Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-cand-3_05-cv-05184/USCOURTS-cand-3_05-cv-05184-3/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 893
Nature of Suit: Environmental Matters
Cause of Action: 28:1391 Personal Injury

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United States District Court

For the Northern District of California

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IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

FOR THE NORTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA

OUR CHILDREN’S EARTH FOUNDATION

AND SIERRA CLUB,

Plaintiffs,

 v.

UNITED STATES ENVIRONMENTAL

PROTECTION AGENCY AND STEPHEN L.

JOHNSON, Administrator, U.S. EPA,

Defendants. /

No. C 05-05184 WHA

ORDER DENYING MOTION TO

INTERVENE

INTRODUCTION

In this action alleging failure of defendants Environmental Protection Agency and its

Administrator, Stephen L. Johnson, to review air-pollution regulations, the American Petroleum

Institute and the National Petrochemical and Refiners Association apply to intervene. 

Applicants’ interest in the purely procedural issues presented by this action are contingent and

attenuated. They therefore lack the significantly protectable interest required to have a right to

intervene. Their claimed interest is also too weak to justify permissive intervention. The

motion therefore is DENIED. 

STATEMENT

Plaintiffs Our Children’s Earth Foundation and the Sierra Club allege that defendant

Stephen L. Johnson failed to perform nondiscretionary duties to review emissions standards for

existing (as opposed to new) petroleum refineries (Compl. 1, ¶ 4). The Clean Air Act requires

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the Administrator to “review, and revise as necessary . . . emission standards . . . no less often

than every 8 years.” 42 U.S.C. 7412(d)(6). The standards are based partly on what pollutioncontrol technology is available. 42 U.S.C. 7412(d)(2)–(3). The relative health risks of various

amounts of emissions is also a factor. 42 U.S.C. 7412(f)(2). Plaintiffs sought, in their

complaint, (1) a declaration that the Administrator unlawfully had failed to perform his duty to

review the regulations, (2) an injunction requiring him to issue proposed rules and final rules (or

a finding that none is needed) within six months, and (3) litigation costs (Compl. 11–12). 

Defendants do not dispute liability for not having conducted the review process on time

(Defs.’ Resp. 1). The last time they issued a rule was in 1995, putting them about 2.5 years

behind schedule. See National Emission Standards for Hazardous Air Pollutants: Petroleum

Refineries, 60 Fed. Reg. 43,244 (Aug. 18, 1995). Defendants and plaintiffs have lodged a

proposed consent decree to settle this action. The proposed decree would drop the schedule

requested in the complaint. Instead, it would require the EPA to propose revisions to the

emission levels, or propose that no revisions are needed, within twelve months. By a year later,

the EPA would be required to produce final revisions or a final determination that none are

needed (Consent Decree ¶¶ 4–5). The decree is only proposed because it must go through a

period of public comment on it. After the comments are received, the EPA must consider them

before deciding whether to agree to the final decree (Notice of Lodging Consent Decree ¶¶

1–3). See 42 U.S.C. 7413(g) (public-comment requirement). 

Intervenor applicant National Petrochemical and Refiners Association represents more

than 450 petroleum-refining and petrochemical companies (Slaughter Decl. ¶ 2). The other

applicant, American Petroleum Institute, represents more than 400 oil and gas companies,

including some that own and operate petroleum refineries in the United States (Ng Decl. ¶¶ 2,

4). A change in the regulations might affect the operations of both associations’ members (id.

¶¶ 3, 5; Slaughter Decl. ¶¶ 4–5). 

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 Applicants mistakenly impute to defendants an opposition to applicants’ intervention in the liability

phase (Reply 6). Although defendants would acquiesce in applicants’ intervention in the remedial phase, they

took no position on intervention in the liability phase (Defs.’ Resp. to Mot. to Intervene 2). 

2

 Although a twelve-month deadline is set, an extension of up to sixty days is permitted upon

stipulation of the parties or upon court order (Compl. ¶ 6). 

3

ANALYSIS

1. INTERVENTION AS OF RIGHT.

A court must permit a party to intervene in a civil action if (1) that party claims a

“significantly protectable interest” relating to the property or transaction which is the subject of

the action, (2) disposition of the action may, as a practical matter, impair or impede the

applicant’s ability to protect that interest, (3) the motion is timely and (4) the applicant’s

interest is not adequately represented by existing parties. FRCP 24(a); Donaldson v. United

States, 400 U.S. 517, 542 (1971) (requiring “significantly protectable interest”). The rule must

be interpreted broadly in favor of intervention. Forest Conservation Council v. U.S. Forest

Serv., 66 F.3d 1489, 1493 (9th Cir. 1995). 

