Pursuant to Clean Air Act Section 176(c) (42 U.S.C. 7506) and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s implementing regulations (40 CFR Part 93, Subpart B and 40 CFR Part 51, Subpart W), general conformity is required for NAAQS nonattainment and maintenance areas. The intent of general conformity is to prevent the air quality impacts of a proposed federal action, under Title 23 U.S.C., from causing or contributing to new violations of the air quality standards, exacerbating existing violations, or interfering with the purpose of the applicable implementation plan.
In order to streamline a conformity evaluation process, SIP set-aside accounts were established in the 2012 AQMP and revised in the 2016 AQMP. The revised set-aside account to accommodate projects subject to general conformity included a balance of: 2.0 tpd of NOx and 0.5 tpd of VOC each year from 2017 to 2030, and 0.5 tpd of NOx and 0.2 tpd of VOC in 2031. Emissions from general conformity projects are tracked by the South Coast AQMD tracking system and debited from the account on a first-come-first-serve basis. Below are a list of general conformity projects approved by South Coast AQMD: