Title: In re Vermont Marble Co.

State: vermont

Issuer: Vermont Supreme Court

Document:

IN_RE_VERMONT_MARBLE_COMPANY.93-497; 162 Vt. 355; 648 A.2d 381

[Opinion Filed June 10, 1994]

[Motion for Reargument Denied July 13, 1994]

 NOTICE:  This opinion is subject to motions for reargument under V.R.A.P. 40
 as well as formal revision before publication in the Vermont Reports.
 Readers are requested to notify the Reporter of Decisions, Vermont Supreme
 Court, 109 State Street, Montpelier, Vermont 05609-0801 of any errors in
 order that corrections may be made before this opinion goes to press.


                                 No. 93-497


 In re Vermont Marble Company                 Supreme Court

                                              On Appeal from
                                              Water Resources Board

                                              February Term, 1994


 Stephen Reynes, Acting Chair

 Jeffrey L. Amestoy, Attorney General, and Ron Shems, Assistant Attorney
   General, Montpelier, for appellant

 Edward V. Schwiebert of Abell, Kenlan, Schwiebert & Hall, P.C., Rutland,
   for appellee


 PRESENT:  Allen, C.J., Gibson, Dooley, Morse and Johnson, JJ.


      DOOLEY, J.   This is the second of two appeals by the Vermont Agency
 of Natural Resources (ANR) in which the Agency contests decisions
 invalidating  delegations of duties by the ANR Secretary to the Commissioner
 of the Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC).  See also Secretary,
 Agency of Natural Resources v. Henry, No. 93-605 (Vt. April 22, 1994).  In
 this case, ANR challenges a decision of the Water Resources Board vacating a
 water quality certificate issued by the DEC Commissioner to appellee OMYA
 (formerly known as Vermont Marble Company) because it was not signed by the
 ANR Secretary.  We reverse and remand for review by the Board on the merits
 of the appeal.

 

      The Vermont Marble Power Division of OMYA owns and operates a
 hydroelectric dam on the Otter Creek in Rutland.  This dam, known formally
 as the Center Rutland Hydroelectric Project, has been in operation for
 nearly a century, and currently serves the industrial power needs of Vermont
 Marble, as well as the Town of Proctor and its residents.  The Center
 Rutland Project was licensed by the Federal Power Commission, predecessor to
 the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), in 1965.  As this license
 was scheduled to expire on December 31, 1993, OMYA filed an application for
 a thirty-year renewal license with FERC in December 1991.
      Any applicant for a federal license which discharges into navigable
 waters is required by { 401(a)(1) of the Clean Water Act, 33 U.S.C. {
 1341(a)(1), to obtain state certification that the applicant's discharge
 complies with applicable provisions of the Clean Water Act.(FN1)  By statute,
 the ANR is the designated certifying agency for purposes of { 401 of the
 Clean Water Act.  See 10 V.S.A. { 1004.  A certifying agency must act on an
 application within one year or it is deemed to have waived certification.
 See 33 U.S.C. { 1341(a)(1); 18 C.F.R. { 4.38(f)(7) (1993).
      OMYA filed an application for a water quality certificate with the
 Water Quality Division of DEC on December 27, 1991.  The DEC Commissioner
 issued OMYA a certificate on November 20, 1992, meeting the one-year
 deadline prescribed by federal law.  Due to the inclusion in the certificate
 of several conditions with which it disagreed, OMYA appealed the

 

 certificate to the Water Resources Board on December 10, 1992.  See 10
 V.S.A. {{ 1004 (ANR Secretary's Clean Water Act certification appealable to
 Water Resources Board); 1024(a) (person aggrieved by decision of ANR
 Secretary under { 1004 or { 1023 may appeal to Board within fifteen days of
 notice of Secretary's action).  Two months later, OMYA filed a petition for
 a declaratory ruling, seeking to have the Board pronounce the water quality
 certificate null and void on the ground that the DEC Commissioner was
 without authority to issue it.
      In October 1993, the Water Resources Board granted OMYA's petition and
 vacated the water quality certificate.  The Board determined that under
 Vermont law, a Clean Water Act certificate must be issued by the ANR
 Secretary and may not be issued by the DEC Commissioner, a subordinate ANR
 officer.  Therefore, the Board declared OMYA's water quality certificate
 null and void.  The Board also granted OMYA's motion to dismiss its appeal,
 ruling that there was no final appealable action from the ANR Secretary, and
 remanded the matter to ANR for further action consistent with the Board's
 opinion.  ANR then brought the instant appeal.(FN2)  In light of this action,
 FERC granted OMYA's request for stay of its relicensure pending the final
 outcome of this appeal.  65 FERC ^ 61,376 (Dec. 22, 1993).
      ANR has raised a number of procedural challenges to the Board's ruling.
 Because we agree with ANR that the water quality certificate, signed by the

 

 Commissioner, was valid, we do not reach these procedural challenges.  Thus
 the question we address is whether the Secretary can subdelegate his
 statutory power to issue a water quality certificate to a subordinate
 commissioner within his agency.
      Subdelegation is a term that "in the administrative law context has
 been defined as 'the transmission of authority from the heads of agencies to
 subordinates.'"  Society for the Protection of N.H. Forests v. Site
 Evaluation Comm., 337 A.2d 778, 784 (N.H. 1975) (quoting 1 K. Davis,
 Administrative Law Treatise { 9.01, at 616 (1958) (Supp. 1970, at 401)).
 The keys to subdelegation are that the ability to delegate be authorized,
 and that the delegating authority articulate clear standards under which the
 delegated authority is to be used.  C. Koch, Jr., Administrative Law and
 Practice { 1.22[5], at 16 (Supp. 1994).  Our inquiry in this case focuses on
 the first key:  whether the ANR Secretary's ability to delegate water
 quality certificate issuance to the DEC Commissioner is authorized.  This
 inquiry is primarily a matter of statutory interpretation.  See In re
 Advisory Opinion To Governor,