Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-caDC-96-01109/USCOURTS-caDC-96-01109-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Carol M. Browner
Respondent
Environmental Protection Agency
Respondent
State of Texas
Petitioner

Document Text:

<<The pagination in this PDF may not match the actual pagination in the printed slip opinion>>

United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

Argued April 22, 1997 Decided June 6, 1997 

No. 96-1107

STATE OF NEW MEXICO, THOMAS S. UDALL, ATTORNEY GENERAL,

PETITIONER

v.

ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY AND 

CAROL M. BROWNER, ADMINISTRATOR, U.S. ENVIRONMENTAL

PROTECTION AGENCY,

RESPONDENTS

Consolidated with

Nos. 96-1108, 96-1109

On Petitions for Review of an Order of the 

Environmental Protection Agency

Lindsay A. Lovejoy, Jr., Assistant Attorney General, State 

of New Mexico, argued the cause for petitioner. With her on 

the briefs were Thomas S. Udall, Attorney General, New 

USCA Case #96-1109 Document #276928 Filed: 06/06/1997 Page 1 of 10
<<The pagination in this PDF may not match the actual pagination in the printed slip opinion>>

Mexico, Manuel Tijerina, Jr., Deputy Attorney General, New 

Mexico, and Hal R. Ray, Jr. and Nancy Elizabeth Olinger,

Assistant Attorneys General, State of Texas, and Margot J. 

Steadman.

Alice L. Mattice and Scott A. Schachter, Attorneys, U.S. 

Department of Justice, argued the cause for respondents. 

With them on the briefs were Lois J. Schiffer, Assistant 

Attorney General, and Vickie L. Patton, Attorney, Environmental Protection Agency.

Before: EDWARDS, Chief Judge, WILLIAMS and RANDOLPH, 

Circuit Judges.

Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge WILLIAMS.

WILLIAMS, Circuit Judge: In 1979 Congress authorized the 

Department of Energy to construct a demonstration project 

for the disposal of radioactive waste from national defense 

activities. The Department has since been at work on the 

facility, known as the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant or "WIPP." 

But it cannot put the plant into operation until the Environmental Protection Agency has certified the plant as complying with EPA's disposal regulations for radioactive wastes, 40 

CFR Part 191 B, §§ 191.11-17 ("disposal regulations"); see 

WIPP Land Withdrawal Act of 1992, Pub. L. No. 102-579, 

§§ 7(b)(1), 8(d)(1), 106 Stat. 4777, amended by WIPP Land 

Withdrawal Amendment Act of 1996, Pub. L. No. 

104-201, 110 Stat. 2422 (with amendments, the "WIPP Act"). 

The key disposal regulation, the "containment requirement," 

reflects a recognition of the stochastic nature of the inquiry, 

and is framed in terms of probabilities. It requires that the 

disposal system be designed with a reasonable expectation 

that over a 10,000-year period it will have less than one 

chance in 10 of exceeding certain release limits, and less than 

one chance in 1000 of exceeding ten times those limits. 40 

CFR § 191.13. The regulations also require disposal system 

operators to take certain measures intended to assure fulfillment of this expectation. See generally id. Part 191.

At issue here is an intermediate step in the process

"criteria" issued by EPA, as required by Congress, for carrying out the certification of WIPP's compliance with the disUSCA Case #96-1109 Document #276928 Filed: 06/06/1997 Page 2 of 10
<<The pagination in this PDF may not match the actual pagination in the printed slip opinion>>

posal regulations. Criteria for the Certification and Recertification of the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant's Compliance with 

the 40 CFR Part 191 Disposal Regulations, 61 Fed. Reg. 5224 

(February 9, 1996) (codified at 40 CFR Part 194) ("Final 

Rule"); see WIPP Act § 8(c)(2) (requiring promulgation of 

"criteria").

Petitioners argue that the resulting guidelines are not 

specific enough to qualify as "criteria" under the congressional mandate. They also attack several of the criteria as 

arbitrary and capricious and say that EPA's rulemaking 

procedures were defective.

