Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca3-13-04079/USCOURTS-ca3-13-04079-0/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 893
Nature of Suit: Environmental Matters
Cause of Action: 

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PRECEDENTIAL 

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS 

FOR THE THIRD CIRCUIT 

________________ 

No. 13-4079 

AMERICAN FARM BUREAU FEDERATION; 

PENNSYLVANIA FARM BUREAU; 

THE FERTILIZER INSTITUTE; 

NATIONAL CHICKEN COUNCIL; 

UNITED STATES POULTRY & EGG ASSOCIATION; 

NATIONAL PORK PRODUCERS COUNCIL; 

NATIONAL CORN GROWERS ASSOCIATION; 

NATIONAL TURKEY FEDERATION; NATIONAL 

ASSOCIATION OF HOME BUILDERS 

v. 

UNITED STATES ENVIRONMENTAL 

PROTECTION AGENCY; 

CHESAPEAKE BAY FOUNDATION INC; 

CITIZENS FOR PENNSYLVANIA’S FUTURE; 

DEFENDERS OF WILDLIFE; 

JEFFERSON COUNTY PUBLIC SERVICE DISTRICT; 

MIDSHORE RIVERKEEPER CONSERVANCY; 

NATIONAL WILDLIFE FEDERATION; 

 VIRGINA ASSOCIATION OF MUNICIPAL 

WASTEWATER AGENCIES, INC.; 

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MARYLAND ASSOCIATION OF MUNICIPAL 

WASTEWATER AGENCIES; 

NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF CLEAN 

WATER AGENCIES; 

PENNSYLVANIA MUNICIPAL AUTHORITIES 

ASSOCIATION; 

CITY OF ANAPOLIS, MARYLAND 

 

 (Intervenors in D.C.) 

American Farm Bureau Federation; 

Pennsylvania Farm Bureau; 

The Fertilizer Institute; National 

Chicken Council; U.S. Poultry & Egg 

Association; National Pork Producers 

Council; National Corn Growers 

Association; National Turkey 

Federation; National Association of 

Home Builders, 

 

 Appellants 

________________ 

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Middle District of Pennsylvania 

(D.C. Civil Action No. 1-11-cv-00067) 

District Judge: Honorable Sylvia H. Rambo

Argued November 18, 2014

Before: AMBRO, SCIRICA, and ROTH, Circuit Judges 

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3

(Opinion filed: July 6, 2015)

Paul J. Bruder, Esquire

Amanda J. Lavis, Esquire

Robert J. Tribeck, Esquire

Rhoads & Sinon

One South Market Square

P.O. Box 1146, 12th Floor

Harrisburg, PA 17108

Kirsten L. Nathanson, Esquire

Richard E. Schwartz, Esquire (Argued)

David Y. Chung, Esquire

Crowell & Moring

1001 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W.

Washington, DC 20004

Ellen Steen, Esquire

Danielle Quist, Esquire

American Farm Bureau Federation

600 Maryland Avenue, S.W., Suite 1000W

Washington, DC 20024

Gregg I. Adelman, Esquire

William D. Auxer, Esquire

Marc B. Kaplin, Esquire

Kaplin, Stewart, Meloff, Reiter & Stein

910 Harvest Drive

P.O. Box 3037

Blue Bell, PA 19422

Counsel for Appellants

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Stephen R. Cerutti, II, Esquire

Office of United States Attorney

228 Walnut Street, P.O. Box 11754

220 Federal Building and Courthouse

Harrisburg, PA 17108

Robert G. Dreher

 Acting Assistant Attorney General

Kent E. Hanson, Esquire

J. David Gunter, II, Esquire (Argued)

James Curtin, Esquire

Christopher Day, Esquire

Kelly Gable, Esquire

United States Department of Justice

Environmental Defense Section

Environment & Natural Resources Division

P.O. Box 7415

Washington, DC 20044

Counsel for Appellee, US EPA

John A. Mueller, Esquire (Argued)

Chesapeake Bay Foundation

6 Herndon Avenue

Annapolis, MD 21403

Lee Ann H. Murray, Esquire

Chesapeake Bay Foundation

614 North Front Street, Suite G

The Old Water Works Building

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Harrisburg, PA 17019

Richard A. Parrish, Esquire

Southern Environmental Law Center

201 West Main Street, Suite 14

Charlottesville, VA 22901

Counsel for Intervenor Appellees:

Chesapeake Bay Foundation,

Citizens for Pennsylvania’s Future,

Defenders of Wildlife,

Jefferson County Public Service District,

Midshore Riverkeeper Conservancy,

National Wildlife Federation

Lisa M. Ochsenhirt, Esquire

Christopher D. Pomeroy, Esquire (Argued)

Justin W. Curtis, Esquire

Carla S. Pool, Esquire

AquaLaw

6 South 5th Street

Richmond, VA 23219

Counsel for Intervenor Appellees:

Virginia Association of Municipal Wastewater 

Agencies, Inc., Maryland Association of Municipal 

Wastewater Agencies, National Association of Clean 

Water Agencies

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Steven A. Hann, Esquire (Argued)

Hamburg, Rubin, Mullin, Maxwell & Lupin

375 Morris Road

P.O. Box 1479

Landsdale, PA 19446

Counsel for Intervenor Appellee

Pennsylvania Municipal Authorities Association

Cory L. Andrews, Esquire

Richard A. Samp, Esquire

Washington Legal Foundation

2009 Massachusetts Avenue, N.W.

Washington, DC 20036

Counsel for Amici Appellants:

Representatives Robert Aderholt, Lou Barletta, 

Joe Barton, Marsha Blackburn, Kevin Brady, 

Chris Collins, Doug Collins, Scott Desjarlais, 

Jeff Duncan, John Fleming, Bob Gibbs, 

Louie Gohmert, Bob Goodlatte, Sam Graves,

Morgan Griffith; Brett Guthrie, Andy Harris, 

Vicky Hartzler, Tim Huelskamp, Robert Hurt, 

Billy Long, Frank Lucas, Blaine Luetkemeyer, 

Thomas Massie, David McKinley, Randy Neugebauer, 

Scott Perry, Collin Peterson, Robert Pittenger,

Mike Pompeo, Todd Rokita, Dennis A. Ross, 

Kurt Schrader, Bill Shuster, Adrian Smith, 

Glenn Thompson, Scott Tipton, Pat Toomey,

David Vitter, Washington Legal Foundation.

Zachary W. Carter

 Corporation Counsel of the City of New York

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7

Hilary Meltzer, Esquire

Haley Stein, Esquire

Scott N. Shorr, Esquire

New York City Law Department

100 Church Street

New York, NY 10007

Counsel for Amici Appellees:

City of New York, City of Baltimore MD,

City of Chicago, City of Los Angeles, 

City of Philadelphia, City of San Francisco,

County of San Francisco.

Stuart A. Raphael

 Solicitor General of Virginia

Trevor S. Cox

 Deputy Solicitor General

Mark R. Herring

 Attorney General of Virginia

Cynthia E. Hudson

 Chief Deputy Attorney General

John W. Daniel, II

 Deputy Attorney General

Joshua D. Heslinga

 Assistant Attorney General

Office of Attorney General of Virginia

900 East Main Street

Richmond, VA 23219

Counsel for Amicus Appellee

Commonwealth of Virginia

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Allison M. LaPlante, Esquire

Lewis & Clark Law School

Earthrise Law Center

10015 Southwest Terwilliger Boulevard

Portland, OR 97219

Counsel for Individual Amici Appellees:

Robert W. Adler, William Andreen, Michael C. 

Blumm, David Case, Jamison E. Colburn, Victor B. 

Flatt, William Funk, Professor Craig N. Johnston, 

Jeffrey G. Miller, Patrick Parenteau, Robert Percival, 

Zygmunt J.B. Plater, Melissa Powers, Kalyani 

Robbins, Daniel Rohlf, Erin Ryan, Gerald Torres.

Justin M. Gundlach, Esquire

Hope M. Babcock, Esquire

Brian S. Wolfman, Esquire

600 New Jersey Avenue, N.W.

Washington, DC 20001

Counsel for Amici Appellees:

Alliance for the Great Lakes, Apalachicola 

Riverkeeper, Card Sound Yachts Inc., Charleston 

Waterkeeper Chattahoochee Riverkeeper, Cook 

Inletkeeper, Grand Riverkeeper, Grand Traverse 

Baykeeper, Gulf Restoration Network, Hoosier 

Environmental Law Center, Kansas Riverkeeper for 

Friends of the Kaw, Kentucky Resources Council, 

Kentucky Waterways Alliance, Lower Mississippi 

Riverkeeper, Missouri Coalition for Environment,

National Parks Conservation Association, Nebraska 

Wildlife Federation, Ocean Reed Conservation 

Association, One World Adventure Co., Ozark 

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Society, Save The Dunes, Upper Missouri 

Waterkeeper, Utah Rivers Council, West Virginia 

Rivers Coalition, Wyoming Outdoor Council.

Derek Schmidt

 Kansas Attorney General

Jeffrey A. Chanay

 Deputy Attorney General

Bryan C. Clark

 Assistant Solicitor General

Office of Attorney General of Kansas, Room 301

120 Southwest Tenth Avenue, Second Floor

Topeka, KS 66612

Chris Koster

 Missouri Attorney General

Gregory F. Zoeller

 Indiana Attorney General

Luther Strange

 Alabama Attorney General

Michael C. Geraghty

 Alaska Attorney General

Dustin M. McDaniel

 Arkansas Attorney General

Pamela Jo Bondi

 Florida Attorney General

Samuel S. Olens

 Georgia Attorney General

Jack Conway

 Kentucky Attorney General

James D. Caldwell

 Louisiana Attorney General

Bill Schuette

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 Michigan Attorney General

Timothy C. Fox

 Montana Attorney General

Jon Bruning

 Nebraska Attorney General

Wayne Stenehjem

 North Dakota Attorney General

E. Scott Pruitt

 Oklahoma Attorney General

Alan Wilson

 South Carolina Attorney General

Marty J. Jackley 

 South Dakota Attorney General

Gregg Abbott

 Texas Attorney General

Sean D. Reyes

 Utah Attorney General

Patrick Morrisey 

 West Virginia Attorney General

Peter K. Michael

 Wyoming Attorney General

Counsel for Amicus Appellants:

States of Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Florida,

Georgia, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana,

Michigan, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, 

North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, 

South Dakota, Texas, Utah, West Virginia, 

Wyoming.

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Brooks M. Smith, Esquire

Troutman Sanders, LLP

1001 Haxall Point, 15th Floor

Richmond, VA 23219

Maria V. Souder, Esquire

Troutman Sanders, LLP

600 Peachtree Street, NE, Suite 5200

Atlanta, GA 30308

Counsel for Amici Appellees:

Clearfield County Pennsylvania, 

County of Cambria,

County of Hardy West Virginia,

County of Pendleton West Virginia,

County of Perry, County of Tioga,

Lancaster County, New Castle County,

William P. Bowden, Esquire

Amanda M. Winfree Herrmann, Esquire

Ashby & Geddes

500 Delaware Avenue, 8th Floor

P.O. Box 1150

Wilmington, DE 19899

Russell B. Stevenson, Jr., Esquire

733 Dividing Road

Severna Park, MD 21146

Ridgway Hall, Esquire

3500 Ordway Street, NW

Washington, DC 20016

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Counsel for Amicus Appellee

City of Annapolis

Bradley I.B. Marshall, Esquire

Earthjustice

111 South Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd

Tallahassee, FL 32301

Counsel for Amici Appellees:

Conservancy of Southwest Florida,

Environmental Confederation of Southwest Florida,

Florida Wildlife Federation, Sierra Club,

St. Johns Riverkeeper

Douglas F. Gansler

 Attorney General of Maryland

Peter K. Killough

Steven R. Johnson

Paul N. De Santis

 Assistant Attorneys General

Office of the Attorney General

People’s Insurance Counsel

200 St. Paul Place

Baltimore, MD 21202

Matthew Denn

 Attorney General of Delaware

820 N. French Street, 6th Floor

Wilmington, DE 19801

Irvin B. Nathan

 Attorney General for the District of Columbia

One Judiciary Square

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441 Fourth Street, N.W. 

