Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-caDC-23-01038/USCOURTS-caDC-23-01038-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Environmental Protection Agency
Respondent
Gavin Power, LLC
Petitioner

Document Text:

United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

Argued March 7, 2024 Decided June 28, 2024

No. 22-1056

ELECTRIC ENERGY, INC., ET AL.,

PETITIONERS

v.

ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY AND MICHAEL S.

REGAN, ADMINISTRATOR, UNITED STATES ENVIRONMENTAL 

PROTECTION AGENCY,

RESPONDENTS

STATE OF TEXAS, ET AL.,

INTERVENORS

Consolidated with 22-1058

On Petitions for Review of Actions 

of the Environmental Protection Agency

USCA Case #23-1038 Document #2062157 Filed: 06/28/2024 Page 1 of 27
2

No. 23-1035

ELECTRIC ENERGY, INC., ET AL.,

PETITIONERS

v.

ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY AND MICHAEL S.

REGAN, ADMINISTRATOR, UNITED STATES ENVIRONMENTAL 

PROTECTION AGENCY,

RESPONDENTS

SIERRA CLUB,

INTERVENOR

Consolidated with 23-1036, 23-1037, 23-1038

On Petitions for Review of Actions 

of the Environmental Protection Agency

P. Stephen Gidiere III and Stacey L. VanBelleghem argued 

the causes for petitioners. With them on the joint briefs were 

Joshua R. More, Helgi C. Walker, David Fotouhi, Julia B. 

Barber, Michael L. Raiff, David W. Mitchell, Douglas Green, 

Margaret K. Fawal, Karl A. Karg, Matt Gregory, and Ann H. 

MacDonald.

Ken Paxton, Attorney General, Office of the Attorney 

General for the State of Texas, Kellie E. Billings-Ray, Chief, 

Environmental Protection Division, and John Hulme and Jake 

USCA Case #23-1038 Document #2062157 Filed: 06/28/2024 Page 2 of 27
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Marx, Assistant Attorneys General, were on the brief for State 

Petitioner-Intervenors in case No. 22-1056. Priscilla M. 

Hubenak, Assistant Attorney General, entered an appearance.

Nash E. Long, Andrew R. Varcoe, Stephanie A. Maloney, 

and Elbert Lin were on the brief for amicus curiae the Chamber 

of Commerce of the United States in support of petitioners in 

case No. 22-1056.

David Mitchell, Attorney, U.S. Department of Justice,

argued the cause for respondents. With him on the briefs were 

Todd Kim, Assistant Attorney General, Environmental & 

Natural Resources Division, Perry M. Rosen, Attorney, and 

Laurel Celeste, Senior Attorney, U.S. Environmental 

Protection Agency.

Gavin Kearney argued the cause for respondentintervenors. With him on the joint briefs were Thomas Cmar, 

Jennifer Cassel, Gilbert Zelaya, Lisa Evans, Nicholas S. 

Torrey, and Frank S. Holleman, III.

Before: MILLETT and PILLARD, Circuit Judges, and 

RANDOLPH, Senior Circuit Judge.

Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge PILLARD.

PILLARD, Circuit Judge: In these two related cases, the 

owners and operators of several coal-fired power plants 

challenge Environmental Protection Agency actions applying

and enforcing regulations that govern the disposal of coal 

combustion residuals. Petitioners argue that the challenged 

agency actions amend existing legislative rules governing such

disposal and that EPA was therefore required to promulgate

those amendments according to the notice-and-comment 

procedures of the Administrative Procedure Act. Because the 

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challenged documents straightforwardly apply existing 

regulations, they do not amount to the kind of agency action 

“promulgating a[] regulation, or requirement” that we have

jurisdiction to review under the Resource Conservation and 

Recovery Act. 42 U.S.C. § 6976(a)(1). We accordingly

dismiss the related petitions for lack of jurisdiction.

I.

A.

When an electric utility or power plant burns coal to 

produce electricity, it generates ash, slag, and other coal 

“residuals.” See Hazardous and Solid Waste Management 

System; Identification and Listing of Special Wastes; Disposal 

of Coal Combustion Residuals from Electric Utilities, 75 Fed. 

Reg. 35128, 35137 (June 21, 2010). EPA has determined that 

coal residuals contain myriad carcinogens and neurotoxins that 

contribute to increased rates of “cancer in the skin, liver, 

bladder, and lungs,” “neurological and psychiatric effects,” 

“damage to blood vessels,” and “anemia” in people exposed to 

them. Hazardous and Solid Waste Management System; 

Disposal of Coal Combustion Residuals from Electric Utilities 

(“2015 Rule”), 80 Fed. Reg. 21302, 21451 (Apr. 17, 2015). 

