42 U.S.C. § 7511 — Classifications and attainment dates

(a) Classification and attainment dates for 1989 nonattainment areas (1) Every area designated "nonattainment" for ozone under section 7407(d) is automatically classified, using the design value calculated under the Administrator's most recent method issued before November 15, 1990, into one of five classes: - Marginal: design value 0.121 up to 0.138 ppm — attainment date 3 years after November 15, 1990 - Moderate: 0.138 up to 0.160 ppm — 6 years after - Serious: 0.160 up to 0.180 ppm — 9 years after - Severe: 0.180 up to 0.280 ppm — 15 years after - Extreme: 0.280 ppm and above — 20 years after (2) Exception: a Severe area with a 1988 ozone design value between 0.190 and 0.280 ppm gets 17 years, not 15. (3) When the Administrator publishes the notice of area designations under section 7407(d)(4), the Administrator must also publish notice of each area's classification. The notice-and-comment and judicial-review rules of section 7502(a)(1)(B) apply to that classification. (4) If an area would have landed in a different class had its design value been 5 percent higher or lower, the Administrator may, within 90 days after the initial classification and using the same public procedure, adjust the classification to that other category — considering how often the standard was exceeded, how much pollution travels between areas, and the mix of sources and pollutants. (5) A State may apply for a 1-year "Extension Year" past the table 1 deadline if (A) the State has met every requirement and commitment in its applicable plan for the area, and (B) no more than 1 exceedance of the ozone standard occurred in the area in the year before the Extension Year. No more than two 1-year extensions may be granted for a single nonattainment area. (b) New designations and reclassifications (1) New designations to nonattainment. An area first designated attainment or unclassifiable for ozone, and later redesignated nonattainment, is classified by operation of law under table 1 at the time of redesignation. It then becomes subject to the same requirements under section 7410, subpart 1, and this subpart as if it had been classified at the original 1990 notice — except that any fixed deadline is extended by the length of time between November 15, 1990, and the actual reclassification date. (2) Reclassification upon failure to attain. (A) Within 6 months after an area's attainment date (including any extension), the Administrator must determine, based on the area's design value as of that date, whether it attained the standard. Except for Severe or Extreme areas, any area found not to have attained is reclassified by operation of law to whichever is higher: the next classification up, or the classification matching its design value at the time of the required notice. No area may be reclassified as Extreme this way. (B) The Administrator must publish a Federal Register notice, no later than 6 months after the attainment date, identifying every area that failed to attain and its reclassification, if any. (3) Voluntary reclassification. The Administrator must grant a State's request to reclassify one of its nonattainment areas to a higher classification under table 1, and must publish notice of both the request and the Administrator's action granting it. (4) Failure of Severe Areas to attain standard. (A) If a Severe Area misses the ozone standard by its attainment date (including any extension), section 7511d's fee provisions apply within the area, the reasonable-further-progress and NOx-control requirements of section 7511a(c)(2)(B) and (C) keep applying, and the State must demonstrate it achieved that percent reduction in each 3-year interval after the failure until the standard is attained. Failing to make that demonstration triggers sanctions under this part. (B) In addition: if the area's ozone design value is above 0.140 ppm for the attainment-date year, or the area missed its most recent milestone under section 7511a(g), then the new-source-review requirements that apply in Extreme Areas — and the Extreme-Area definitions of "major source" and "major stationary source" — apply in this area too. (C) For areas covered by (A) but not (B), the requirements in (B) apply anyway, starting 3 years after the attainment date, unless the area attained the standard by the end of that 3-year period. (D) If the Administrator later changes the method for determining compliance, a comparable design value or indicator substitutes for the 0.140 figure used in (B) and (C). (c) References to terms (1) Any reference elsewhere in this subpart to a "Marginal Area," "Moderate Area," "Serious Area," "Severe Area," or "Extreme Area" means an area classified as such under this section. (2) Any reference to "next higher classification," or similar terms, means the classification tied to the next higher set of design values in table 1.