Washington, DC 20001 

 Counsel for Amici Appellees: 

 States of Delaware, Maryland, 

District of Columbia

OPINION OF THE COURT

AMBRO, Circuit Judge 

Contents 

I. Introduction ............................................................................................................... 14

II. Background ............................................................................................................... 15

A. The Chesapeake Bay, 1608–1972 ......................................................................... 15

B. The Clean Water Act, 1972 ................................................................................... 17

C. Definition and Development of TMDLs, 1972–2000 ........................................... 20

D. The Chesapeake Bay TMDL, 2000–2010 ............................................................. 23

E. Procedural Background, 2011–Present ................................................................. 25

III. Jurisdiction ............................................................................................................ 25

A. Standing ................................................................................................................. 26

B. Ripeness ................................................................................................................. 27

IV. Merits ..................................................................................................................... 28

A. Framework for our Decision ................................................................................. 29

B. Chevron Step One ................................................................................................. 31

1. Case Law on TMDLs ....................................................................................... 31

2. Statutory Text ................................................................................................... 34

3. Statutory Structure and Purpose ....................................................................... 37

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i. Allocations Between Point and Nonpoint 

Sources .................................................................................................................. 38

ii. “Deadlines” or “Target Dates”...................................................................... 40

iii. Reasonable Assurance .................................................................................. 41

iv. Summary of Structure and Purpose .............................................................. 41

4. Avoidance Canons............................................................................................ 42

i. Federalism..................................................................................................... 43

ii. Constitutional Avoidance.............................................................................. 49

5. Conclusion With Respect to Step One ............................................................. 53

D. Chevron Step Two................................................................................................. 53

V. Conclusion................................................................................................................. 60

I. Introduction

The Environmental Protection Agency (“EPA”) 

published in 2010 the “total maximum daily load” (“TMDL”) 

of nitrogen, phosphorous, and sediment that can be released 

into the Chesapeake Bay (the “Bay”) to comply with the 

Clean Water Act, 33 U.S.C. § 1251 et seq.. The TMDL is a 

comprehensive framework for pollution reduction designed to 

“restore and maintain the chemical, physical, and biological 

integrity” of the Bay, 33 U.S.C. § 1251, the subject of much 

ecological concern over several decades.

Trade associations with members who will be affected 

by the TMDL’s implementation—the American Farm Bureau 

Federation, the National Association of Home Builders, and 

other organizations for agricultural industries that include 

fertilizer, corn, pork, and poultry operations (collectively, 

“Farm Bureau”)—sued. They allege that all aspects of the 

TMDL that go beyond an allowable sum of pollutants (i.e., 

the most nitrogen, phosphorous, and sediment the Bay can 

safely absorb per day) exceeded the scope of the EPA’s 

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authority to regulate, largely because the agency may intrude 

on states’ traditional role in regulating land use.

The District Court ruled against Farm Bureau, and it 

appeals. For the reasons that follow, we side with the EPA 

and affirm the District Court’s ruling.

II. Background

The EPA and seven states—Virginia, West Virginia, 

Maryland, Delaware, Pennsylvania, New York, and the 

District of Columbia, which is a “state” for Clean Water Act 

purposes, 33 U.S.C. § 1362(3)—have engaged in a decadeslong process to develop a plan to improve the quality of the 

water in the Chesapeake Bay, the largest estuary in North 

America. The Bay’s watershed area of 64,000 square miles 

contains tens of thousands of lakes, rivers, streams and 

creeks. The Bay itself has a surface area of 4,500 square 

miles, and it has 11,684 miles of shoreline, longer than the 

coastline from San Diego, California to Seattle, Washington.

A. The Chesapeake Bay, 1608–1972

Before Europeans settled the Bay, it supported much 

sea life. As two associates of John Smith wrote, “Neither 

better fish more plenty or variety had any of us ever seene, in 

any place swimming in the water, then in the bay of 

Chesapeack.” Walter Russell & Anas Todkill et al., The 

Accidents that Happened in the Discoverie of the Bay, in 1 

The Complete Works of Captain John Smith (1580–1631) 

Philip L. Barbour, ed., 224, 228 (1986). The fertile land of 

the watershed and the beauty and commercial value of the 

Bay proved attractive. By 1950 about 7,000,000 people lived 

in the watershed; today it is home to 17,000,000, and by 2030 

the population may reach 20,000,000.

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The watershed area not only sustains its growing 

human population; it also supports a great deal of commerce, 

including fishing, shipping, farming, and tourism. All these 

activities, as well as other incidents of daily life, contribute 

pollutants to the Bay. As a result, it is plagued by dead zones 

with opaque water and algae blooms that render significant 

parts of it unable to support aquatic life. Surrounding 

jurisdictions recognize that the Bay absorbs far too much 

nitrogen, phosphorous, and sediment to be the healthy 

ecosystem it once was. These threats to the Bay (and to the 

livelihood of many who depend on its bounty) have been 

known for a long time both to scientists and to observant lay 

people. As a Pulitzer-Prize winning chronicler of Bay life put 

it:

Coliform bacteria indices, atomic plant passthroughs, siltation-caused reduced 

photosynthetic capabilities, oxygen deprivation, 

nutrient loading and the doubling rate . . . I 

doubted many watermen understood the full 

threat of their quiet and insidious workings. 

Perhaps it was easier to put it the way they do. 

You look hard at the water and sometimes it 

seems like it’s getting a little old and tired, a 

little messy. Simple as that, if anyone cares to 

notice.

William W. Warner, Beautiful Swimmers: Watermen, Crabs 

and the Chesapeake Bay 273–74 (1976).1

 

1 Warner wrote in the afterword to the 1994 edition of his 

book, “There is . . . no doubt that the Bay’s natural resources 

have seriously eroded since” Beautiful Swimmers was first 

published. William W. Warner, Beautiful Swimmers: 

Watermen, Crabs and the Chesapeake Bay 293 (1994).

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B. The Clean Water Act, 1972

Congress took official note that the waters of the 

United States, including the Bay, needed protection and 

rescue. In 1972, it passed major revisions to federal water 

pollution legislation known as the Clean Water Act. Under 

that law, the EPA and the states participate in a “cooperative 

federalism” framework working together to clean the 

Nation’s waters. 

We deal primarily with one provision of this complex 

statute, which calls for the establishment of a “total maximum 

daily load” of pollution for certain waters. 33 U.S.C.

§ 1313(d)(1)(C).2 The parties dispute what those words 

mean. They are not defined in the Act, but the EPA has 

interpreted them to require publication of a comprehensive 

framework for pollution reduction in a given body of water. 

When we discuss this comprehensive document, we refer to it 

by the acronym “TMDL”; by contrast, when we analyze the 

statutory text, we refer to the words “total maximum daily 

load.”

The Act provides that states set a total maximum daily 

load, and the EPA approves or disapproves it. If the EPA 

disapproves, it must create the TMDL itself. In this case, the 

Chesapeake Bay watershed jurisdictions agreed that they 

 

2 As in many areas of the law, specialized practitioners refer 

to the uncodified sections of provisions in the Statutes at 

Large. The parties thus, for example, cite the Clean Water 

Act § 303(d)(1)(C) as the total maximum daily load 

provision. Unless otherwise noted, we cite the law by 

reference to the U.S. Code, as we find those volumes easier to 

navigate than the Statutes at Large.

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would not submit TMDLs, and the EPA would do so in the 

first instance. 

To understand the parties’ arguments, we consider the 

statutory context in which the words “total maximum daily 

load” arise. The Clean Water Act does not simply direct the 

publication of the TMDL; it is one step in a process with 

several layers, each placing primary responsibility for 

pollution controls in state hands with “backstop authority” 

vested in the EPA. TMDLs happen after a state enacts 

pursuant to its law (but required by the Clean Water Act) 

“water quality standards.” The state designates a use for each 

relevant water (e.g., recreation or fishing) and sets a target 

water quality based on that use. Id. § (c)(1) & (2). The EPA 

must approve or disapprove the water quality standards. If 

the latter, it must promulgate its own water quality standard 

for the state. 33 U.S.C. § 1313(a)(3)(A)–(C) & (b). 

Once water quality standards are in effect, the EPA 

and the states share responsibility for making sure that 

pollutants discharged into waters do not violate those 

standards. Under the legislative and regulatory system for 

cleaning our Nation’s waters, pollution comes from “point” 

and “nonpoint” sources. The former are discrete places 

where pollutants are discharged, like a drainpipe at a 

wastewater treatment plant, while the latter are diffuse 

sources of pollution, like farms or roadways, from which 

runoff drains into a watershed.

The Clean Water Act gives the EPA primary 

responsibility for regulating point sources by establishing 

“effluent limitations,” 33 U.SC. § 1311(b)(1)(A), which are 

pollution caps that by statutory definition apply only to point 

sources. Id. § 1362(11). States in turn regulate nonpoint 

sources. There is significant input and oversight from the 

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EPA, but it does not regulate nonpoint sources directly. Id. 

§ 1329(b) & (e).

Section 1313 anticipates that effluent limitations on 

point sources will be the front line of the defense against 

water pollution. But, acknowledging that effluent limitations 

may not be enough, § 1313(d) requires the states to submit to 

the EPA a list of all bodies of water (or, by regulation, any 

segment of a body of water) for which effluent limitations 

and technology-based point source controls are insufficient to 

meet the applicable water quality standard. These areas are 

known as “water quality limited segment[s],” 40 C.F.R. 

§ 131.3(h), and the list on which they appear often goes by 

the “Section 303(d) list” after the part of the uncodified Clean 

Water Act to which 33 U.S.C. § 1313(d) corresponds.

Together with the Section 303(d) list, states must 

submit “total maximum daily loads” for those pollutants that 

cannot be brought to an acceptable level by point source 

controls. 33 U.S.C. § 1313(d)(1)(A) & (C). After a state 

submits its Section 303(d) list and TMDL, the EPA must 

approve or disapprove them; if it disapproves, it must create 

its own list and TMDL. 33 U.S.C. § 1313(d)(2). 

To recap: states set water quality standards for the 

waters within their borders, and they must submit to the EPA 

a list of those waters for which point-source pollution 

limitations alone are not enough to make the water meet the 

applicable quality standard; for all the waters on that list, a 

state must submit a TMDL. If the EPA disapproves a state 

submission, it takes responsibility for the unmet 

requirement(s). As noted, for the Chesapeake Bay the 

relevant states and the EPA agreed that the EPA would draft 

the TMDL in the first instance.

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This case primarily concerns the meaning of “total 

maximum daily load,” words that occur in the part of the 

Clean Water Act that requires states (or, in this case, the 

EPA) to:

establish . . . the total maximum daily load[] for 

those pollutants which the Administrator 

identifies under section 1314(a)(2) of this title as 

suitable for such calculation. Such load shall be 

established at a level necessary to implement the 

applicable water quality standards with seasonal 

variations and a margin of safety which takes 

into account any lack of knowledge concerning 

the relationship between effluent limitations and 

water quality.