* * *

Specificity of criteria

Petitioners define "criterion" as a "standard, rule or test by 

which something can be judged," quoting Webster's New 

World Dictionary of the American Language (2d coll. ed. 

1982), a definition EPA does not dispute. This doesn't get us 

very far. "Criteria," as well as the dictionary's proffered 

equivalents, are ambiguous as to the level of specificity at 

which they may be promulgated, and the statute says nothing 

to suggest that the criteria must be detailed or quantitative. 

Under the standard analysis of Chevron U.S.A., Inc. v. 

NRDC, 467 U.S. 837 (1984), therefore, we defer to EPA's 

judgment on this question if it is reasonable. Metropolitan 

Wash. Airports Auth. Prof'l Fire Fighters Ass'n v. United 

States, 959 F.2d 297, 300 (D.C. Cir. 1992) (judicial deference 

at its highest in reviewing such policy choices as the level of 

generality for norms implementing legislative mandate); 

NRDC v. EPA, 907 F.2d 1146, 1165 n.16 (D.C. Cir. 1990) 

("level of generality ... [of] regulations would turn on congressional intent ... with the agency's view entitled to great 

deference"); cf. Boyce Motor Lines v. United States, 342 U.S. 

337 (1952) (rejecting due process attack on a mandated 

regulation scarcely more specific than the statute it implemented).

USCA Case #96-1109 Document #276928 Filed: 06/06/1997 Page 3 of 10
<<The pagination in this PDF may not match the actual pagination in the printed slip opinion>>

Of course it seems inescapable that as a general matter 

Congress intended that the criteria would add specificity to 

the disposal regulations. If they contributed no extra specificity or clarity on any aspect of the disposal regulations, it 

would be hard to believe EPA had done the intended job. 

But a cursory look at the two (the disposal regulations and 

the criteria) dispels such a concern.

In the rulemaking EPA explained why it resisted various 

demands for more specificity. It said that it tried to "avoid 

prescribing specific design choices or technical decisions so 

that EPA does not have the unintended effect of making the 

facility less safe," hoping thus to "allow the scientists and 

technical experts administering the WIPP," presumably those 

most knowledgeable about the facility, freedom to make 

reasonable judgments. Response to Comments ("RTC") at 

ix. In light of the complexity and uncertainty of planning for 

contingencies over the next 10,000 years, this seems quite 

reasonable. There has, in any event, been no general abdication to the discretion of DOE experts. Because this general 

discussion in the Response to Comments does not in itself 

establish the reasonableness of EPA's chosen level of specificity in particular provisions, we now turn to the ones where 

petitioners' attacks are strongest.

1. Passive institutional controls

EPA's final rule permits DOE's WIPP application, when 

calculating release probabilities, to take credit for passive 

institutional controls ("PICs"), which include devices such as 

permanent markers, designed to avoid inadvertent human 

interference. The disposal regulations require "the most 

permanent markers, records, and other passive institutional 

controls practicable to indicate the dangers of the wastes and 

their location." 40 CFR § 191.14(c). The criteria provide 

that credit can be given for PICs for no more than 700 years 

and that DOE can in no case assume that PICS will "eliminate the likelihood of human intrusion entirely." Id. 

§ 194.43(c). In addition, the final rule requires that DOE 

show that the PICs will "endure and be understood by 

potential intruders for the [relevant] time period." Id.

USCA Case #96-1109 Document #276928 Filed: 06/06/1997 Page 4 of 10
<<The pagination in this PDF may not match the actual pagination in the printed slip opinion>>

Petitioners argue that "endure and be understood" is standardless. To be sure, EPA does not elaborate on the phrase, 

nor does it set forth a method by which DOE must demonstrate the effectiveness of PICs. Nonetheless, it drastically 

confines the range of credit from what the disposal regulations might have been thought to have allowed, and it sets a 

standard that must be met. Compared to many standards at 

work in the lawe.g., "reasonable man," "arbitrary and capricious"the "endure and be understood" criterion is rather 

lucid.