EPA has also found that the residuals pose risks to plant and 

animal wildlife, including “[e]levated selenium levels in 

migratory birds, wetland vegetative damage, fish kills, 

amphibian deformities, . . . [and] plant toxicity.” 75 Fed. Reg. 

at 35172. 

To address the health and environmental risks associated 

with coal residuals, EPA regulates their disposal under Subtitle 

D of the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA), 42 

U.S.C. § 6901 et seq. See Util. Solid Waste Activities Grp. v. 

EPA (USWAG), 901 F.3d 414, 421-25 (D.C. Cir. 2018) (per 

curiam) (discussing the regulatory landscape governing 

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disposal of coal residuals). With Subtitle D of RCRA, 

Congress seeks to “assist [states and regional authorities] in 

developing and encouraging methods” for solid waste disposal 

that are “environmentally sound” and promote resource 

conservation. 42 U.S.C. § 6941. As relevant here, RCRA calls 

on EPA to “promulgate regulations containing criteria for 

determining which facilities shall be classified as sanitary 

landfills and which shall be classified as open dumps.” Id.

§ 6944(a). The statute requires that the regulatory criteria for 

classification as a sanitary landfill be sufficiently stringent to 

ensure “no reasonable probability of adverse effects on health 

or the environment from disposal of solid waste at such 

facility.” Id. If the agency classifies a practice as “the open 

dumping of solid waste or hazardous waste,” RCRA provides 

for citizen suits against those engaging in such dumping, id. 

§§ 6945(a), 6972, and requires states to prohibit the practice in 

their waste management plans, id. § 6944(b).

In 2015, EPA promulgated a final rule governing the 

disposal of coal residuals produced by electric utilities and 

power plants. The 2015 Rule applies to owners and operators 

of two types of coal residual disposal sites—surface 

impoundments and landfills—which we collectively refer to as 

coal residual units. See 40 C.F.R. § 257.53. As contemplated 

by the statute, the 2015 Rule set criteria “designed to ensure 

that human health and the environment face ‘no reasonable 

probability’ of harm from [c]oal [r]esiduals spilling, leaking, or 

seeping from their storage units and harming humans and the 

environment.” USWAG, 901 F.3d at 420 (quoting 42 U.S.C. 

§ 6944(a)). 

To that end, the Rule established, among other things, 

restrictions on the location of coal residual units; requirements 

pertaining to lining of coal residual units, their structural 

integrity and relation to groundwater; and criteria for recycling 

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coal residuals for beneficial uses, such as by substituting it for 

cement in road construction. See 40 C.F.R. §§ 257.60-74. And 

the Rule also indicates that a coal residual unit is considered an 

“open dump”—and therefore must be retrofitted or closed—

when “groundwater sampling . . . reveals an excess of [c]oal 

[r]esidual constituents in the water table.” USWAG, 901 F.3d 

at 447 (citing 40 C.F.R. § 257.101). 

Closure is a defined concept under RCRA. See 42 U.S.C. 

§ 6945(a). The 2015 Rule dictates how coal residual units must 

close when the site is deemed an open dump. A unit owner 

may close the site “either by leaving the [coal residuals] in 

place and installing a final cover system” designed to 

“minimize infiltration and erosion,” or by “remov[ing]” the 

coal residuals and “decontaminat[ing]” the unit. 40 C.F.R. 

§ 257.102(a), (d)(3). When the unit owner opts to close with 

coal residuals in place, the 2015 Rule imposes two 

requirements that are particularly relevant to these petitions. 

First, the Rule mandates that, at a minimum, the unit close in a 

manner that will (a) “[c]ontrol, minimize or eliminate, to the 

maximum extent feasible, post-closure infiltration of liquids 

into the waste”; (b) control, minimize, or eliminate “releases of 

[coal residuals], leachate, or contaminated run-off to the 

ground or surface waters or to the atmosphere”; and (c) 

“[p]reclude the probability of future impoundment of water, 

sediment, or slurry” in the unit. Id. § 257.102(d)(1)(i)-(ii). 

Second, the Rule dictates that, before installing the “final cover 

system” over the unit, “[f]ree liquids must be eliminated by 

removing liquid wastes or solidifying the remaining wastes and 

waste residues.” Id. § 257.102(d)(2)(i).