33 U.S.C. § 1313(d)(1)(C). The Act directed states to include 

“total maximum daily load[s]” in their required “continuing 

planning process[es]” no later than February 15, 1973. 33 

U.S.C. § 1313(e)(2).

C. Definition and Development of TMDLs, 1972–

2000

This deadline, it turns out, was overly optimistic, as 

both states and the EPA have been slow in establishing 

TMDLs. See Oliver A. Houck, TMDLs, Are We There Yet?: 

The Long Road Toward Water Quality–Based Regulation 

under the Clean Water Act, 27 Envtl. L. Rep. (Envtl. L. Inst.) 

10,391, 10,392–93 (1997). The initial blame cannot be laid 

on the states because the statute explicitly requires “the

Administrator” of the EPA to identify the pollutants to which 

the TMDL requirement would apply. 33 U.S.C. 

§ 1313(d)(1)(C). In 1975 the EPA issued a regulation to 

define “total maximum daily load,” but even then “the 

Agency still had not identified those pollutants that would be 

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subject to TMDL development.” Dianne K. Conway, TMDL 

Litigation: So Now What?, 17 Va. Envtl. L.J. 83, 98 (1997). 

It did so in 1978 and required states to submit TMDLs by 

June 1979.

The EPA’s regulations define “total maximum daily 

load” as the sum of “waste load allocations” and “load 

allocations.” 40 C.F.R. § 130.2(i). Also by regulatory 

definition, waste load allocations are pollutant loads that 

come from point sources; load allocations come from 

nonpoint sources. 40 C.F.R. § 130.2(g) & (h).3 The EPA 

applies these allocations to any pollutant that brings a body of 

water below an acceptable standard of cleanliness. See 43 

Fed. Reg. 60,662 (Dec. 28, 1978) (identifying “all pollutants” 

as suitable for TMDL development).

Once the EPA had laid out the required contents of 

TMDLs, it and the states remained tardy in establishing them. 

As a result, a wave of citizen-suits in the 1980s led to a 

consensus that a state’s failure to submit a TMDL should be 

deemed a “constructive submission” that no TMDL is needed, 

triggering the EPA’s duty to accept that conclusion or 

promulgate its own TMDL. Kingman Park Civic Ass’n v. 

EPA, 84 F. Supp. 2d 1, 5 (D.D.C. 1999) (collecting cases). 

Even these successes did not spur immediate action, as courts 

initially would not follow the “constructive submission” 

theory “in cases brought against states which engaged in 

some level of TMDL activity, no matter how minute.” 

Conway, TMDL Litigation, 17 Va. Envtl. L.J. at 95. 

In the mid-1990s, nearly a quarter century past the 

Clean Water Act’s “deadline,” courts became frustrated with 

 

3

In the initial regulation defining TMDLs, the terms were 

different, but the EPA still required allocation between point 

and nonpoint sources. 40 Fed. Reg. 55,346 (Nov. 28, 1975).

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the prevailing “wait-and-see” approach and directed states 

and the EPA to develop TMDLs with more dispatch. See 

Sierra Club v. Hankinson, 939 F. Supp. 865 (N.D. Ga. 1996), 

939 F. Supp. 872 (N.D. Ga. 1996); Idaho Sportsmen’s 

Coalition v. Browner, 951 F. Supp. 962 (W.D. Wash. 1996). 

Following the success of these cases, “citizen-plaintiffs, 

imbued with the ecosystem consciousness, launched a tidal 

wave of lawsuits to force the EPA and the states to implement 

the TMDLs process.” Michael M. Wenig, How “Total” Are 

“Total Maximum Daily Loads”?—Legal Issues Regarding 

the Scope of Watershed-Based Pollution Control Under the 

Clean Water Act, 12 Tul. Envtl. L.J. 87, 94 (1998). 

The lawsuits of the 1990s were followed by the actual 

drafting of thousands of TMDLs, which the EPA has 

described as “the technical backbone” of its approach to 

cleaning the Nation’s waters. EPA Office of Water, Total 

Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) Program Draft TMDL 

Program Implementation Strategy § 1.2 (1996). TMDLs are 

now thorough “informational tools that allow the states to 

proceed from the identification of waters requiring additional 

planning to the required plans.” Pronsolino v. Nastri, 291 

F.3d 1123, 1129 (9th Cir. 2002). TMDLs are not selfexecuting, but they serve as the cornerstones for pollutionreduction plans that do create enforceable rights and 

obligations.4

 

4 The parties debate what precisely TMDLs are. Our 

understanding of them as informational tools is supported by 

every case and piece of scholarship to consider them as well 

as the language of the Chesapeake Bay TMDL itself. See

City of Arcadia v. EPA, 411 F.3d 1103, 1105 (9th Cir. 2005); 

Sierra Club v. Meiburg, 296 F.3d 1021, 1025 (11th Cir. 2002) 

(“Each TMDL serves as the goal for the level of that pollutant 

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D. The Chesapeake Bay TMDL, 2000–2010 

Development of the Chesapeake Bay TMDL began in 

earnest with the Chesapeake 2000 Agreement, whereby the 

EPA and political backers from the Bay states made 

commitments geared to reducing pollution in the Bay. This 

Agreement eventually gave way to states’ submission to the 

EPA of “Phase I Watershed Improvement Plans,” which were 

drafts proposing target pollutant limitations and how the 

 

in the waterbody to which that TMDL applies.”); Bravos v. 

Green, 306 F. Supp. 2d 48, 56 (D.D.C. 2004) (“EPA’s 

approval of a State’s TMDL does not translate into approval 

of the State’s implementation plan.”); City of Arcadia v. EPA, 

265 F. Supp. 2d 1142, 1144 (N.D. Cal. 2003) (“TMDLs 

established under Section 303(d)(1) of the CWA function 

primarily as planning devices and are not self-executing.”);

Idaho Sportsmen’s Coal. v. Browner, 951 F. Supp. 962, 966 

(W.D. Wash. 1996) (“TMDL development in itself does not 

reduce pollution. It is only a step toward bringing [water 

quality limited segments] into compliance with water quality 

standards; TMDLs inform the design and implementation of 

pollution control measures.”); Corey Longhurst, Where Is the 

Point? Water Quality Trading’s Inability to Deal with 

Nonpoint Source Agricultural Pollution, 17 Drake J. Agric. L. 

175, 187 (2012); Jan G. Laitos & Heidi Ruckriegle, The 

Clean Water Act and the Challenge of Agricultural Pollution, 

37 Vt. L. Rev. 1033, 1054–57 (2013) (criticizing courts for 

the limited legal effect they have given to TMDLs); J.A. 1113 

(“The cornerstone of the accountability framework is the 

jurisdictions’ development of [Watershed Improvement 

Plans], which serve as roadmaps for how and when a 

jurisdiction plans to meet its pollutant allocations under the 

TMDL.”).

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states would achieve them. The EPA developed the 

Chesapeake Bay TMDL in reliance on these plans and did so 

only after approving the pollutant limitations and concluding 

that each state had given “reasonable assurance” of actually 

meeting the targets in its Watershed Improvement Plan. 

Several of the first drafts of the Phase I Watershed 

Improvement Plans did not provide reasonable assurance, 

whereupon the EPA conferred with the relevant jurisdictions, 

they revised their Plans, and the EPA incorporated those 

revisions. It determined that the final draft Phase I Watershed 

Improvement Plans provided reasonable assurance in all 

respects save two sources of pollution (Pennsylvania urban 

stormwater and West Virginia agriculture), and it imposed a 

“backstop adjustment,” meaning that it will require greater 

reductions from point sources in Pennsylvania and West 

Virginia if those states cannot meet their projected load 

allocations. The EPA also decided to provide a “backstop 

allocation” for New York because that jurisdiction proposed 

to discharge too much nitrogen and phosphorous; this will 

also require more stringent point-source limitations than New 

York proposed.

After making these adjustments to the states’ 

Watershed Improvement Plans, the EPA incorporated them 

into the final Chesapeake Bay TMDL. It is detailed, as it 

includes point- and nonpoint-source limitations on nitrogen, 

phosphorous, and sediment for 92 segments of the Bay 

identified as overpolluted and further allocates those limits to 

specific point sources and to nonpoint source sectors. The 

TMDL sets target dates, anticipating that 60% of its proposed 

actions will be complete by 2017, with all pollution control 

measures in place by 2025. The next step, yet to happen, is 

for the states to develop their Phase II Watershed 

Improvement Plans to implement the TMDL.

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On December 29, 2010, the EPA promulgated the 

TMDL through the notice-and-comment rulemaking process 

of the Administrative Procedure Act (“APA”). See 5 U.S.C. 

§ 553. Over 45 days, the EPA held 18 public meetings (at 

which 2,500 members of the public attended), and it received 

more than 14,000 comments. It took these comments and 

meetings into account when publishing the final TMDL.

E. Procedural Background, 2011–Present

As discussed above, TMDLs have long been the 

subject of litigation. Environmental groups continue to press 

the EPA to promulgate more stringent TMDLs. E.g., Ctr. For 

Biological Diversity v. EPA, No. 13-cv-1866, 2015 WL 

918686 (W.D. Wash. Mar. 2, 2015). Not to be left on the 

sidelines, commercial concerns took to the courts to air their 

grievances with the EPA—this time not for acting too slowly, 

but for acting at all. Our case is of this most recent variety.

In January 2011, Farm Bureau sued the EPA under the 

APA and the citizen-suit provision of the Clean Water Act. It 

asserted that the EPA exceeded its statutory authority by 

including deadlines and allocations in the TMDL and by 

requiring “reasonable assurance” from the states in drafting 

that document. The District Court granted summary 

judgment in favor of the EPA, and this appeal followed.

III. Jurisdiction

The District Court had jurisdiction under 5 U.S.C. 

§ 702 and 28 U.S.C. § 1331. We have jurisdiction pursuant 

to 28 U.S.C. § 1291, and our standard of review is de novo. 

Pastore v. Bell Tel. Co. of Pennsylvania, 24 F.3d 508, 511 (3d 

Cir. 1994).

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The TMDL is yet unenforced against anyone, nor can 

it be until it is implemented as part of a state’s continuing 

planning process for managing water pollution, 33 U.S.C. 

§ 1313(e). Thus, Farm Bureau’s standing to challenge the 

TMDL and the ripeness of this dispute are open to debate. 

The EPA does not challenge Farm Bureau’s standing on 

appeal, but we have a free-standing duty to determine our 

jurisdiction.

A. Standing 

“To ensure the proper adversarial presentation, . . . a 

litigant must demonstrate that it has suffered a concrete and 

particularized injury that is either actual or imminent, that the 

injury is fairly traceable to the defendant, and that it is likely 

that a favorable decision will redress that injury.” 

Massachusetts v. EPA, 549 U.S. 497, 517 (2007) (emphases 

added). The injury claimed by members of the trade 

associations comprising Farm Bureau is the certainty that 

they will incur compliance costs when the TMDL is 

implemented and enforcement mechanisms are put in place. 

Thus, even if the TMDL does not cause injury by itself, it will 

give way to requirements with which Farm Bureau will have 

to comply. See 33 U.S.C. § 1313(e) (mandating TMDL’s 

incorporation into states’ “continuing planning process[es]”). 