Everything else being equal, the better a petitioner can 

demonstrate the feasibility of greater specificity the more 

convincing its attack on agency vagueness. For instance, 

where the agency itself has adopted highly specific internal 

guidelines governing the same subject, see MST Express v. 

Department of Transportation, 108 F.3d 401 (D.C. Cir. 1997), 

it cannot very plausibly deny feasibility. Here, petitioners 

take just the opposite tack. They say that it is utterly 

impossible to predict the effectiveness of PICs, and that EPA 

errs by even permitting DOE to try for a credit. Thus their 

argument supports rather than undermines EPA's decision to 

not specify a precise measure of effectiveness. Given methodological uncertainty in this area, it appears sensible to place 

the burden on DOE to figure out how to justify any PIC 

credits, rather than to foreclose the possibility entirely. Petitioners will have a chance to replay their impossibility argument in the certification rulemaking.

2. Engineered barriers

Petitioners also say that EPA provides no standards for 

how it will judge "engineered barriers" other than those set 

forth in the disposal regulations, which say that a barrier is a 

"material or structure that prevents or substantially delays 

movement of water or radionuclides toward the accessible 

environment." 40 CFR § 191.12. We needn't decide whether 

simply restating the regulation would be enough, because 

EPA did more. It set forth a detailed list of barriers that 

DOE must evaluate, and listed nine characteristics with respect to which any barrier must be assessed. Id. § 194.44(b), 

USCA Case #96-1109 Document #276928 Filed: 06/06/1997 Page 5 of 10
<<The pagination in this PDF may not match the actual pagination in the printed slip opinion>>

194.44(c)(1). In response to demands both for enumeration of 

specific barriers and for performance criteria for barriers, 

EPA said that the complexity of the WIPP system made it 

impossible to evaluate a barrier's helpfulness in advance and 

that consideration of the nine enumerated factors would 

enable it to give a balanced evaluation of a barrier's usefulness, taking into account all the side effects. RTC 16-4 to 

16-8. We have no basis for disputing this judgment.

Petitioners attack a number of other parts of the rule as 

standardless, but we find EPA's approach reasonable under 

our deferential review of the level of generality at which 

regulations can be promulgated.

Alleged nullification of the "resource" disposal regulation 

One of the disposal regulations, 40 CFR § 191.14(e), demands avoidance of places where there has been mining of 

resources or where such mining is expected. But, recognizing that the advantageous geologic characteristics of resource-rich areas may make such a site preferable to alternatives, it says that they may be used if "the favorable 

characteristics of such places compensate for their greater 

likelihood of being disturbed in the future." Id. The corresponding criterion calls for a comparison of the favorable 

characteristics and the likelihood of disturbance, but concludes by saying that if the performance assessments of a 

disposal system predict that it will meet the containment requirements specified in § 191.13(e)the ones setting maximum projected emissionsthen the EPA will assume that 

both this specific criterion, as well as § 191.14(e) itself, have 

been fulfilled. 40 CFR § 194.45. Petitioners say this is a 

provision of criteria not for application of § 191.14(e) but for 

its evisceration.

The criterion clearly puts a spin on this "resource" consideration. The disposal regulation seems to demand some sort 

of comparison between the overall advantages of a resourcerich site and one particular problem (the greater likelihood of 

future disturbance), while the criterion looks at the total 

balance of advantages and disadvantages and focuses on 

USCA Case #96-1109 Document #276928 Filed: 06/06/1997 Page 6 of 10
<<The pagination in this PDF may not match the actual pagination in the printed slip opinion>>

whether predicted emission levels comply with the containment requirements.

