Administration of Cross-State Air Pollution Rule Trading Program Assurance Provisions for 2025 Control Period

Issuing agencies

Abstract

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is providing notice of the availability of data on the administration of the assurance provisions of the Cross-State Air Pollution Rule (CSAPR) trading program for the 2025 control period. Virginia units participating in the CSAPR NO<INF>X</INF> Ozone Season Group 2E Trading Program during the 2025 control period reported total nitrogen oxides (NO<INF>X</INF>) emissions that exceeded the State's assurance level under the program. The EPA has posted on the Agency's website a spreadsheet that presents data demonstrating the exceedance and the Agency's final calculations of the additional allowances that owners and operators of certain Virginia units must surrender.

Full Text

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<title>Federal Register, Volume 91 Issue 189 (Thursday, October 1, 2026)</title>
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[Federal Register Volume 91, Number 189 (Thursday, October 1, 2026)]
[Rules and Regulations]
[Page 62322]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [<a href="http://www.gpo.gov">www.gpo.gov</a>]
[FR Doc No: 2026-20191]


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ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY

40 CFR Part 97

[FRL-13503-02-OAR]


Administration of Cross-State Air Pollution Rule Trading Program 
Assurance Provisions for 2025 Control Period

AGENCY: Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

ACTION: Notification of data availability.

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SUMMARY: The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is providing 
notice of the availability of data on the administration of the 
assurance provisions of the Cross-State Air Pollution Rule (CSAPR) 
trading program for the 2025 control period. Virginia units 
participating in the CSAPR NO<INF>X</INF> Ozone Season Group 2E Trading 
Program during the 2025 control period reported total nitrogen oxides 
(NO<INF>X</INF>) emissions that exceeded the State's assurance level 
under the program. The EPA has posted on the Agency's website a 
spreadsheet that presents data demonstrating the exceedance and the 
Agency's final calculations of the additional allowances that owners 
and operators of certain Virginia units must surrender.

DATES: October 1, 2026.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: For information about this 
notification, contact Lisa Thompson at telephone number: (919) 541-5158 
or email address: <a href="/cdn-cgi/l/email-protection#582c303735282b37367634312b39183d2839763f372e"><span class="__cf_email__" data-cfemail="02766a6d6f72716d6c2c6e6b7163426772632c656d74">[email&#160;protected]</span></a>.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: Preamble acronyms and abbreviations. 
Throughout this document, the use of ``we,'' ``us,'' or ``our'' refers 
to the EPA. The EPA uses multiple acronyms and terms in this preamble. 
While this list may not be exhaustive, to ease the reading of this 
preamble and for reference purposes, the EPA defines the following 
terms and acronyms here:

CFR Code of Federal Regulations
CSAPR Cross-State Air Pollution Rule
EPA Environmental Protection Agency
FR Federal Register
NODA notice of data availability
NO<INF>X</INF> nitrogen oxides

    The regulations for each CSAPR trading program contain ``assurance 
provisions'' designed to ensure that the emission reductions required 
from each State covered by the program occur within the State. If total 
emissions from a State's affected units exceed the State's assurance 
level, certain covered sources within the State must surrender two 
allowances for each ton of emissions exceeding the assurance level (in 
addition to the ordinary obligation to surrender one allowance for each 
ton of emissions). In the emissions reports covering the 2025 control 
period, Virginia units participating in the CSAPR NO<INF>X</INF> Ozone 
Season Group 2E Trading Program reported emissions exceeding the 
State's assurance level under the program by 80 tons, resulting in a 
requirement to surrender 160 additional allowances.
    When a State exceeds its assurance level, the EPA apportions the 
responsibility for surrendering the required additional allowances 
among groups of units in the State represented by ``common designated 
representatives'' based on the extent to which each group's emissions 
exceeded the group's share of the State's assurance level.\1\
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    \1\ For the CSAPR NO<INF>X</INF> Ozone Season Group 2E Trading 
Program, the procedures are set forth at 40 Code of Federal 
Regulations (CFR) 97.802 (definitions of ``common designated 
representative,'' ``common designated representative's assurance 
level,'' and ``common designated representative's share''), 
97.806(c)(2) and (c)(4)(iv), and 97.825.
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    On August 4, 2026, the EPA published a document in the Federal 
Register providing notice of the data relied on to determine the amount 
of the exceedance of the Virginia assurance level and the preliminary 
calculations of the amounts of additional allowances that the owners 
and operators of certain Virginia units must surrender as a result of 
the exceedance.\2\ The EPA received three objections identifying errors 
in the Agency's initial calculations.
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    \2\ 91 FR 49430 (Aug. 4, 2026).
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    As a result of these objections, the EPA updated the data the 
Agency used to support its final calculations. Specifically, the EPA: 
(1) corrected the Designated Representative for Hopewell Power Station; 
(2) updated the emissions from Remington Combustion Turbine Station 
Units 1, 2, and 4 based on its August 2026 data resubmittal; and (3) 
corrected a typo in the summary data, updating the Operator associated 
with the Designated Representative Hunt from Wolf Hills Energy, LLC to 
Tenaska Virginia Partners, LP.
    Applying the procedures in the regulations for the 2025 control 
period to the updated data, the EPA's final calculations indicate that 
the responsibility for surrendering 160 additional allowances in 
Virginia should be apportioned primarily to the group of units operated 
by Hopewell Power Generation, LLC, with smaller shares apportioned to 
the groups of units operated by Wolf Hills Energy, LLC; Dominion 
Generation; and Calpine Operating Services Company, Inc. Each set of 
owners and operators identified pursuant to this notice of the final 
calculations must hold the required additional allowances in an 
assurance account by November 2, 2026.
    The data and final calculations are available in an Excel 
spreadsheet titled ``Final 2025 CSAPR Assurance Provision 
Calculations--Virginia'' at <a href="https://www.epa.gov/Cross-State-Air-Pollution/csapr-assurance-provision-nodas">https://www.epa.gov/Cross-State-Air-Pollution/csapr-assurance-provision-nodas</a>. The spreadsheet contains 
data for the 2025 control period showing, for each Virginia unit 
identified as affected under the CSAPR NO<INF>X</INF> Ozone Season 
Group 2E Trading Program, the unit's reported amount of NO<INF>X</INF> 
emissions and the amount of CSAPR NO<INF>X</INF> Ozone Season Group 2E 
allowances allocated to the unit, including any allowances allocated 
from new unit set-asides. The spreadsheet also provides 2025 control 
period calculations showing the total reported NO<INF>X</INF> emissions 
from all such units in Virginia and the amounts by which those total 
reported NO<INF>X</INF> emissions exceeded the State's assurance level 
under the program. Finally, the spreadsheet includes calculations for 
the 2025 control period showing, for each common designated 
representative for a group of such units, the common designated 
representative's share of the total reported NO<INF>X</INF> emissions, 
the common designated representative's share of the State's assurance 
level, and the amount of additional CSAPR NO<INF>X</INF> Ozone Season 
Group 2E allowances that the owners and operators of the units in the 
group must surrender.

    Authority: 40 CFR part 97.

Aaron Szabo,
Assistant Administrator, Office of Air and Radiation.
[FR Doc. 2026-20191 Filed 9-30-26; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 6560-50-P


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