Plaintiffs’ only objections to the motion are (1) that applicants do not have an adequate

interest in the “property or transaction which is the subject of [this] action,” FRCP 24(a)(2); (2)

that applicants are represented adequately by defendants and (3) that the motion is moot

because of the consent decree. Defendants do not object.1

The first step in analyzing whether applicants have a protected interest is to determine

the subject of the action. This action does not concern property. It concerns instead a process:

the agency review of the regulations. Such a process is treated as a “transaction” under FRCP

24(a)(2). The relevant issues are both whether the review is mandated and late and, if it is, by

when it actually will be completed. 

Refineries owned by applicants’ members are affected by EPA emissions rules. 

Applicants worry that more stringent regulations would increase their members’ costs (Br. 4). 

Their “central concern,” however, is that defendants will not be able to do a “sound job” on the

review within the time period proposed in the decree (Reply 8). Applicants misstate the

relevant time period as twelve to fourteen months.2

 In fact, that is how long the EPA would

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have to make a proposal. It would have another twelve to fourteen months to make revisions. 

Applicants also claim that the emissions-technology review sought by plaintiffs may not be

required if the EPA has determined that pollution levels are safe (Reply 3–4). Applicants do

not, however, claim that EPA has found the pollution levels to be safe. This issue therefore

does not state an interest related to this action. 

At the hearing, discussion focused on whether or not the emissions-technology review is

mandatory or discretionary. It also focused on the related subject of whether the review must be

performed independently or in conjunction with assessment of health dangers likely to remain

after implementation of new technology. This issue, while significant, does not have a direct

bearing on applicants’ entitlement to intervene. It goes instead to the merits of the question, “Is

the EPA’s duty discretionary?” Whichever way this question is answered, applicants’ interest

in the question remains the same. In other words, applicants’ interest must be evaluated in light

of the questions presented, not by the ultimate answers to them. The merits of the issues

mentioned immediately above therefore will be deferred to another day. 

Applicants may adequately protect their members’ financial interests by advocating for

less stringent standards during the EPA rule-making process itself. The Administrator must

consider such comments because the Clean Air Act requires that he consider the cost of

emissions control when promulgating rules. 42 U.S.C. 7412(d)(2). The substantive content of

any new regulations, is not, however, a subject of this lawsuit. The only issue is whether the

Administrator will review the rules and by when he will act on the findings of his review. This

lawsuit will not determine whether the rules will change, much less what any changes might be. 

Applicants’ financial interests in the regulations’ content therefore do not relate directly to the

transactions that are the subject of this action. For that reason, those interests do not provide a

basis to intervene. 

Without a review process, of course, the standards will remain the same, thus preventing

increases in pollution-control spending at refineries. The connection between this lawsuit and

any potential increase is, however, too vague, attenuated and contingent to satisfy Rule 24(a). 

Applicants cite no authority stating that such a speculative connection is enough. If it were, we

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 Applicants also fail to acknowledge that the decree’s schedule is not set in stone. Upon motion, it

would be subject to modification by the Court. 

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would face an unwieldy group of intervenors. People who breathe polluted air (i.e., almost

everyone) could intervene because weaker regulations would increase their health costs. The

interest requirement’s purpose is to involve “as many apparently concerned persons as is

compatible with efficiency and due process.” Portland Audubon Soc’y. v. Hodel, 866 F.2d 302,

308 (9th Cir. 1989). Such a crush of intervenors would not be compatible with efficiency and

might impede the original parties due-process interest in prompt adjudication. 

Applicants also have no protectable interest in preventing defendants from conducting

the review. If the Administrator decided on his own to review the regulations, applicants would

not have a basis to stop him. Nor do they allege that they would have such standing. 

Finally, applicants have no protectable interest in delaying the review process longer

than 28 months, the maximum total time proposed from entry of the decree until a final

decision. They do not cite any authority for the proposition that 28 months is too quick,

especially given that defendants admit they are already 2.5 years late. Instead, applicants offer

the bald assertion that the fourteen-month period until the initial proposal “is lightening speed in

the federal bureaucracy” (Reply 7). One is tempted to say that it is about time. There is nothing

wrong with lightening speed if it produces lawful results. During the review, applicants will

have a protected interest in addressing the content of the regulations. If the review’s speed

causes substantive deficiencies in any final rules, applicants then might have a protected

interest. But mere speculation, before the process has even begun, is not enough.3

In similarly attenuated circumstances, the Supreme Court and the Ninth Circuit have

upheld the denial of a motion to intervene. In Donaldson v. United States, the Supreme Court

held that a person under civil investigation for failure to pay income tax did not have a

protectable interest in preventing his former employer from disclosing its employment records

to the Internal Revenue Service. The taxpayer was concerned that disclosure of the records

might eventually lead to a financial obligation for him. But such a speculative fear of the

consequences was not enough. The court held that “the taxpayer’s interest is not enough and is

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not of sufficient magnitude for us to conclude that he is to be allowed to intervene.” 400 U.S. at

542. 