We asked at oral argument just how a site could pass the 

criterion yet flunk the "resource" test of the disposal regulations, and counsel for petitioners could offer no example. His 

difficulty lies in the fact that the criterion is in a sense a 

tightening of the disposal regulation. A system could pass 

§ 191.14(e) if all its pluses outweighed a single negative, while 

it can pass § 194.45 only if its pluses outweigh all its 

drawbacks enough to carry it over the ultimate performance 

standard. To be sure, the criterion appears to dilute the 

resource issue as a single independent screen, but it accomplishes the purposes of the disposal regulation by directing 

attention to the problem, yet assuring that the ultimate safety 

and health concerns are satisfied. We are not persuaded that 

EPA has gutted the disposal regulation in question.

Petitioners suggest that EPA should have required comparisons with other non-resource sites. EPA argues, correctly, that the language of § 191.14(e) does not explicitly require 

a direct comparison with other sites. It chose not to consider 

other sites during the WIPP certification because Congress 

had ratified the selection of the WIPP site. We defer to 

EPA's choice as a reasonable interpretation of its own regulations. Udall v. Tallman, 380 U.S. 1, 16 (1965).

OMB and DOE communications

Petitioners argue that post-comment discussions with OMB 

and DOE induced EPA to make changes between the draft 

and final rules. Our decisions, beginning with Sierra Club v. 

Costle, 657 F.2d 298, 398-410 (D.C. Cir. 1981), make clear 

that communications with persons outside the agency are 

permissible under the Administrative Procedure Act so long 

as EPA can justify its rules entirely by reference to the 

record before it. See, e.g., Int'l Union, UAW v. OSHA, 938 

F.2d 1310, 1324 (D.C. Cir. 1991) (late-filed comments problematic only where vital to agency's support of rule); cf. San 

Luis Obispo Mothers for Peace v. NRC, 751 F.2d 1287, 1325-

26 (D.C. Cir. 1984) (review of administrative action on the 

USCA Case #96-1109 Document #276928 Filed: 06/06/1997 Page 7 of 10
<<The pagination in this PDF may not match the actual pagination in the printed slip opinion>>

basis of the agency's stated rationale and findings), aff'd in 

relevant part en banc, 789 F.2d 26, 44-45 (D.C. Cir. 1986). 

Petitioners suggest that the WIPP Act places restrictions on 

DOE beyond those imposed by the APA, but they point only 

to legislative history, not to any statutory language.

Petitioners also seek to supplement the record with an 

EPA document titled "Action Memorandum," dated January 

25, 1996. We deny their motion. The redacted portions of 

the memorandum qualify for the deliberative process privilege, National Courier Ass'n v. Board of Governors of the 

Federal Reserve System, 516 F.2d 1229, 1241-42 (D.C. Cir. 

1975), and petitioners have provided no evidence of the sort of 

bad faith or improper behavior needed to warrant supplementation of the record with deliberative documents, San Luis 

Obispo, 751 F.2d at 1326-29.

The main sources of petitioners' concern are several EPA 

memoranda recording meetings with DOE and OMB about 

the effectiveness of PICs, which occurred after the close of 

the period for public comments. EPA placed the memos in 

the open public docket. If these showed that DOE had 

supplied EPA with additional data, on which EPA relied in 

the final rule and on which others had no chance to comment, 

we would have cause for concern.

According to the memoranda DOE argued that PICs would 

be effective over long periods of time, while EPA explained 

its belief that they could be effective for up to several 

hundred years. While there was no opportunity to respond 

to the contents of these memoranda, the effectiveness of PICs 

had been fully aired during the comment period. RTC 15-1 

to 15-4. Some argued that any civilization 10,000 years from 

now would be smart enough to understand such markers, 

while others said the markers would be ineffective within 500 

years. The DOE-EPA conversations added no new data, and 

EPA's decision on PICs is plainly sustainable on the contested record. Petitioners' other claims about side communications, relating to the quality assurance, peer review and preclosure monitoring provisions, are equally meritless. The 

final rule rests amply on the notice of proposed rulemaking 

USCA Case #96-1109 Document #276928 Filed: 06/06/1997 Page 8 of 10
<<The pagination in this PDF may not match the actual pagination in the printed slip opinion>>

plus the comments openly received within the comment period.