Specifically, states’ continuing planning processes will, by 

operation of the Clean Water Act, impose on the sectors in 

which Farm Bureau operates more stringent nonpoint source 

pollutant limitations than currently in place. See TMDL 

Appendix R. These requirements will in turn cause 

compliance costs for Farm Bureau, a classic injury-in-fact. 

Danvers Motor Co. v. Ford Motor Co., 432 F.3d 286, 291 (3d 

Cir. 2005) (“While it is difficult to reduce injury-in-fact to a 

simple formula, economic injury is one of its paradigmatic 

forms.”).

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Although there is a plausible argument that Farm 

Bureau’s injury is insufficiently particularized and too 

speculative, as we do not know precisely what form new 

regulations will take, it is akin to injuries the Supreme Court 

has found sufficient for standing. Ass’n of Data Processing 

Serv. Organizations, Inc. v. Camp, 397 U.S. 150, 152 (1970) 

(data processors have standing when regulation expanded 

number of institutions authorized to perform data processing, 

thus increasing competition in the field); Barlow v. Collins,

397 U.S. 159, 164 (1970) (tenant-farmers had standing when 

new regulation effectively gave incentives to landlords to 

charge higher rents). In general, regulated entities that assert 

likely economic injury have standing even before the 

challenged regulatory action fully takes effect. See Sierra 

Club v. Morton, 405 U.S. 727, 733–34 (1972) (“[P]alpable 

economic injuries have long been recognized as sufficient to 

lay the basis for standing, with or without a specific statutory 

provision for judicial review.”) 

Fair traceability and redressability are easily met here. 

There is no doubt that the EPA promulgated the TMDL, and 

removing the parts to which Farm Bureau objects would 

substantially lighten its regulatory burden.

B. Ripeness

Similarly, a pre-enforcement challenge to a regulation 

is ripe where the issues presented are fit for judicial review 

and hardship to the parties would result without hearing the 

suit. Abbott Labs. v. Gardner, 387 U.S. 136, 149 (1967). 

Here the parties present a purely legal dispute on a welldeveloped record about the EPA’s process of promulgating a 

TMDL. Although the TMDL has yet to be incorporated into 

a state’s continuing planning process and enforced against 

any individual plaintiff, members of the trade associations 

will have reason to limit their discharge of pollutants in 

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anticipation of the TMDL’s implementation. And it would 

impose hardship on the EPA and the states not to hear this 

dispute now because they are poised to spend more time, 

energy, and money in developing an implementation plan. If 

there is something wrong with the TMDL, it is better to know 

now than later.

As we have jurisdiction and the case is ripe, we 

proceed to the merits.

IV. Merits

Farm Bureau interprets the words “total maximum 

daily load” in the Clean Water Act, codified at 33 U.S.C. 

§ 1313(d)(1)(C), as unambiguous: a TMDL can consist only 

of a number representing the amount of a pollutant that can be 

discharged into a particular segment of water and nothing 

more. Thus it argues that the EPA overstepped its statutory 

authority in drafting the Chesapeake Bay TMDL when the 

agency (1) included in the TMDL allocations of permissible 

levels of nitrogen, phosphorous, and sediment among 

different kinds of sources of these pollutants, (2) promulgated 

target dates for reducing discharges to the level the TMDL 

envisions, and (3) obtained assurance from the seven affected 

states that they would fulfill the TMDL’s objectives. In Farm 

Bureau’s view, even if allocations, target dates, and 

reasonable assurance are useful in calculating the number that 

is the TMDL, the final document may not specify a 

distribution of pollutants from point and nonpoint sources or 

deadlines for meeting the target reductions in pollutant 

discharge, nor may the EPA in drafting the document obtain 

any assurance from states that they will meet the targets.

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A. Framework for our Decision

The parties agree that this case is governed by Chevron 

v. NRDC, 467 U.S. 837 (1984). The mechanics of Chevron

are familiar: at “Step One,” courts inquire “whether Congress 

has directly spoken to the precise question at issue. If the 

intent of Congress is clear, that is the end of the matter; for 

the court, as well as the agency, must give effect to the 

unambiguously expressed intent of Congress.” Id. at 842–43. 

In framing “the precise question at issue,” we ask “whether 

the statute unambiguously forbids the Agency’s 

interpretation.” Barnhart v. Walton, 535 U.S. 212, 217–18 

(2002). When the intent of Congress is expressed 

ambiguously in some way relevant to the case at hand, courts 

proceed to “Step Two.” There the agency’s interpretations 

“are given controlling weight unless they are arbitrary, 

capricious, or manifestly contrary to the statute.” Chevron, 

467 U.S. at 844.

Underlying Chevron’s framework is courts’ 

understanding that Congress sometimes uses ambiguous 

language to delegate a scope of authority (or a gap to fill) to 

an administrative agency charged with administering the 

ambiguous statute. This has not always been clear, as 

Chevron itself offered a variety of justifications for its 

outcome, but “the [Supreme] Court over the last decade, 

beginning in United States v. Mead Corp., [533 U.S. 218 

(2001)], has explicitly re-grounded Chevron in congressional 

intent,” specifically, “intent to delegate.” Abbe R. Gluck, 

What 30 Years of Chevron Teach Us About the Rest of 

Statutory Interpretation, 83 Fordham L. Rev. 607, 610 & n.7 

(2014) (footnotes omitted); Mead, 533 U.S. at 226–27 

(“[A]dministrative implementation of a particular statutory 

provision qualifies for Chevron deference when it appears 

that Congress delegated authority to the agency generally to 

make rules carrying the force of law, and that the agency 

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30

interpretation claiming deference was promulgated in the 

exercise of that authority.”). Four years after Mead, the 

Supreme Court reaffirmed and made more explicit that 

Chevron deference recognizes Congress’s intent to delegate 

gap-filling power to agencies. National Cable & Telecomms. 

Ass’n v. Brand X Internet Services, 545 U.S. 967, 980 (2005) 

(“Chevron . . . held that ambiguities in statutes within an 

agency’s jurisdiction to administer are delegations of 

authority to the agency to fill the statutory gap in reasonable 

fashion.”); see also Peter L. Strauss, “Deference” Is Too 

Confusing—Let’s Call Them “Chevron Space” and 

“Skidmore Weight,” 112 Colum. L. Rev. 1143, 1145 (2012) 

(“‘Chevron space’ denotes the area within which an 

administrative agency has been statutorily empowered to act 

in a manner that creates legal obligations or constraints—that 

is, its delegated or allocated authority.”).

Whether an interpretation falls within the scope of 

authority that Congress has delegated is for the courts to 

decide at Step One because “[t]he fact that Congress has left a 

gap for the agency to fill means that courts should defer to the 

agency’s reasonable gap-filling decisions, not that courts 

should cease to mark the bounds of delegated agency choice.”

Negusie v. Holder, 555 U.S. 511, 531 (2009) (Stevens, J., 

concurring in part and dissenting in part); see also Util. Air 

Regulatory Grp. v. EPA, 134 S. Ct. 2427, 2442 (2014) (“Even 

under Chevron’s deferential framework, agencies must 

operate within the bounds of reasonable interpretation.” 

(internal quotation marks omitted)); MCI Telecomms. Corp. 

v. Am. Tel. & Tel. Co., 512 U.S. 218, 229 (1994) (“[A]n 

agency’s interpretation of a statute is not entitled to deference 

when it goes beyond the meaning that the statute can bear.”); 

Peter L. Strauss et al., Gellhorn & Byse’s Administrative Law

1073 (11th ed. 2011) (“Chevron said that within the possible 

meanings of a statute, a reviewing court should accept any 

reasonable meaning given by the agency. As the MCI case 

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[which never reached Step Two, 512 U.S. at 229] emphasizes, 

what the reasonable meanings might be is, within the 

Chevron universe, a question for the courts to decide.”). 

When the agency interpretation faithfully fills the gap 

that Congress created, we move to Step Two, where we do 

not ask whether it is the best possible interpretation of 

Congress’s ambiguous language. Instead, we extend 

considerable deference to the agency and inquire only 

whether it made “a reasonable policy choice” in reaching its 

interpretation. Brand X, 545 U.S. at 986.

With the above framework in mind, we proceed to 

Step One. 

B. Chevron Step One

To repeat, before us is whether in calculating and 

expressing a “total maximum daily load,” 33 U.S.C. 

§ 1313(d)(1)(C), the EPA may include (1) allocations of 

pollution levels among different kinds of sources, (2) a 

timeframe for complying with the TMDL’s requirements, and 

(3) assurance from the states that will implement the TMDL. 

Farm Bureau concludes that the statute unambiguously 

forecloses the EPA’s interpretation and hence the agency is 

not entitled to deference. Several considerations persuade us 

otherwise.

 1. Case Law on TMDLs

The District Court noted that it was a question of first 

impression whether a TMDL could include more than a 

quantity of a pollutant. Am. Farm Bureau Fed’n v. EPA, 984 

F. Supp. 2d 289, 316–18 (M.D. Pa. 2013). Since its decision, 

there has been no development in the case law on that point. 

However, we do not write on a completely blank slate. As 

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the District Court also observed, many circuit and district 

courts have defined TMDLs to accord with the EPA’s 

regulations (implying they did not present a problem). E.g., 

Upper Blackstone Water Pollution Abatement Dist. v. EPA, 

690 F.3d 9, 14 n.8 (1st Cir. 2012); Thomas v. Jackson, 581 

F.3d 658, 662 (8th Cir. 2009); Friends of Earth v. EPA, 333 

F.3d 184, 186 n.5 (D.C. Cir. 2003); Sierra Club v. Meiburg, 

296 F.3d 1021, 1025 (11th Cir. 2002); Hayes v. Whitman, 

264 F.3d 1017, 1021 n.2 (10th Cir. 2001); 

Dioxin/Organochlorine Ctr. v. Clarke, 57 F.3d 1517, 1520 

(9th Cir. 1995). If Farm Bureau were correct that the statute 

unambiguously supports its reading, we would expect one of 

the judges who has presided over TMDL litigation to have 

noticed the disconnect between the statute and the regulation, 

but there has been none.

Additionally, in response to challenges from both 

environmental and industry groups, courts have recognized 

the EPA’s authority to fill the Clean Water Act’s considerable 

gaps on how to promulgate a “total maximum daily load.” 

Pronsolino, 291 F.3d at 1131 (“[T]he EPA has the delegated 

authority to enact regulations carrying the force of law 

regarding the identification of § 303(d)(1) waters and 

TMDLs.”); NRDC v. Muszynski, 268 F.3d 91, 98–99 (2d Cir. 

2001) (“We are not prepared to say Congress intended that 

such far-ranging agency expertise be narrowly confined in 

application to regulation of pollutant loads on a strictly daily 

basis. . . . Accordingly, we agree with [the] EPA that a ‘total 

maximum daily load’ may be expressed by another measure 

of mass per time.”); Anacostia Riverkeeper, Inc. v. Jackson, 

798 F. Supp. 2d 210, 245 (D.D.C. 2011) (“[T]he [Clean 

Water Act]’s references to water quality standards require 

only that a TMDL set load levels ‘necessary to attain and 

maintain applicable water quality standards,’ 33 U.S.C. § 

1313(d)(1)(C), and do[] not otherwise refer to any particular 

timeframe. . . . In light of the CWA’s silence on whether 

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applicable criteria must be achieved at all times or may be 

periodically violated, the Court looks to whether [the] EPA 

has reasonably resolved the issue.”). 

The only time a court has considered an aspect of the 

phrase “total maximum daily load” unambiguous was in 

response to a challenge to the EPA’s practice of promulgating 

total maximum seasonal or annual loads. The D.C. Circuit 

held that the word “daily” was unambiguous, though it did 

not consider the above phrase unambiguous in all respects. 

