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.
40 C.F.R. §52.1623