In Portland Audubon Society v. Hodel, the Ninth Circuit held that a logging contractors

and a logging advocacy group did not have a sufficient interest to intervene in a claim that the

federal government had violated its environmental-review duties. 866 F.2d 302, 310 (9th Cir.

1989). The applicants’ economic interest was “based upon a bare expectation” because that

they did not have permission to log in the areas affected by the claim. Sierra Club v. EPA, 995

F.2d 1478, 1482 (9th Cir. 1993). The potential financial loss therefore was purely speculative. 

In contrast, Sierra Club involved pollution-discharge permits that already had issued. The court

held that the existence of a vested interest in Sierra Club distinguished it from Portland

Audubon Society, meriting intervention in the former whereas none was justified in the latter. 

Forest Conservation Council also suggests that more direct connections are required

than applicants here present. In that decision, the Ninth Circuit stated that the interest test was

satisfied “when . . . the injunctive relief sought by plaintiffs will have direct, immediate, and

harmful effects upon a third party’s . . . interests.” 66 F.3d at 1494 (emphasis added). The

relief plaintiffs here seek would not have such an effect on applicants. 

Neither the parties nor applicants have pointed to any appellate decisions that involved a

motion to intervene made by regulated entities in a lawsuit seeking only to compel review of

regulations. The Court’s did not find any Ninth Circuit authority directly on point. Other

circuits have spoken. In American Lung Association v. Reilly, 962 F.2d 258 (2d Cir. 1992), the

plaintiffs alleged that the EPA had failed to comply with a requirement that it review ozone

standards every five years. It sought an injunction requiring the EPA to either revise the

standards or determine that none were needed, within six months. Electric utilities and their

trade groups sought to intervene. The Second Circuit upheld the denial of the motion. The

district judge had held that “the utilities’ interest in the subject matter of the action was based

on a ‘double contingency’ of events: ‘first, the plaintiffs must prevail in this lawsuit and,

second, the defendants mus then downwardly revise the [ozone standards]. . . . These interests

were “too ‘remote from the subject matter of the proceeding’ and too ‘contingent upon the

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 In the Second Circuit, orders on motions to intervene as of right are reviewed under a more lenient

standard than in the Ninth Circuit. In the Second Circuit, the review is for abuse of discretion. Am. Lung Ass’n,

962 F.2d at 261. In the Ninth Circuit, it is de novo review except as to timeliness, which is subject to an abuse

of discretion standard. Forest Conservation Council, 66 F.3d at 1493. There is nothing to indicate, however,

that American Lung Association would have been decided differently under the more stringent standards of the

Ninth Circuit. 

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occurrence of a series of events.’” Id. 260–61. This decision therefore counsels denial of the

instant motion.4

 

Similarly, in ManaSota-88, Inc. v. Tidwell, 896 F.2d 1318 (11th Cir. 1990), the applicant

was a group of electricity providers who sought to intervene on a claim that the EPA unlawfully

had approved of Florida’s failure to identify particularly polluted waterways and to set waterpollution limits for them. The plaintiffs sought to compel the EPA to identify the polluted water

bodies and set the rules itself. Applicants asserted an interest in this issue based on that fact

that, if the EPA review identified the waterways where they discharged pollution as subpar,

they would have to meet the new standards and therefore incur higher costs. The court held that

“whether [the applicant’s] members discharge into a water body eventually specified as

[noncompliant] is purely a matter of speculation at this time. . . . [S]uch a generalized grievance

does not impart to [the applicant] the kind of legally protectable interest in the . . . litigation

necessary to support intervention as of right.” Id. at 1322. This decision also supports the

result reached on the instant motion. 

District court decisions also support the holding here. In Cronin v. Browner, 898 F.

Supp. 1052 (S.D.N.Y. 1995), electric utilities sought to intervene after environmental groups

and the EPA had proposed a consent decree. The applicants asserted an interest in whether

certain pollution rules had to be promulgated, the procedures for doing so and the rules’

ultimate content. The court held that 

where, as here, Proposed Intervenors can offer no evidence that (1)

their views will not be taken into account in the administrative

process . . .; (2) their interests will be prejudiced as a result of the

timetable . . . contained in the Consent Decree; or (3) EPA is under

any obligation imposed by the proposed Consent Decree to issue

certain substantive regulations, or any regulations at all, there is

simply no basis for concluding that intervention is warranted.

Id. at 1063. These findings apply equally to the instant motion. 

