42 U.S.C. § 7512 — Classification and attainment dates

(a) Classification by operation of law and attainment dates for nonattainment areas (1) Every area EPA designates nonattainment for carbon monoxide under section 7407(d) is automatically classified, by law, as a Moderate Area or a Serious Area, using the table below and based on the area's "design value" — a pollution measurement calculated using the interpretation method EPA most recently issued before November 15, 1990: Moderate: design value 9.1–16.4 ppm — must attain by December 31, 1995. Serious: design value 16.5 ppm and above — must attain by December 31, 2000. Every classified area must attain the standard as expeditiously as practicable, but no later than the date in the table. (2) When EPA publishes the notice required under section 7407 designating carbon monoxide nonattainment areas, it must also publish a notice announcing each area's classification. The rule in section 7502(a)(1)(B) — that this classification isn't subject to notice-and-comment or judicial review — applies here too. (3) If an area's classification under paragraph (1) would have come out differently had its design value been 5% higher or 5% lower, EPA may, within 90 days of November 15, 1990, adjust that area's classification, using the same notice procedure as paragraph (2). In deciding, EPA may weigh how many times the area exceeded the carbon monoxide standard, how much pollution moved between it and other areas, and its mix of sources and pollutants. EPA may make this same kind of adjustment for the related provisions in section 7512a(a)(2), (3), (6), and (7). (4) EPA may, on a state's application, extend an area's attainment date in table 1 by one additional year (an "Extension Year") if (A) the state has met every requirement and commitment in its plan for the area, and (B) the area had no more than one exceedance of the carbon monoxide standard in the year before the extension. No area may receive more than 2 one-year extensions under this paragraph. (b) New designations and reclassifications (1) New designations to nonattainment: An area first designated attainment or unclassifiable for carbon monoxide, and later redesignated nonattainment under section 7407(d)(3), is automatically classified, at the time of redesignation, under the same table used in subsections (a)(1) and (a)(4). Once classified, it faces the same requirements under section 7410, subpart 1 of this part, and this subpart that it would have faced if classified at the original 1990 notice — except that any fixed deadline tied to that classification is automatically pushed back by however much time passed between November 15, 1990, and the area's actual classification date. (2) Reclassification of Moderate Areas upon failure to attain: (A) Within 6 months after a Moderate Area's attainment date, EPA must decide, based on the area's design value at that date, whether it attained the standard. Any Moderate Area EPA finds did not attain is automatically reclassified, by law, as a Serious Area under table 1. (B) EPA must publish a Federal Register notice, no later than 6 months after the attainment date, identifying every area found to have failed to attain and identifying its reclassification, if any. (c) References to terms Anywhere else in this subpart, a reference to a "Moderate Area" or a "Serious Area" means an area classified that way under this section.