consists of the commitment by the Houston-Galveston Area Council to 2.82 tons per day of oxides of nitrogen (NOx) reductions from the voluntary mobile emissions reduction program. Although SIP modeling forecasts that the HGB area will not meet the attainment goal by the EPA deadline, TCEQ indicates that its efforts toward eight-hour ozone attainment coupled with the realization of all reductions resulting from implementation of one-hour ozone standard control measures provide the basis for developing an attainment demonstration for the eight-hour ozone standard in the HGB area.
The new eight-hour ozone SIP for the DFW area requires further reductions of emissions from major sources of NOx inside the nonattainment area such as electric generating facilities and cement kilns. It also requires a reduction of emissions from additional minor sources of NOx such as engines, emissions reductions from compressor engines in 33 east Texas counties, and further reductions from grants and other financial incentives associated with the Texas Emissions Reduction Plan. The DFW area plan also includes emission-reducing controls sponsored by local governments in the area. TCEQ predicts that the DFW area emission control strategies in these amendments will help the DFW area attain the eight-hour ozone standard by the 2010 EPA-required deadline.
TCEQ plans to submit these SIP amendments to EPA by the June 15, 2007 deadline for states to submit revisions relating to the eight-hour ozone standard. The adopted SIP revisions are available on TCEQ’s website.1
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1 http://www.tceq.state.tx.us/implementation/air/sip/Hottop.html
