S 1203 A bill to require the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency to establish a program under which the Administrator shall defer the designation of an area as a nonattainment area for purposes of the 8 hour ozone national ambient air quality standard if the area achieves and maintains certain standards under a voluntary early action compact plan

About S.1203

A bill to require the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency to establish a program under which the Administrator shall defer the designation of an area as a nonattainment area for purposes of the 8-hour ozone national ambient air quality standard if the area achieves and maintains certain standards under a voluntary early action compact plan. This bill requires the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to establish an Early Action Compact Program, which allows an area that is not attaining the eight-hour ozone national ambient air quality standard (NAAQS) to obtain a deferment of a nonattainment designation upon the relevant state, local, and tribal government voluntarily developing an early action compact plan. The eight-hour ozone NAAQS measures ozone levels over eight-hour periods to determine the amount of ground-level ozone (i.e., smog) in the environment. The EPA:

• (1) must issue a decision on each early action compact plan no later than one year after it is submitted, and
• (2) may not designate an area as a nonattainment area until it has issued a decision to approve or deny a plan

The EPA must establish separate requirements relating to winter ozone levels for each early action compact plan.