Friends of Earth, Inc. v. EPA, 446 F.3d 140, 144 (D.C. Cir. 

2006). The Second Circuit disagrees with the D.C. Circuit on 

this point, Muszynski, 268 F.3d at 98–99, and even after 

Friends of Earth the District of D.C. has allowed the EPA to 

issue total maximum annual or seasonal loads in addition to 

daily loads because, although the statute is explicit about the 

requirement for a daily load, it is silent on whether another 

timeframe may be used when that would be more appropriate 

for the particular pollutant at issue. Anacostia Riverkeeper, 

798 F. Supp. 2d at 245.

Turning from the specific statutory language in this 

case, the Supreme Court has held that Chevron deference is 

appropriate where an agency is charged with administering a 

complex statutory scheme requiring technical or scientific 

sophistication. Brand X, 545 U.S. at 1002–03; Nat’l Cable & 

Telecomms. Ass’n, Inc. v. Gulf Power Co., 534 U.S. 327, 339 

(2002) (“As it was in Chevron, the subject matter here is 

technical, complex, and dynamic. . . .” (citation omitted)). 

There is no doubt that the Clean Water Act falls into this 

category of legislation. See, e.g., United States v. Riverside 

Bayview Homes, Inc., 474 U.S. 121, 132–33 (1985) (“[The 

Act] constituted a comprehensive legislative attempt to 

restore and maintain the chemical, physical, and biological 

integrity of the Nation’s waters. This objective incorporated 

a broad, systemic view of the goal of maintaining and 

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34

improving water quality.” (internal quotation marks and 

citation omitted)). Moreover, Congress’s delegations to the 

EPA under the Clean Water Act are not limited to occasional 

ambiguous words; instead, Congress granted broad regulatory 

authority to the EPA, charging that, “[e]xcept as otherwise 

expressly provided in this chapter, the Administrator of the 

[EPA] . . . shall administer this chapter.” 33 U.S.C. § 

1251(d).

Mindful of agencies’ considerable power under 

complex statutory regimes like the Clean Water Act, coupled 

with courts’ consistent determinations that “total maximum 

daily load” is ambiguous (except—though there is a split of 

authority on the point—the word “daily”) and the fact that no 

court has adverted to any problem with the EPA’s regulatory 

interpretation of the phrase, we turn to the text of the TMDL 

provision.

2. Statutory Text

Farm Bureau’s strongest argument is that Congress 

specifically authorized the EPA to publish “total maximum 

daily load[s] . . . at a level necessary to implement the 

applicable water quality standards . . . .” 33 U.S.C. 

§ 1313(d)(1)(C) (emphases added). Under Farm Bureau’s 

reading, a “total load” is just a number, like the “total” at the 

bottom of a restaurant receipt. This ordinary understanding 

of the word “total” is supported, the argument continues, 

because the load is to be established at a “level,” which can 

be high or low (so long as it is necessary to implement the 

water quality standards); in any event it should not be 

expressed as a comprehensive framework, and in no event 

can a TMDL include allocations among point and nonpoint 

sources, deadlines, and the reasonable assurance requirement.

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This argument has some intuitive appeal, but other 

readings are possible. Our most significant textual concern is 

that Farm Bureau’s analysis makes the word “total” 

redundant. “Maximum daily load[s] . . . . established at a 

level necessary to implement the applicable water standard” 

would mean the same thing that Farm Bureau argues “total 

maximum daily load” means: a number set at a level needed 

to alleviate water pollution. Applying the canon against 

surplusage, a plausible understanding of “total” is that it 

means the sum of the constituent parts of the load. The load 

is still set at the level necessary to fight pollutants, but it is 

expressed in terms of a total of the different relevant 

allocations.

Other uses of “total” in the Clean Water Act support 

this reading. For example, in a section relating to the EPA’s 

power to grant funds to publicly owned treatment works, the 

agency must consider “the total cost of operation and 

maintenance of such works by each user class (taking into 

account total waste water loading of such works, the 

constituent elements of the wastes, and other appropriate 

factors).” 33 U.S.C. § 1284(b)(1) (emphasis added). 

Admittedly, the explicit listings of factors in calculating the 

“total cost” under § 1284 distinguishes that use of “total” 

from the language in § 1313, yet it indicates that Congress 

does use the word to mean something more than a single 

number. See also id. § 1284(b)(4) (requiring “applicant to 

establish a procedure under which the residential user will be 

notified as to that portion of his total payment which will be 

allocated to the cost of the waste treatment services.” 

(emphases added)). Another law relating to our Nation’s 

waters requires the EPA to consider “the total quantity of 

commerce supported by” a given body of water. Id. 

§ 2238(d)(1)(C)(i) (Water Resources Reform and 

Development Act of 2014, P.L. 113-121 § 2102). It is 

unclear how “commerce” can be expressed as a number, and 

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we surmise that “total” in that context allows the EPA to 

consider and express a complex mix of activities that affect 

its judgment.

Additionally, although Congress explicitly required the 

EPA to establish “total maximum daily loads,” it nowhere 

prescribed how the EPA is to do so. The agency has chosen 

to lay out in detail (1) how and why it arrived at the number it 

chose; (2) how it thinks it and affected jurisdictions will be 

able to achieve that number; (3) why that number is 

“necessary to implement the applicable water quality 

standard[],” id. § 1313(d)(1)(C); (4) when it expects the 

TMDL to achieve the applicable water quality standard; and 

(5) what it will do if the water quality standard is not met. As 

the EPA has chosen to use notice-and-comment rulemaking 

to promulgate TMDLs, the APA likely requires the EPA to 

provide sufficient information in connection with the TMDL 

for the public adequately to comment on the agency’s 

judgment and to make suggestions where appropriate. 

Cement Kiln Recycling Coal. v. EPA, 493 F.3d 207, 225 

(D.C. Cir. 2007) (“A notice of proposed rulemaking must 

provide sufficient factual detail and rationale for the rule to 

permit interested parties to comment meaningfully.” (internal 

quotation marks and citations omitted)). The EPA would fall 

afoul of this requirement if it published only a number with 

no supporting information, as the public would be unable to 

comment on the number without knowing whether or how the 

EPA thought such a level of discharged pollutant could be 

achieved. 

The EPA’s approach also fits the statute’s requirement 

that the load be established in light of “seasonal variations 

and a margin of safety which takes into account any lack of 

knowledge concerning the relationship between effluent 

limitations and water quality.” 33 U.S.C. § 1313(d)(1)(C). 

Under Farm Bureau’s approach, these factors that affect the 

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EPA’s calculation would need to remain absent from the 

TMDL. It would be strange to require the EPA to take into 

account these specific considerations but at the same time 

command the agency to excise them from its final product. If 

anything, the requirements that the TMDL (1) be established 

at a level necessary to implement water quality standards, 

with (2) seasonal variations, and (3) a margin of safety that 

takes into account (4) any lack of knowledge concerning the 

relationship between effluent limitations and water quality, 

taken together, tend to suggest that “total maximum daily 

load” is a term of art meant to be fleshed out by regulation, 

and certainly something more than a number.

Farm Bureau’s textual argument at Step One fails to 

persuade us that Congress excluded everything other than the 

sum of pollutants from a TMDL. Congress was ambiguous 

on the content of the words “total maximum daily load”: they 

are not defined in the statute, and “total” is susceptible to 

multiple interpretations. Furthermore, the Clean Water Act 

includes certain substantive requirements that expand the 

scope of a TMDL beyond a mere number. It is silent on how 

the EPA must set the loads, and the APA requires the EPA to 

provide information about how it arrived at its conclusion. 

These factors suggest that Congress wanted an expert to give 

meaning to the words it chose, and, as we explain below, we 

believe the EPA’s interpretation falls within the gap created 

by Congress. 

3. Statutory Structure and Purpose

Turning from the text of the provision, we consider the 

structure and purpose of the Clean Water Act. Broadly 

speaking, it “anticipates a partnership between the States and 

the Federal Government, animated by a shared objective: ‘to 

restore and maintain the chemical, physical, and biological 

integrity of the Nation’s waters.’ 33 U.S.C. § 1251(a).” 

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Arkansas v. Oklahoma, 503 U.S. 91, 101 (1992). This goal 

informs our understanding that “total maximum daily load” is 

broad enough to include allocations, target dates, and 

reasonable assurance.

i. Allocations Between Point and 

Nonpoint Sources

As noted, the Act assigns the primary responsibility for 

regulating point sources to the EPA and nonpoint sources to 

the states. The EPA sets limits on pollution that may come 

from point sources via a permitting process (which can be 

delegated to the states) known as the National Pollutant 

Discharge Elimination System. 33 U.S.C. § 1342. 

Nonetheless, in drafting a TMDL the Clean Water Act 

unambiguously requires the author (here, the EPA) to take 

into account nonpoint sources (though whether those sources 

must be expressed is not obvious). This conclusion follows 

when we consider the steps that precede and culminate in a 

TMDL. 

1. Each state5 must designate a use for each body 

of water within its borders and set a target water quality based 

on that use. 33 U.S.C. § 1313 (c)(1) & (2). The state must 

then enact “water quality standards” pursuant to state law. Id.

§ 1313(a) & (b).

2. In order to meet water quality standards, the 

EPA (or the states to which the EPA has delegated this 

responsibility) sets “effluent limitations,” which are pollution 

limits on point sources. Id. §§ 1311(b)(1)(A) & 1362(11).

 

5

If a state does not comply with any of the requirements 

outlined in this list, responsibility shifts to the EPA.

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3. States must submit to the EPA a list of the 

waters within their boundaries for which effluent limitations 

(a.k.a. point-source pollution limits) are, by themselves, 

inadequate to attain the applicable water quality standard—

i.e., those waters for which both point source and nonpoint 

source limitations will be necessary. Id. § 1313(d). 

4. It is only for these waters, for which point 

source effluent limitations alone are insufficient, that a state 

must establish a TMDL. 

5. TMDLs set the maximum amount of pollution a 

water body can absorb before violating applicable water 

quality standards. In the statutory context noted above, it is 

impossible to meet those standards by point-source reductions 

alone. Therefore, the Clean Water Act requires the drafter of 

a TMDL to consider nonpoint-source pollution.

“As should be apparent, TMDLs are central to the 

Clean Water Act’s water-quality scheme because . . . they tie 

together point-source and nonpoint-source pollution issues in 

a manner that addresses the whole health of the water.” 

Meiburg, 296 F.3d at 1025 (internal quotation marks 

omitted). As far as allocations are concerned, the EPA’s 

construction of the TMDL requirement comports well with 

the Clean Water Act’s structure and purpose. Specifically 

allocating the pollution load between point sources (primarily 

the EPA’s responsibility) and nonpoint sources (the states’ 

dominion) is a commonsense first step to achieve the target 

water quality. See Wenig, How “Total,” 12 Tul. Envtl. L.J. 

at 150 (“Ideally, all ecosystem harms should be subject to 

numerical loading and allocation calculations to maximize 

TMDLs’ value of providing the ‘technical backbone’ or 

‘blueprint’ for a watershed approach.”).

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Because TMDLs only relate to bodies of water for 

which point source limitations are insufficient, they must take 

into account pollution from both point and nonpoint sources. 

