Comment submitted by Steven Singleton

Buried in the fine print, EPA certifies under the Unfunded Mandates Reform Act that this rule "implements mandates... without exercise of policy discretion." Translation: we had no choice, the law made us do it. A few paragraphs later, describing the same rule, EPA calls it "deregulatory" and says it will "relieve States of SIP submissions that are currently required." Translation: we're giving states a break they don't have to take. A rule can't simultaneously be something Congress compelled and something the agency chose to hand out as relief. Those are different rules, wearing the same RIN number. So, what type of instrument are we evaluating? If EPA had no discretion, it should drop the "deregulatory relief" framing and defend this purely as required statutory compliance. If it's relief, it should drop the "no discretion" certification and own that it's making a policy call. EPA's own example makes this concrete: A state owes a pollution-control plan — a Reasonably Available Control Technology, or RACT, SIP — by a certain date. It misses the deadline. Later, its air quality gets worse and the area gets bumped to a stricter category. Under the rule EPA adopted in January 2025, that missed deadline still counted: the state was still on the hook, with real consequences (a formal finding, sanctions, and ultimately a federal plan EPA would have to write itself) if it never delivered. Under this new rule, that obligation quietly disappears into the newer, later deadline that comes with the stricter category. So, a state that turned in its paperwork on time gets nothing from this change. A state that blew through its deadline gets more time, for the identical requirement. Same pollution, same law, different outcome — based entirely on who was behind schedule when the time ran out. EPA may argue there's no reward here, because under its new reading of section 182(i), the original deadline was never legally valid in the first place — the state was never really on the hook, so there's nothing to reward. It's the same argument the agency rejected in January 2025, reading the exact same statutory text. Two administrations, one law, opposite conclusions, seventeen months apart — with this rule's own preamble going so far as to say its predecessor "reached the wrong conclusion." This type of uncertainty introduced in this proposal is the agency's own doing or undoing, and it undercuts confidence in the EPA. This rule doesn't just apply going forward. It reaches backward — to every ozone-area reclassification since 2008, nationwide, without limit. To justify that, EPA offers exactly one example: eleven states and eighteen areas tied to a 2023 finding that those states failed to submit required plans, 88 FR 71757. It's the example to admit and that's not an accident of drafting. This proposal to establish a rule with virtually unlimited retroactive scope, illustrated by the single case where reaching back changes almost nothing. Under Motor Vehicle Mfrs. Ass'n v. State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Co., 463 U.S. 29 (1983), an agency has to reasonably explain the action it's taking — and an agency doesn't meet that bar by disclosing only its most favorable data point on a nationwide policy. If EPA wants comment on a rule that reaches this far back, the docket should contain a full accounting: every state, every area, every enforcement action this touches. Under FCC v. Fox Television Stations, Inc., 556 U.S. 502 (2009), an agency changing its position has to weigh who relied on the old one. It never asks whether the businesses invested in compliance with the old schedule have a stake in this. It avoids the people living in impacted communities who breathe the air these deadlines were supposed to clean up. Both are real, cognizable reliance interests. The proposal's analysis only answers the question that makes the rule look costless. This Administration issued, under executive order, Executive Order 14303, "Restoring Gold Standard Science," 90 FR 22601 (May 23, 2025), five months before this proposal, committing federal agencies to transparency in how decisions get made. That order sets a bar. A rule that discloses its most favorable example and stays silent about everyone else it affects, on both the enforcement side and the reliance-interest side, doesn't clear that bar. Before finalizing this rule, EPA should: 1. Decide whether the rule reflects no policy discretion, or it's deregulatory relief — the preamble should say which. 2. Publish the full list of past reclassifications this rule affects, and what enforcement is still live for each one. 3. Redo the reliance-interest analysis under Fox to include the businesses and the communities this rule actually touches, not just the states. 4. Reversing course this fast, on the exact same statutory text, is itself evidence the statute doesn't compel either reading — please answer the position above directly, rather than by silence.