federal register - U.S. Government Printing Office

6380 Federal Register / Vol. 62, No. 28 / Tuesday, February 11, 1997 / Proposed Rulesissues that multiple standards for thesame pollutant raise. Each engine familywould be allowed to participate in boththe switch and line-haul ABT programs.However, line-haul credits could not beused to meet the switch standards, andvice versa.EPA is proposing that ABT credits beweighted according to a locomotive’suseful life, if specified as work, or acombination of horsepower (hp) anduseful life if the useful life is defined asmiles. This is consistent with theAgency’s ABT program for on-highwayheavy-duty engines. EPA is consideringrestricting the exchange of creditsbetween locomotives above 2000 hp andbelow 2000 hp to prevent creditsgenerated by higher powered enginefamilies from being used to allow lowerpowered switch locomotive enginefamilies to remain essentiallyuncontrolled. Reducing emissions fromswitch locomotives is a significantconcern given that switch locomotivesare more likely to operate exclusively inurban areas, and EPA is concerned thatallowing free exchange of creditsbetween high and low poweredlocomotive engine families would notachieve such reductions. The Agencyrequests comment on whether it shouldprohibit or restrict credit exchangebetween locomotives above and below2000 hp.Consistent with the ABT program foron-highway heavy-duty engines, thelocomotive ABT program is proposed tobe limited to NO X and PM emissionsonly. EPA does not believe that theproposed CO, HC and smoke standardsare so stringent that they should beincluded in the ABT program. Also, TheABT program is proposed to beapplicable to the duty-cycle emissionsonly. EPA believes that extending theABT program to include the individualnotch caps would result in a programthat is too complex to be practical.Individual notch caps would beadjusted for locomotives whichparticipate in the ABT program byprorating them on the basis of the ratioof the standard and the FEL. Averaging,banking and trading of credits would belimited to locomotive engines subject tothe same set of standards (i.e., Tier 0,Tier I, Tier II). For example, creditsgenerated on a Tier I locomotive couldnot be used towards a Tier IIlocomotive’s compliance. The Agencyrequests comment on whether it shouldallow some degree of credit use acrossdifferent sets of standards and, if so, forhow long, and what effect if any thisshould have on the level of thestandards. For example, should EPAallow Tier I credits to be used towardthe first year (or more) of Tier IIcompliance?EPA is also proposing to exclude fromthe ABT program Tier 0 locomotivescertified pursuant to the 33 percent NO Xreduction option discussed in the abovesection on emission standards. As wasdiscussed previously, the 33 percentNO X reduction option is being proposeddue to the potential difficulties ofcertifying certain Tier 0 engine familiesunder the proposed ABT program.Additionally, the Agency is proposingthat a remanufacturer who certifies aTier 0 engine family under this optionnot be allowed to include any of itsother Tier 0 engine families in theaveraging, banking and trading program,and requests comment on this proposedprohibition.As was previously discussed, theAgency is proposing that enginefamilies which contain passengerlocomotives equipped with a singleengine for both traction power and hotelpower be required to meet both the linehauland switch duty-cycle standardsboth when providing traction poweronly, and when providing both tractionpower and hotel power. For thepurposes of ABT, EPA is proposing thata single FEL for each pollutant bedeclared for such engine families basedon the mode of operation of the higheremission rate. These FELs would coverthe locomotive in both power modes.The ABT program raises a uniqueissue for remanufactures of locomotivesand locomotive engines. A manufacturerof freshly manufactured locomotivescan plan its year’s production inadvance with the ABT program in mind.However, a remanufacturer is much lessable to plan for the complexities of theprogram due to the greater number ofengine families, the fact that more thanone entity could remanufacture a givenengine family, the larger number ofcustomers for remanufacture kits thanfor freshly manufactured locomotives,the inability to predict how manyengines will be remanufactured in agiven year, and other factors. To accountfor this situation, EPA is proposing thata locomotive or locomotive enginesubject to the Tier I or Tier II standards,when remanufactured, must meet thestandards and/or FELs it was certified asmeeting when it was originallymanufactured (or, in the case of Tier 0locomotives and locomotive engines,when it was first remanufacturedfollowing the effective date of theseproposed standards). The Agency isrequesting comment on several aspectsof this provision. First, should EPAallow a remanufacturer to generatecredits by certifying a remanufacture ata level below the locomotive’s originalFELs? Second, should the Agencyconsider simply ignoring thelocomotive’s original FELs, and institutean averaging, banking and tradingprogram for remanufacturedlocomotives and locomotive enginesunder which credits would be generatedon the basis of reductions beyond theremanufacture standards (as applicable),rather than on the basis of reductionsbeyond any FELs the locomotive orlocomotive engine was previouslycertified as meeting? Finally, should theAgency place any restrictions on theexchange of credits betweenremanufactured and freshlymanufactured locomotives?As was previously mentioned, EPA isproposing to weight ABT creditsaccording to useful life, and power (ifuseful life is expressed in miles). Thisraises a unique situation for thetreatment of Tier 0 locomotives, whoseuseful lives can be expressed as eitherMW-hr (if equipped with a MW-hrmeter) or miles (if not equipped with aMW-hr meter). These two definitions ofuseful life for Tier 0 locomotives resultin a situation where credits based onone definition are not interchangeablewith credits based on the otherdefinition, and there is no reliable wayto correlate between the two (i.e., thereis no standard relationship that wouldallow accurate conversion from oneform to the other). The Agency isproposing that separate averaging setsbe established for Tier 0 locomotives,one for those whose useful life isdefined in MW-hr and one for thosewhose useful life is defined in miles, inorder to deal with incompatible creditcalculations. Credit use would berestricted to within each of the two sets.The Agency requests comment on thisapproach, as well as two other optionsit considered. The first alternative has aparallel in other mobile source ABTprograms such as those for on-highwayheavy-duty engines and nonroadcompression ignition engines over 37kW. In those programs, when aparticipating engine family has enginesof more than one power (hp) rating, themanufacturer is required to generatecredits based on the lowest hp rating inan engine family, but can only usecredits based on the highest hp rating inan engine family. Using a similarapproach for locomotives, an estimatedrange of conversion factors to equateMW-hr and mileage would beestablished. When generating or usingcredits, the endpoints of the rangewould be used in a conservative fashionto minimize credit generation andmaximize credit usage. The secondalternative EPA considered was simply