We believe the congressional silence on how to promulgate a 

TMDL and the congressional command that a TMDL be 

established only for waters that cannot be cleaned by pointsource limitations alone (necessarily implying that, whatever 

form the TMDL takes, it must incorporate nonpoint source 

limitations) combine to authorize the EPA to express load and 

waste load allocations. To be sure, the statute does not 

command the EPA’s final regulation to allocate explicitly 

parts of a load among different kinds of sources, but we agree 

with the EPA that it may do so.

ii. “Deadlines” or “Target Dates”

Similarly, it is common sense that a timeline 

complements the Clean Water Act’s requirement that all 

impaired waters achieve applicable water quality standards. 

The amount of acceptable pollution in a body of water is 

necessarily tied to the date at which the EPA and the states 

believe the water should meet its quality standard; if the 

target date is 100 years from now, more pollution per day will 

be allowable than if the target date is five years from now. 

Additionally, any meaningful pollution-reduction plan needs 

to take into account the dynamic nature of watersheds, 

particularly the fact that they change over time. Robert W. 

Adler, Addressing Barriers to Watershed Protection, 25 

Envtl. L. 973, 982 (1995) (“[R]iver systems are fourdimensional in nature: 1) longitudinal (upstreamdownstream); 2) lateral (floodplain-uplands); 3) vertical 

(groundwater-surface water); and 4) temporal (all three 

spatial dimensions change over time).”). As promulgating an 

accurate TMDL—that is, one that states a pollutant load 

“necessary to implement the applicable water quality 

standards,” 33 U.S.C. § 1313(d)(1)(C)—requires 

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consideration of a timeline and of changes over time, it is 

more consistent with the purpose of the Clean Water Act to 

express the deadline that the EPA relied on in calculating the 

TMDL than to make states and the public guess what it is.

iii. Reasonable Assurance

Farm Bureau’s argument that the Act forbids the EPA 

from seeking reasonable assurance from the states that their 

Watershed Improvement Plans will meet their stated goals is 

also inconsistent with the purpose and structure of the Clean 

Water Act. The TMDL must be set “at a level necessary to 

implement the applicable water quality standards.” 33 U.S.C. 

§ 1313(d)(1)(C). The EPA chose to set the TMDL with 

substantial input from the states but, in order to comply with 

the Clean Water Act and the APA, the EPA would not blindly 

accept states’ submissions. Instead it decided to satisfy itself 

that the states’ proposals would actually “implement the 

applicable water quality standards.” Id. This requirement 

made sure that the EPA could exercise “reasoned judgment” 

in evaluating the states’ proposed standards and was thus 

consistent with the Clean Water Act. Ctr. for Biological 

Diversity v. EPA, 749 F.3d 1079, 1087 (D.C. Cir. 2014).

iv. Summary of Structure and 

Purpose

The point of the TMDL is to take into consideration 

nonpoint-source pollution; no meaningful decision about 

limiting pollution can be made without specifying a time 

frame within which pollution is to be eliminated; and the 

Clean Water Act envisions assurance of effective pollution 

controls. Preventing the EPA from expressing allocations and 

timelines and from obtaining reasonable assurance from 

affected states appears to frustrate those goals, and thus the 

phrase “total maximum daily load” has enough play in the 

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joints to allow the EPA to consider and express these factors 

in its final action.

4. Avoidance Canons

Farm Bureau counters that the Chesapeake Bay TMDL 

intrudes on land use, an area traditionally regulated by states. 

It contends that we should not accept the EPA’s construction 

of the words “total maximum daily load” without a clear 

statement that Congress intended federal involvement in this 

realm of state policymaking. 

This argument requires us to consider Chevron’s 

interaction with two canons of statutory construction—

constitutional avoidance and the related “federalism canon” 

that “Congress does not readily interfere” with states’ 

“substantial sovereign powers under our constitutional 

scheme.” Gregory v. Ashcroft, 501 U.S. 452, 461 (1991). 

How and even whether to apply these canons during a 

Chevron analysis has been a matter of debate in both the 

judiciary and academia. Rapanos v. United States, 547 U.S. 

715, 737–38 (2006) (plurality opinion) (rejecting agency 

interpretation that would impinge on “the States’ traditional 

and primary power over land and water use”); id. at 757–58 

(Roberts, C.J., concurring) (implying agency interpretation 

would have been upheld had it been promulgated through 

notice-and-comment rulemaking); id. at 776–77 (Kennedy, J., 

concurring in the judgment) (rejecting plurality’s “federalism 

concerns”); id. at 803 (Stevens, J., dissenting) (“The two 

canons of construction [federalism and constitutional 

avoidance] relied on by the plurality . . . fail to overcome the 

deference owed to the Corps.”); Kenneth A. Bamberger, 

Normative Canons in the Review of Administrative 

Policymaking, 118 Yale L.J. 64, 118 (2008) (suggesting 

federalism canon could be applied at Chevron Step Two); 

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Scott A. Keller, How Courts Can Protect State Autonomy 

from Federal Administrative Encroachment, 82 S. Cal. L. 

Rev. 45, 81–91 (2008) (arguing that courts should apply the 

federalism canon whenever an agency interpretation 

encroaches on state autonomy); Abbe R. Gluck, Intersystemic 

Statutory Interpretation: Methodology as “Law” and the Erie 

Doctrine, 120 Yale L.J. 1898, 1987–89 (2011) (arguing that 

Supreme Court should (but does not) give stare decisis effect 

to interpretive methodologies, including federalism canon); 

Strauss et al., Administrative Law 1091 (questioning 

existence of federalism canon). 

We think the two interpretive canons can be used—

like all “traditional tools of statutory construction,” Chevron,

467 U.S. at 843 n.9—at the Step One stage of defining the 

scope of a congressional delegation in light of an agency’s 

actual interpretation. Put another way, they may be of use as 

we consider whether an agency’s interpretation falls within a 

gap Congress has authorized an agency to fill. We begin with 

federalism.

i. Federalism

The two most factually on-point cases that consider the 

federalism canon are Solid Waste Agency of N. Cook Cnty. v. 

Army Corps of Eng’rs (SWANCC), 531 U.S. 159 (2001), and 

Rapanos, 547 U.S. 715. In both cases, the Army Corps of 

Engineers asserted the authority to regulate—i.e., 

“jurisdiction” in the administrative law sense of the word—

certain geographical areas as “waters of the United States.” 

There was debate among the Supreme Court’s justices about 

how wet these areas were, but for our purposes it suffices to 

say that you could not float a ship on them. In those cases, 

Congress’s intent to alter the traditional federal-state balance 

was doubtful, as it was unclear whether the Corps even had 

jurisdiction over the areas at issue. The Court in SWANCC 

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and a plurality in Rapanos were unwilling to accept the 

Corps’ assertion of jurisdiction over what looked like places 

traditionally regulated by the states. 

In our case, however, jurisdiction over the Chesapeake 

Bay is not at issue. The question is far finer grained: what is 

a “total maximum daily load”? Even if the consequences of 

defining the terms of the statute as the EPA has done intrudes 

more significantly on certain state prerogatives than Farm 

Bureau’s proposal, we already know that the term “total 

maximum daily load” exists within a cooperative federalism 

framework and that the area being regulated is clearly within 

the agency’s jurisdiction. In this context, requiring another 

“clear statement” of congressional intent for every ambiguous 

term in a highly technical statute, before accepting an 

interpretation that could affect our federal structure, would 

defeat one of the central virtues of the Chevron framework: 

Congress may leave interstitial details to expert agencies and 

need not think through at the drafting stage every possible 

permutation of agencies’ plausible future interpretations. To 

use the Supreme Court’s language disposing of a similar 

argument (in a different regulatory context), the TMDL 

provision “explicitly supplants state authority by requiring” 

states to participate in pollution-reduction programs by, in 

part, submitting a TMDL, “and the meaning of that phrase 

[here, total maximum daily load] is indisputably a question of 

federal law.” City of Arlington v. FCC, 133 S. Ct. 1863, 1873 

(2013). Nor can we say that defining “loads” of pollution as 

allocated among different sources or expressed as a single 

number is a matter of regulation traditionally reserved to the 

states. Thus, to the extent the TMDL may affect land-use 

decisions, we do not see that as foreclosing the EPA’s 

interpretation.

Perhaps we would reach a different result if the TMDL 

in fact made land-use decisions diminishing state authority in 

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a significant way; we might then say that Congress delegated 

some authority over the definitions of technical terms in the 

Clean Water Act but not so much discretion as to usurp 

states’ zoning powers. Indeed, the heart of Farm Bureau’s 

federalism argument is that the TMDL impermissibly grants 

the EPA the authority to make land-use and zoning 

regulations. The challenge is long on swagger but short on 

specificity. That is likely because the TMDL’s provisions 

that could be read to affect land use are either explicitly 

allowed by federal law or too generalized to supplant state 

zoning powers in any extraordinary way. 

The TMDL comes closest to dictating a land-use 

regulation by allocating pollution limits to specific point 

sources. See Appendix R. As each of these sources is 

regulated by the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination 

System, see 33 U.S.C. § 1342, and the TMDL’s allocations 

are not alleged to be inconsistent with that scheme, these 

waste load allocations do not trespass onto an area of 

traditional state regulation to some greater degree than the 

Clean Water Act anticipates. 

The next most intrusive aspect of the TMDL is its 

allocations of limits to nonpoint-source sectors, as opposed to 

specific sources. The TMDL prescribes

daily Land Based [Load Allocation]s for 

specific nonpoint source sectors: agriculture, 

forest, nontidal atmospheric deposition, onsite 

septic, and urban. Land Based [Load 

Allocations] are presented as delivered load for 

each of the 92 impaired segments by 

jurisdiction and by nonpoint source sector for 

[total nitrogen, total phosphorous, and total 

suspended solids].

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J.A. 1597 (emphases added); see also TMDL Appendix R. In 

presenting load allocations by sector, the TMDL gives the 

states flexibility in achieving the limits the EPA set—

preserving state autonomy in land-use and zoning.

Further undermining the claim that the TMDL 

impermissibly takes over state power to regulate land is that 

the TMDL nowhere prescribes any particular means of 

pollution reduction to any individual point or nonpoint 

source. Instead, it contains pollution limits and allocations to 

be used as an informational tool used in connection with a 

state’s efforts to regulate water pollution. This conclusion is 

confirmed by the Act, as it requires states to have a 

“continuing planning process,” which must include (but is not 

limited to) “total maximum daily load[s].” 33 U.S.C. 

§ 1313(e)(1) & (3). It is further confirmed by the language of 

the TMDL, which provides that “[t]he cornerstone of the 

accountability framework is the jurisdictions’ development of 

[Watershed Improvement Plans], which serve as roadmaps 

for how and when a jurisdiction plans to meet its pollutant 

allocations under the TMDL,” J.A. 1113, and by the EPA’s 

repeated concessions that it will not undertake any 

enforcement action under the TMDL. Tr. of Oral Argument 

at 91:3, Oct. 4, 2012, American Farm Bureau Fed’n v. EPA, 

No. 11-cv-67 (M.D. Pa.), J.A. 1758; EPA Response Br. at 23.

Farm Bureau characterizes the TMDL as more than an 

informational tool by pointing to incentives for states to 

implement it. By virtue of 33 U.SC. § 1313(e), the TMDL 

must be included in each state’s “continuing planning 

process,” something the states are ostensibly required to put 

in place.6 The sanction for failing to adopt an adequate 

 

6 From the record before us, it is not clear that any 

Chesapeake Bay state has or will adopt a continuing planning

process within the meaning of § 1313(e), or that such a 

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continuing planning process under § 1313(e) is that the state 

loses its authority to administer its portion of the National 

Pollution Discharge Elimination System. 33 U.S.C. 