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In Environmental Defense v. Leavitt, 329 F. Supp. 2d 55 (D.D.C. 2004), an

environmental group sued the EPA to force it to promulgate regulations it claimed were

overdue. When an industry group sought to intervene, the parties already had proposed a

consent decree that set deadlines for issuance of the regulations. The complaint and consent

decree did not ask for any particular regulation. The applicant claimed to have a “protectable

interest in ensuring that any rule promulgated by EPA . . . is adopted after due deliberation and

is not artificially expedited.” In short, the facts and arguments were almost identical to those

relevant to the instant motion. The judge rejected the applicant’s argument, holding that the

group had failed to show “that the suggested timetable is inadequate or that modifications

. . . are likely to be necessary, and that any such inadequacies or modifications would result in

injury or impairment to [the applicant].” The court also noted that the decree would not affect

“the substance of EPA’s rulemaking, either by limiting or expanding EPA’s authority.” The

same holding is appropriate in the instant motion. 

A contrary result was reached by the late Judge Orrick in Sierra Club v. Ruckelshaus,

602 F. Supp. 892 (N.D. Cal. 1984). In that case, the EPA was late issuing air-pollution

regulations and the Sierra Club sued for a judgement ordering the agency to issue the rules. A

mining group moved to intervene. None of the parties opposed the motion. Judge Orrick

granted it. He did not, however, analyze the sufficiency of the applicant’s interest. Instead, he

skipped to whether it would be impaired by the action. The instant order, by contrast, must

focus on the interest requirement as both a statutory command and the chief contested issue on

this opposed motion to intervene. To the extent this order runs counter to the result in

Ruckelshaus, however, the Court respectfully disagrees with that order. Id. at 895–96. 

Also, Judge Wilken reached an arguably contrary result in Our Children’s Earth

Foundation v. U.S. EPA, No. C 05-0094 CW (N.D. Cal.). In her Order Granting In Part and

Denying In Part Motion for Leave to Intervene as Defendants, Judge Wilken permitted the same

applicants to intervene in the remedy stage of the action, which concerned air-pollution from

new (as opposed to existing) refineries. She ruled that the applicants had an interest in the rulemaking procedures under 42 U.S.C. 7607. She held that their interest in the procedures was

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threatened by the civil action, because the remedy might abridge the normal Section 7607

process. Order at 4 (May 4, 2005). In the instant action, applicants do not allege that the

protections of Section 7607 would be affected. There is no reason to believe that they would

be. The schedules proposed in both the complaint and the proposed consent decree appear to

exceed the normal time periods for agency action required by Section 7607. See 42 U.S.C.

7607(d). Neither applicants nor any party argue to the contrary. Furthermore, to the extent that

applicants have a protectable interest in the rule-making process, it is no greater than that of

anyone else. To allow intervention as of right to so many would make a mess of the system. It

also would not be compatible with the Ninth Circuit’s stated goal of allowing the participation

of “as many apparently concerned persons as is compatible with efficiency and due

process,” Portland Audubon Soc’y., 866 F.2d at 308 (emphasis added). 

This order concludes, for the reasons stated, that applicants do not have an significantly

protectable interest in the subject matter of this lawsuit. They therefore have failed to satisfy a

prerequisite to intervening as of right. The Court therefore has no need to analyze whether

applicants are adequately represented by defendants. 

2. PERMISSIVE INTERVENTION. 

Applicants move alternatively for permissive intervention under Rule 24(b). To

intervene under that rule, an applicant must show that it has a claim or defense that shares a

question fact or law with the action. FRCP 24(b)(2). In deciding such a motion, a court must

consider whether intervention would “unduly delay or prejudice the adjudication of the rights of

the original parties.” FRCP 24(b). To intervene under Rule 24(b), the applicant need not have

any direct personal or pecuniary interest in the subject of the litigation. Kootenai Tribe of Idaho

v. Veneman, 313 F.3d 1094, 1108 (9th Cir. 2002). 

Applicants do not qualify for intervention under Rule 24(b) because they do not assert

any claim or defense. They failed to comply with Rule 24(c)’s requirement that they submit,

along with their motion, a “pleading setting forth the claim or defense for which intervention is

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 This is not a situation where applicants allege that they are involved in related litigation, such that

their absence here would result in a daisy-chain of litigation that might be resolved in one fell swoop if all

parties were joined in this action. Compare Order Granting Mot. to Intervene, Ctr. for Biological Diversity v.

U.S. Fish & Wildlife Serv., No. C 04-4324 WHA (N.D. Cal. May 30, 2005). 

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sought.” Without filing such a pleading, applicants have not asserted any claim or defense at

all. They therefore do not satisfy the prerequisites to discretionary intervention.5

 

CONCLUSION

For the reasons stated, applicants’ motion to intervene is DENIED. 

IT IS SO ORDERED.

Dated: May 11, 2006 WILLIAM ALSUP

UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE

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