Relationship between proposed and final rules

Petitioners suggest that some of EPA's criteria were not 

proposed with enough clarity to enable the public to comment. Their lead example is the mining criterion, 40 CFR 

§ 194.32(b). Although the disposal regulations call for "consideration of inadvertent human intrusion" as an important 

part of meeting the environmental standards for disposal, 40 

CFR Part 191, app. C, EPA initially proposed excluding 

consideration of "mining events," explaining that they were 

not part of EPA's analyses supporting the promulgation of 

the disposal regulations. See Criteria for the Certification 

and Determination of the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant's Compliance with Environmental Standards for the Management 

and Disposal of Spent Nuclear Fuel, High-Level and Transuranic Radioactive Waste, 60 Fed. Reg. 5766, 5774/2 (1995) 

("Proposed Rule"). But the final rule does require consideration of mining in the certification process. 40 CFR 

§ 194.32(b); see also Final Rule, 61 Fed. Reg. at 5229-30.

Petitioners' complaint here is not that EPA should have 

stuck to the no-mining-criterion judgment that it had made in 

the preamble to the Proposed Rule. Quite the opposite; they 

argue that the final rule should consider mining but that, 

because of the proposal, they were denied an adequate opportunity to show that EPA excessively focused on hydraulic 

conductivity in its mining analysis, at the expense of other 

possible effects.

But the final rule in fact does not confine the certification 

in the way petitioners assume. The rule states that the 

analysis of mining effects "may be limited to changes in the 

hydraulic conductivity of the hydrogeologic units of the disposal system...." 40 CFR § 194.32(b). Petitioners argue 

that this language gives DOE the election to consider only 

conductivity changes and to ignore other possible effects. 

The rule itself does not say so. The preamble hints at this 

USCA Case #96-1109 Document #276928 Filed: 06/06/1997 Page 9 of 10
<<The pagination in this PDF may not match the actual pagination in the printed slip opinion>>

possibility, saying that DOE "may elect to use another parameter, provided that DOE can demonstrate" that its use is 

more appropriate, see Final Rule, 61 Fed. Reg. at 5229/2, but 

also frames the future decision in broader terms, "recogniz[ing] that some parameter other than hydraulic conductivity might be demonstrated to incorporate, equally or perhaps 

better, the potential effects of mining in performance assessments," id. In its brief here EPA says that "the only 'final' 

decision EPA has made in the criteria is to require [DOE] to 

consider mining," Resp. Br. at 47, and that it "did not 

foreclose either DOE or the public from showing that an 

alternative to hydraulic conductivity is more appropriate," id. 

This is a plausible reading of EPA's intent. Thus the petitioners had an opportunity to comment on the only issue 

conclusively resolved by the rule (that mining would be 

considered). Accordingly, the rule satisfies our requirement 

that a final rule be a "logical outgrowth" of the agency's 

proposal, in order to protect parties' opportunity to comment. 

See, e.g., Shell Oil Co. v. EPA, 950 F.2d 741, 750-51 (D.C. 

Cir. 1991).

Petitioners' arguments about the criteria relating to well 

injection, a technique for enhancing oil and gas recovery, fail 

for similar reasons. EPA proposed to exclude consideration 

of the impacts of well-injection techniques, but petitioners and 

others convinced it to include them. Petitioners now argue 

that the treatment of well-injection techniques is not strict 

enough, and is inconsistent with its treatment of drilling. In 

the final rule EPA assumed that drilling would continue, but 

that well injection would cease as resources are depleted. It 

decided to use drilling as a surrogate for future extraction 

activities. In light of the uncertainty as to the type and 

extent of resource extraction in the future, these decisions 

appear to represent a reasonable compromise. And, as the 

proposal clearly put the estimation of future human activity in 

issue, petitioners were not denied opportunity to comment.

We have addressed petitioners' strongest arguments, and 

find no merit in the others. The petitions for review are 

therefore

Denied.

USCA Case #96-1109 Document #276928 Filed: 06/06/1997 Page 10 of 10