§ 1313(e)(2). Another means of incentivizing states to follow 

the TMDL involves overseeing their implementation of 

Watershed Improvement Plans. “If progress is insufficient, 

EPA will utilize contingencies to place additional controls on 

federally permitted sources of pollution . . . as well as target 

compliance and enforcement activities.” J.A. 1118. The EPA 

lays out in more detail what these compliance and 

enforcement activities may be in Section 7.2.4 of the TMDL; 

they include establishing finer-scale waste load allocations 

and load allocations (i.e., more tightly overseeing states’ 

pollution control) and conditioning federal grants based on 

progress in implementing the Watershed Improvement Plans 

(i.e., withholding money if progress is unsatisfactory). The 

allocations are not self-executing, and all the other 

enforcement actions concern administration of federal 

programs plainly within the EPA’s authority.

Despite these incentives, Farm Bureau does not argue 

that the “inducement offered by Congress” for the states to 

adopt and enforce the TMDL is “so coercive as to pass the 

point at which pressure turns into compulsion.” South Dakota 

v. Dole, 483 U.S. 203, 211 (1987) (internal quotation marks 

omitted). Because Farm Bureau does not say that the EPA 

coerced the states into accepting the TMDL and because it 

only obliquely affects land use regulations, we conclude that 

 

process will include the TMDL, but the states’ Phase II 

Watershed Improvement Plans, which are to be implemented 

now that the TMDL has been published, may satisfy the 

statute’s requirements.

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the TMDL does not prescribe land use rules that excessively 

intrude on traditional state authority.

Put another way, it is illogical to assert that the EPA 

usurps states’ traditional land-use authority when it (1) makes 

no actual, identifiable, land-use rule and (2) proposes 

regulatory actions that are specifically allowed under federal 

law. Hence we fail to see how this case presents federalism 

concerns so significant as to require a “clear statement” from 

Congress called for in SWANCC before we prohibit the 

EPA’s interpretation of the statute. When a statutory scheme 

clearly inserts the federal Government into an area of typical 

state authority, we may require a plain statement from 

Congress about the scope of the statute’s applicability before 

upholding an agency’s assertion of jurisdiction over an area 

(physical or legal) historically regulated by the states. But, as 

here, once an agency is operating in the weeds of a statute 

that obviously requires federal oversight of some state 

functions, we will not require subordinate clear statements of 

congressional intent every time an interpretation arguably 

varies the usual balance of responsibilities between federal 

and state sovereigns. 

We add an important caveat: if an agency interprets a 

statute in a way that pushes a constitutional boundary 

(whether that boundary comes from the federal structure or a 

different constitutional principle), we may find that 

interpretation outside the scope of Congress’s delegation if it 

does not clearly flow from the statutory text. That brings us 

to the next question. Does the EPA’s interpretation of “total 

maximum daily load” push at the Constitution’s outer 

bounds?

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ii. Constitutional Avoidance

When the TMDL is implemented, some land will need 

to be used differently from the way it is now, and it is true 

that land use law is an area typically within the states’ police 

power. At the same time, federal power over interstate 

waterways, “from the commencement of the [federal] 

government, has been exercised with the consent of all, and

has been understood by all to be a commercial regulation.” 

Gibbons v. Ogden, 22 U.S. (9 Wheat) 1, 190 (1824). And for 

at least a century, federal common law has governed disputes 

over interstate water pollution. Arkansas v. Oklahoma, 503 

U.S. at 98 (citing Missouri v. Illinois, 200 U.S. 496 (1906), 

and Georgia v. Tennessee Copper Co., 206 U.S. 230 (1907)). 

Regulation of the channels of interstate commerce lies 

at the very core of Congress’s commerce power. E.g., United 

States v. Lopez, 514 U.S. 549, 558 (1995) (“[W]e have 

identified three broad categories of activity that Congress 

may regulate under its commerce power. First, Congress may 

regulate the use of the channels of interstate commerce.” 

(citations omitted)); Heart of Atlanta Motel, Inc. v. U.S., 379 

U.S. 241, 256 (1964) (“[T]he authority of Congress to keep 

the channels of interstate commerce free from immoral and 

injurious uses has been frequently sustained, and is no longer 

open to question.”). And there can be no serious question that 

the Chesapeake Bay is a channel of interstate commerce: it 

produces 500 million pounds of seafood per year, leads ships 

to many port towns (including Baltimore), and has an 

estimated economic value of more than one trillion dollars. 

EPA Response Br. at 4. Broadly speaking, then, the federal 

Government’s traditional authority to regulate this part of the 

country is secure. 

By contrast, in Clean Water Act cases where there 

were arguable Commerce Clause problems, the SWANCC 

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Court would not interpret the Act to confer federal 

jurisdiction over an abandoned, man-made sand and gravel pit 

absent a “clear statement” from Congress to that effect 

because such an interpretation raised serious constitutional 

concerns (that the Government had failed to identify an 

activity that substantially affected interstate commerce, 531 

U.S. at 173), and the Rapanos plurality rejected the Corps’ 

interpretation of the “waters of the United States” to include 

wetlands near ditches that eventually drain into navigable 

waters because that understanding “presses the envelope of 

constitutional validity.” 547 U.S. at 738. 

Moreover, in Rapanos it appears five justices had no 

constitutional concerns in any event. Justice Kennedy, who 

provided the fifth vote to vacate the Sixth Circuit’s judgment, 

concluded only that the Court of Appeals had not faithfully 

applied SWANCC. Id. at 759. He forcefully rejected the 

plurality’s reasoning, id. at 776 (“[T]he plurality’s opinion is 

inconsistent with the Act’s text, structure, and purpose.”), and 

asserted a broad theory of federal authority under the 

Commerce Clause:

Even assuming, then, that federal regulation of remote 

wetlands and nonnavigable waterways would raise a 

difficult Commerce Clause issue notwithstanding those 

waters’ aggregate effects on national water quality, but 

cf. Wickard v. Filburn, 317 U.S. 111 (1942); see also 

infra, at 2249–2250 [citing Justice Stevens’s dissent], 

the plurality’s reading is not responsive to this 

concern. As for States’ “responsibilities and rights,” 

[33 U.S.C.] § 1251(b), it is noteworthy that 33 States 

plus the District of Columbia have filed an amici brief 

in this litigation asserting that the Clean Water Act is 

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important to their own water policies.[7] These amici

note, among other things, that the Act protects 

downstream States from out-of-state pollution that 

they cannot themselves regulate. 

Id at 777. Justice Stevens and the three other dissenters who 

joined him would have held that it was reasonable and 

 

7 We recognize that private parties may rely on the 

Constitution’s structural division of labor between states and 

the federal Government to argue that one has gone too far. 

See, e.g., United States v. Morrison, 529 U.S. 598, 654 (2000) 

(Souter, J. dissenting) (“Thirty-six [states] and the 

Commonwealth of Puerto Rico have filed an amicus brief in 

support of petitioners in these cases, and only one State has 

taken respondents’ side. It is, then, not the least irony of these 

cases that the States will be forced to enjoy the new 

federalism whether they want it or not.”). And in any event 

the rooting interests of the states (both those directly affected 

by the TMDL and others) are not one-sided here. None of the 

seven states within the Chesapeake Bay’s watershed sued the 

EPA over this TMDL. Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, and the 

District of Columbia have filed briefs in support of the 

District Court’s decision, while West Virginia has signed on 

to the amici brief of states that oppose the EPA’s decision. 

The other states (Pennsylvania and New York) are on the 

sidelines, but local governments are involved: municipalities 

from both states have filed amici briefs in favor of the EPA; 

on the other hand, six Pennsylvania counties and one 

Delaware county have filed a brief in support of Farm 

Bureau. Last, 21 other states have filed an amici brief in 

support of Farm Bureau, relying primarily on federalism 

arguments. 

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constitutional for the Corps to include within the definition of 

“waters of the United States” wetlands that drain into 

navigable waters. Id. at 788.

Notwithstanding the constitutional concerns raised in 

those cases, SWANCC and Rapanos are easily distinguishable 

on the critical and obvious ground that we are not concerned 

here with a small intrastate area of wetland; we are dealing 

with North America’s largest estuary. Indeed, the Rapanos

plurality approvingly quoted a previous case for the 

proposition that “‘[i]n view of the breadth of federal 

regulatory authority contemplated by the Act itself and the 

inherent difficulties of defining precise bounds to regulable 

waters, the Corps’ ecological judgment about the relationship 

between waters and their adjacent wetlands provides an 

adequate basis for a legal judgment that adjacent wetlands 

may be defined as waters under the Act.’” Id. at 740–41 

(quoting United States v. Riverside Bayview Homes, Inc., 474 

U.S. 121, 134 (1985) (emphasis in Rapanos)). It is beyond 

debate that navigable-in-fact waters are regulable and that the 

Chesapeake Bay is navagible-in-fact. SWANCC and Rapanos 

are also distinguishable because no one here is challenging 

the EPA’s authority to set a total maximum daily load; rather, 

Farm Bureau challenges how the EPA is allowed to express 

the load and what it may consider in drafting the TMDL. 

And, although Justice Kennedy’s concurrence is Delphic on 

this point, it appears that in Rapanos five Justices had no 

constitutional concerns. For us, the key point is that, in terms 

of the conflict between state and federal regulatory authority, 

we are far removed from SWANCC and Rapanos.

Because the TMDL forms part of a plan to clean up a 

channel of interstate commerce, we have no constitutional 

concerns with the EPA’s interpretation of the statute.

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5. Conclusion With Respect to Step 

One

“Total” is susceptible to multiple meanings. 

Interpreting “total maximum daily load” as requiring one 

number and nothing more is in tight tension with the Clean 

Water Act’s goal of providing a cooperative framework for 

states and the federal Government to work together to 

eliminate water pollution. The Act’s structure supports that 

TMDLs need to account for point and nonpoint sources, but 

the Act is silent on how to account for those sources. It is 

also silent on (1) whether the EPA in calculating a TMDL 

may consider and express the time frames within which it and 

the states will strive to achieve water quality standards and 

(2) the extent to which the EPA may consider and express 

whether a state will meet the goals it sets (the “reasonable 

assurance” requirement). Last, the APA prefers overt rather 

than covert reasoning by agencies. For these reasons, we 

conclude that the phrase “total maximum daily load” is 

ambiguous enough to allow the EPA to include the elements 

of the TMDL challenged here.

D. Chevron Step Two

We briefly summarize the reasoning from Step One 

that also supports the EPA’s Step Two argument (Farm 

Bureau merely repeats its Step One contentions at Step Two, 

so there is no need to dive too deep here). As noted above, 

“total” can mean “a sum of parts,” and interpreting “total” 

that way gives greater guidance to states in cleaning their 

waters, provides greater transparency to the public who may 

comment on a TMDL, and furthers the Act’s requirement that 

the TMDL account for both point and nonpoint sources. 

Moreover, expressing the allocation of pollution limits 

between the EPA-regulated point sources and state-regulated 

nonpoint sources furthers the Clean Water Act’s goal of 

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achieving water quality standards. Including deadlines in a 

TMDL furthers the Act’s goal that the TMDL promptly 

achieve something beneficial (recall that the enacting 

Congress’s goal was to have the Nation’s waters clean by 

1985), and the reasonable assurance requirement helps guide 

the EPA’s discretion in determining whether to approve a 

TMDL or a state’s mandatory “continuing planning process,” 

which must include the TMDL, 33 U.S.C. § 1313(e), as it 

would surely be arbitrary or capricious for the EPA to 

approve a plan that a state is incapable of following. 

