Title 40

SECTION 52.1623

52.1623 Conditional approval.

§ 52.1623 Conditional approval.

(a) General Conformity. (1) A letter, dated April 22, 1998, from the Chief of Air Quality Bureau New Mexico Environment Department to the EPA Regional Office, commits the State to remove Section 110.C from its rule for making the State's rule consistent with Federal rule. Specifically, the letter states that:

This letter is regarding our general conformity rule, 20 NMAC 2.98 - Conformity of General Federal Actions to the State Implementation Plan. We have been reviewing paragraph 110.C under Section 110 - Reporting Requirements. This is the paragraph in which the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) had submitted a comment of concern to EPA, during EPA's proposed/final approval period for our rule. This comment caused EPA to withdraw its approval. The FAA had commented that New Mexico was more stringent than EPA, since our rule does not apply to non-Federal agencies. Our analysis has determined that our inclusion of this paragraph may make our rule more stringent than EPA, and should not have been included. The paragraph had originally come from a STAPPA/ALAPCO model rule. New Mexico had never intended to be more stringent than EPA with regards to general conformity. Hence, the State commits to putting 20 NMAC 2.98 on our regulatory agenda and plan to delete this paragraph within one year from the Federal Register publication of final notice of conditional approval to New Mexico's general conformity SIP.

(2) If the State ultimately fails to meet its commitment to remove this section from its rule within one year of publication of this conditional approval, then EPA's conditional action will automatically convert to a final disapproval.

(b) [Reserved]

[63 FR 48109, Sept. 9, 1998]

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