Air Quality Plans

The District is required to prepare and update air quality plans to meet or maintain compliance with federal and state air quality standards. The two most common type of air quality plans are: attainment plans, which must show how the region will attain an air pollutant standard by a certain date; and maintenance plans, which must demonstrate how the region will continue to maintain compliance with a standard. Development of these plans requires extensive collaboration with other agencies within the region, industries, businesses, the public, as well as cooperation with the other Air Quality Management Districts (AQMD) within the Sacramento Federal Nonattainment Area (SFNA) planning boundaries, which for ozone and PM_2.5 include all or part of Yolo-Solano AQMD, Placer County APCD, Feather River AQMD (not for PM_2.5), and El Dorado AQMD; and PM₁₀ boundary includes just Sacramento County. Map of the nonattainment areas is available here.

Current Planning Efforts

Ozone Attainment Plan - 2015 Ozone Standard

Adopted State Implementation Plan (Plan)

The SFNA air districts and California Air Resources Board (CARB) held public hearings to consider this Plan in Fall 2023. All SFNA air districts adopted the Plan and submitted the Plan to CARB. CARB also adopted the Plan after their public hearing on 10/26/2023. The Plan was submitted to United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for final review and approval. The Plan documents and transmittal packages are available under this (link).

Other Elements

The SFNA air districts and/or CARB have submitted several plan elements to EPA as SIP revisions. These include:

EPA approved California's Nonattainment Areas base year emissions inventory on 09/29/2022 (87 FR 59015)
Nonattainment New Source Review SIP Certification (Adopted 07/26/2021)
Demonstration of Reasonably Available Control Technology For The 2015 O₃ NAAQS (RACT SIP) (Adopted 07/23/2020)
Sac Metro Air District Emissions Statement Certification (Adopted 07/23/2020)

Previous Planning Efforts

The table below shows a list and links to existing plans (Attainment and Reasonable Further Progress (RFP) Plan and Maintenance Plans) and reports for ozone and particulate matter, which are the two pollutants of greatest concern in the Sacramento region. This table includes Federal Register actions taken by the EPA and other relevant information.

Federal Planning

Standard	Designation, Federal Register, Attainment Date	Planning Documents and Notes	Other Information
Ozone (O₃)
2015 NAAQS 8-hour Std of 0.070 ppm	Severe-15¹ August 2033	Please see the Current Planning Efforts section above
2008 NAAQS 8-hour Std of 0.075 ppm	Severe-15 (77 FR 30088) July 2025	Sacramento Regional 2008 NAAQS 8-Hour Ozone Attainment and RFP Plan (2017) ² 2018 Updates to the California State Implementation Plan ³ EPA Approval Rule (86 FR 58581)⁴ Sacramento Regional 8-Hour Ozone Milestone Compliance Demonstrations (MCD 2020 Report) (Submitted to EPA 03/30/2021)
1997 NAAQS 8-hour Std of 0.08 ppm (Revoked)	Severe-15 (69 FR 236858, 75 FR 24409) June 2019	Sacramento Regional 8-Hour Ozone Attainment and Reasonable Further Progress Plan and Appendices A -I (2013) EPA Approval Rule (80 FR 4795)
1979 NAAQS 1-hour Std of 0.12 ppm (Revoked)	Severe-15 (56 FR 56694, 60 FR 20237) November 2005	Sacramento Area Regional Ozone Attainment Plan (1994) EPA Approval Rule (62 FR 1150) Exceptional Events Demonstration for High Ozone in the Sacramento Regional Nonattainment Area Due to Wildfires (2011) Redesignation Substitution Request for the 1979 1-Hour ozone standard (2017) (no action taken by EPA due to South Coast decision to vacate RS request options.)⁵
Particulate Matter – 2.5 Microns (PM_2.5)
2006 NAAQS 24-hour std of 35 μg/m³	Moderate (79 FR 31566) December 2015	2013 PM_2.5 Maintenance/Implementation Plan and Redesignation Request⁶ Wildfire Mitigation Plan for the SFNA for PM_2.5(2023 Updates)
2024 NAAQS Annual std of 9.0 μg/m³	TBD	EPA promulgated this new standard on Feb 7, 2024. California Air Resources Board will submit recommendation for the nonattainment area in 12 months.	Annual PM_2.5 Information
Particulate Matter – 10 Microns (PM₁₀)
1987 NAAQS 24-hour std of 150 μg/m³	Moderate (58 FR 76334) Januray 2000	PM₁₀ Implementation/Maintenance Plan and Re-designation Request (2010)(referred to as First Maintenance Plan) EPA approved the First MP on 09/26/2013 (78 FR 59261)
1987 NAAQS 24-hour std of 150 μg/m³	Moderate (58 FR 76334) Januray 2000	Exceptional Event Demonstration for November 2018 PM₁₀ Exceedance in Sacramento County due to Wildfires (2020) Second 10-year PM₁₀ Maintenance Plan for Sacramento County (referred to as Second MP) EPA approved the Second MP on 03/14/2024 (89 FR 18548)

State Planning

Planning Document Type	Document Description	Current Planning Document
Air Quality Plan Update and Triennial Assessment⁷	District’s assess their progress in meeting state air quality standards	2015 Triennial Plan and Air Quality Plan Update Appendices
Annual Progress Report⁸	CHSC 40924(a) requires report submitted to CARB in mtg schedules to develop and implement control measures	2017 Annual Progress Report

^Footnotes:

¹ SFNA is currently classified as Serious (86 FR 59648) nonattainment area. Preliminary photochemical modeling results do not support the attainment by the Serious classification deadline; as a result, the SFNA air districts have requested a voluntary reclassification and the request is pending EPA's approval. The voluntary reclassification letters are available here: Air Districts to CARB (pdf) and CARB to EPA (pdf).

² The Sacramento Metropolitan Air Quality Management District approved this Plan on 08/24/2017 and CARB approved the Plan on 11/16/2017.

³ This plan was a statewide plan, which included the SFNA. It addressed outstanding legal issues such as establishing a base year of 2017 (instead of 2018) and establishing contingency measures.

⁴ EPA approved both of these plans in 86 FR 58581. Final action on the contingency measures element was deferred due to the 9^th Circuit Court decision (08/26/2021), which found that EPA's contingency measure approach reflected an unreasonable interpretation of the CAA and was arbitrary and capricious because it provided a nominal emission reductions. EPA disapproved the contingency measures portion of the Plan on 06/15/2023 (88 FR 39179).

⁵The United States Court of Appeals Court decision (02/16/2018) requires full compliance with all five conditions in CAA §107(d)(3)(E) which includes the need to develop a Maintenance Plan.

⁶ Approved by all air districts but never submitted to EPA due to exceedance in 2013.

⁷ The triennial assessment reports the level of air quality improvement and the amounts of emission reductions achieved from control measures for the preceding three-year period.

⁸California Health and Safety Code section 40924(a) requires districts to prepare an Annual Progress Report and submit the report to the CARB summarizing its progress in meeting the schedules for developing, adopting, and implementing the air pollution control measures contained in the district's Triennial Reports by 12/31 of each year.

Action taken by CARB on these items, including staff reports, resolutions, submittal letters to EPA and public hearing notices can be found here.