In addition to the factors just discussed, at Step Two 

we may consider legislative history to the extent that it may 

clarify the policies framing the statute.8 And we must 

 

8

In United States v. Geiser, 527 F.3d 288, 294 (3d Cir. 2008), 

we wrote “that legislative history should not be considered at 

Chevron step one.” This statement is a well-considered 

precedent of our Court, and we adhere to it here.

There is an argument that Geiser’s language excising 

legislative history from Step One is too broad. It derives 

from discussions of how to construe unambiguous language. 

See id., 527 F.3d at 293 (citing Zuni Pub. Sch. Dist. 89 v. 

Dep’t of Educ., 550 U.S. 81, 93 (2007); Dep’t of Hous. & 

Urban Dev. v. Rucker, 535 U.S. 125, 132–33 (2002)). 

Legislative history is generally not used to assess whether the 

words of a statute are ambiguous or to interpret unambiguous 

words. See Milner v. Dep’t of Navy, 131 S. Ct. 1259, 1267 

(2011). But at Step One we consider (1) whether a statute is 

ambiguous, and, if so, (2) whether the agency’s interpretation 

falls within the scope of the ambiguity and (3) whether the 

ambiguity signifies a congressional delegation. See supra 

Part IV.A (discussing content of Chevron inquiry); United 

States v. Home Concrete & Supply, LLC, 132 S. Ct. 1836, 

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1844 (2012) (opinion of Breyer, J.) (concluding despite 

“linguistic ambiguity” that Congress had not “delegated gapfilling power to the agency”). Legislative history can be 

helpful in the latter inquiries. If, for example, a committee 

report notes that Congress has left a gap for an agency to fill, 

one might question whether that would be relevant to a judge 

who considers the use of legislative history to be permissible. 

See, e.g., H.R. Rep 92-911 at 93 (“The use of the word 

‘generally’ is intended to provide the Administrator with 

some discretion . . . .”). 

Geiser’s holding on when we may consult legislative 

history in construing statutes is arguably in tension with the 

Supreme Court’s general practice of declining to make 

interpretive methodologies binding (as academics put it, the 

Court typically avoids “methodological stare decisis”), 

particularly in the context of legislative history. See Evan J. 

Criddle & Glen Staszewski, Against Methodological Stare 

Decisis, 102 Geo. L.J. 1573, 1576 (2014) (“[F]ederal courts 

do not treat interpretive methodology as a traditional form of 

‘law,’ and federal judges are therefore permitted to use 

whichever interpretive methods they prefer to resolve each 

particular case.”); Abbe R. Gluck, The States as Laboratories 

of Statutory Interpretation: Methodological Consensus and 

the New Modified Textualism, 119 Yale L.J. 1750, 1765 

(2010) (“Indeed, the Court does not give stare decisis effect to 

any statements of statutory interpretation methodology.” 

(emphasis in original)); Jordan Wilder Connors, Treating Like 

Subdecisions Alike: The Scope of Stare Decisis as Applied to 

Judicial Methodology, 108 Colum. L. Rev. 681, 707 (2008); 

Jonathan R. Siegel, The Polymorphic Principle and the 

Judicial Role in Statutory Interpretation, 84 Tex. L. Rev. 339, 

389 (2005); Nicholas Quinn Rosenkranz, Federal Rules of 

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consider whether the agency made “‘a reasonable policy 

choice’” in its interpretation. Brand X, 545 U.S. at 997 

(quoting Chevron, 467 U.S. at 845).

Although the parties do not cite any pre-enactment 

legislative history that describes the meaning of “total 

maximum daily load,” one committee report, by the House 

Public Works Committee, commented in discussing draft 

legislation that “[a] maximum daily load shall also be 

developed by a State for all waters within its boundaries 

which are not identified as requiring more stringent effluent 

limitations to meet water quality standards. The committee 

recognizes that this is a time-consuming and difficult task.” 

H.R. Rep. No. 92-911, at 106 (1972). This is the only 

discussion in the pre-enactment legislative history of the 

TMDL requirement, and it provides no help beyond 

recognizing that developing a TMDL is “time consuming and 

difficult.” If anything, this undercuts the idea that a TMDL is 

just a number, but it offers only weak support at best for the 

EPA.

Post-enactment developments are more informative. 

Specifically, in 1987, after the EPA had defined “total 

maximum daily load” as the sum of waste load allocations for 

point sources and load allocations for nonpoint sources, 

Congress added § 1313(d)(4)(A) & (B) governing the 

revision of effluent limitations “based on a total maximum 

daily load or other waste load allocation established under 

 

Statutory Interpretation, 115 Harv. L. Rev. 2085, 2144–45 

(2002). However, as whether we consider legislative history 

at Step One or Step Two does not affect the outcome of this 

case, we have no occasion to explore further the contours of 

this debate. We follow the instruction in Geiser and turn to 

the relevant legislative history at Chevron’s second step.

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this section.” P.L. 100-4 § 404(b) (Feb. 4, 1987) (emphasis 

added). The word “other” suggests that a TMDL contains a 

waste load allocation. Interestingly, § 1313 makes no 

reference to a “waste load allocation”; that phrase occurs only 

in the EPA’s regulations. The EPA therefore has a strong 

argument that Congress not only agreed to its definition of 

TMDL as the sum of load and waste load allocations, but also 

affirmatively incorporated the EPA’s rule in an addition to the 

statute.

A second development in 1987 was that Congress 

ratified the Chesapeake Bay Program, a voluntary partnership 

among several watershed states and the EPA. See 33 U.S.C. 

§ 1267. The 1987 legislation supported cleanup efforts by a 

program of grants and study; in 2000 Congress added 

§ 1267(g), which directed the EPA to “ensure that 

management plans are developed and implementation is 

begun” to meet the goals of the Chesapeake Bay Agreement. 

Although § 1267 does not add to the EPA’s regulatory 

authority, it strongly suggests that cleaning up the Bay is a 

priority for Congress and that it did not have a problem with 

the EPA’s role in developing goals for the watershed even 

though the EPA had promulgated its TMDL rules long before 

§ 1267 was added to the U.S. Code.

Farm Bureau claims that Congress, far from 

acquiescing to the regulatory definitions of the EPA, has 

specifically rejected its “reasonable assurance” requirement 

by blocking implementation of an EPA rule in 2000. 68 Fed. 

Reg. 13,608–09 (Mar. 19, 2003). As the EPA convincingly 

counters, the entire rule was blocked for just one year, 

contained dozens of changes to the EPA’s Clean Water Act 

regulations (which included the reasonable assurance 

requirement), and was ultimately withdrawn in its entirety in 

2003. Farm Bureau gives no reason to think that Congress 

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blocked the rule because of the reasonable assurance 

requirement. 

Although legislative history in general and 

“congressional acquiescence” in particular are controversial 

legal methods, to the extent they have the power to persuade, 

they provide support to the EPA that it has reasonably carried 

out Congress’s directives in administering the TMDL section 

of the Clean Water Act.

More to the point, even Farm Bureau “agree[s] with 

EPA that developing source limits, assurances, and deadlines 

is useful.” Reply Br. at 2. Although Farm Bureau claims that 

the Chesapeake Bay will be cleaned up without EPA 

intervention, the contention defies common sense and 

experience. The Clean Water Act sought to eliminate water 

pollution by 1985, but by 2010 62% of the Bay had 

insufficient oxygen to support aquatic life, and only 18% of 

the Bay had acceptable water clarity. NGO Response Br. at 

6.

In an important article on the allocation of property 

rights in land, Robert Ellickson distinguished among small, 

medium, and large events (using, he acknowledged tongue-incheek, “highly sophisticated adjectives”). Robert C. 

Ellickson, Property in Land, 102 Yale L.J. 1315, 1325 

(1993). “Large events,” he noted, “are inherently difficult to 

regulate. Identifying the institutions that govern them best—

or, more bluntly, least badly—should be an exercise in 

experience, not logic.” Id. at 1335. The drainage of 64,000 

square miles of land into the continent’s largest estuary 

qualifies as a large event, and it has proved difficult to 

regulate. Our experience in state regulation of water 

pollution gave environmentalists poster material in the 1969 

burning of the Cuyahoga River, the consequence of a classic 

“tragedy of the commons,” which occurs when society fails to 

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create incentives to use a common resource responsibly. See 

Garrett Hardin, The Tragedy of the Commons, 162 Science 

1243, 1244 (1968). Producers of industrial waste used the 

Cuyahoga River to diffuse oil and other chemicals—and thus 

the river “ooze[d] rather than flow[ed]” and a person who fell 

in would “not drown but decay”—until the waste caught fire. 

Time, America’s Sewage System and the Price of Optimism 

(Aug. 1, 1969). In response to that fire and to the general 

degradation of American water that followed the post-war 

industrial boom, Congress determined that the EPA should 

have a leadership role in coordinating among states to restore 

the Nation’s waters to something approaching their natural 

state. See 33 U.S.C. § 1251. The EPA has carried out that 

duty by publishing approximately 61,000 TMDLs with a level 

of detail commensurate with the challenge of cleaning and 

maintaining our waters. The EPA’s approach makes sense, as 

even Farm Bureau acknowledges, and therefore represents a 

reasonable policy choice at Chevron’s second step.

Farm Bureau’s reading of the Act would stymie the 

EPA’s ability to coordinate among all the competing possible 

uses of the resources that affect the Bay. At best, it would 

shift the burden of meeting water quality standards to point 

source polluters, but regulating them alone would not result in 

a clean Bay. See supra Part IV.B.3.i (explaining how 33 

U.S.C. § 1313(d) requires “impaired waters” to be listed only 

when point source regulation is insufficient to meet water 

quality standards). As the Supreme Court has admonished in 

the water-pollution context, “We cannot, in these 

circumstances, conclude that Congress has given authority 

inadequate to achieve with reasonable effectiveness the 

purposes for which it has acted.” E.I. Du Pont De Nemours v. 

Train, 430 U.S. 112, 132 (1977) (quoting Permian Basin 

Area Rate Cases, 390 U.S. 747, 777 (1968)). Establishing a 

comprehensive, watershed-wide TMDL—complete with 

allocations among different kinds of sources, a timetable, and 

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reasonable assurance that it will actually be implemented—is 

reasonable and reflects a legitimate policy choice by the 

agency in administering a less-than-clear statute. Therefore 

we uphold these decisions at Chevron Step Two.

V. Conclusion

Water pollution in the Chesapeake Bay is a complex 

problem currently affecting at least 17,000,000 people (with 

more to come). Any solution to it will result in winners and 

losers. To judge from the arguments and the amici briefs 

filed in this case, the winners are environmental groups, the 

states that border the Bay, tourists, fishermen, municipal 

waste water treatment works, and urban centers. The losers 

are rural counties with farming operations, nonpoint source 

polluters, the agricultural industry, and those states that would 

prefer a lighter touch from the EPA. Congress made a 

judgment in the Clean Water Act that the states and the EPA 

could, working together, best allocate the benefits and 

burdens of lowering pollution. The Chesapeake Bay TMDL 

will require sacrifice by many, but that is a consequence of 

the tremendous effort it will take to restore health to the 

Bay—to make it once again a part of our “land of living,” 

Robert Frost, The Gift Outright line 10—a goal our elected 

representatives have repeatedly endorsed. Farm Bureau’s 

arguments to the contrary are unpersuasive, and thus we 

affirm the careful and thorough opinion of the District Court.

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