In response to USWAG v. EPA, 901 F.3d 414 (D.C. Cir. 

2018), in which we vacated portions of the 2015 Rule as 

arbitrary and capricious, EPA amended the Rule. It newly 

classified unlined coal residual units—those units without a 

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composite liner preventing leakage into the soil—as open 

dumps that must stop receiving coal residuals and initiate 

closure by April 11, 2021. See Hazardous and Solid Waste 

Management System: Disposal of Coal Combustion Residuals 

from Electric Utilities; A Holistic Approach to Closure Part A: 

Deadline to Initiate Closure, 85 Fed. Reg. 53516, 53517 (Aug. 

28, 2020). At the same time, EPA granted leeway via an

“alternative closure” exemption. That exemption allowed the 

owner or operator of an unlined surface impoundment to 

extend the closure deadline beyond April 2021 and manage the 

coal residuals in place in the meantime. To qualify for the 

exemption, the rule required the owner or operator to establish, 

as relevant here, (1) that “[n]o alternative disposal capacity is 

available on or off-site” of the facility, and (2) that the owner 

or operator remains in compliance with all of the other 

requirements of the coal residuals regulations. 40 C.F.R.

§ 257.103(a)(1)(i), (iii). The rule set an outer time limit on 

extensions: “[N]o facility may be granted time to operate the 

[non-complying] impoundment beyond” October 15, 2024. Id. 

§ 257.103(f)(1)(vi), (vii).

B.

Dozens of companies with unlined units, including several 

of the petitioners in this case, sought extensions of the April 

2021 closure deadline. An application from the General James 

M. Gavin Plant is illustrative: The plant operator requested an 

extension until May 4, 2023, by which date it would cease 

routing all coal residuals to its active, unlined surface 

impoundment (known as the Bottom Ash Pond) and close the 

pond with some coal residuals in place. The Clifty Creek 

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Power Station and the Ottumwa Generating Station filed 

similar requests.

On January 11, 2022, EPA published proposed denials of

Gavin, Clifty Creek, and Ottumwa’s extension applications.1

See 40 C.F.R. § 257.103(f)(3)(iii) (requiring publication of 

proposed decisions for a 15-day comment period). In each of 

the three proposed denials, EPA concluded that the facility’s 

owner or operator failed to demonstrate that the facility

remained in compliance with other requirements of the coal 

residuals regulations, and thus did not meet the preconditions

to receive an extension. See id. § 257.103(a)(1)(iii). Three of

EPA’s proposed reasons for finding such non-compliance are 

relevant here.

First, EPA proposed finding that each of the three facilities 

had a coal residual unit with its base sitting in and saturated 

with groundwater. The extension applications did not discuss 

any “engineering measures taken to ensure that the 

groundwater had been removed from the unit prior to the start 

of installing the final cover system, as required by 40 C.F.R. 

§ 257.102(d)(2)(i).” Proposed Gavin Denial at 46 (Joint 

Appendix (J.A.) 75, No. 22-1056); Proposed Clifty Creek 

1 Petitioners also purport to challenge the Proposed Conditional 

Approval of an Alternative Closure Deadline for H.L. Spurlock 

Power Station in Maysville, Kentucky. That conditional approval is 

distinct from the proposed denials petitioners challenge because it 

rests on a proposed finding that the facility had not yet adequately 

demonstrated compliance with the 2015 Rule’s groundwater 

monitoring requirements—not on a proposed finding of failure to 

comply with the closure requirements in 40 C.F.R. § 257.102. 

Petitioners raised no argument regarding that conditional approval in 

their briefing or at oral argument, so they have abandoned that

challenge. See Me. Lobstermen’s Ass’n v. Nat’l Marine Fisheries 

Serv., 70 F.4th 582, 594 (D.C. Cir. 2023).

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Denial at 40 (J.A. 158, No. 22-1056); Proposed Ottumwa

Denial at 41 (J.A. 238, No. 22-1056). Given the potential for 

groundwater to infiltrate the coal residual unit and for coal 

residuals to dissolve in the water and migrate out of the unit, 

the facilities had not established, as required by the 2015 Rule,

how those units had been closed in a manner that would 

“[c]ontrol, minimize or eliminate, to the maximum extent 

feasible, post-closure infiltration of liquids into the waste and 

releases of [coal residuals], leachate, or contaminated run-off 

to the ground or surface waters or to the atmosphere.” 40

C.F.R. § 257.102(d)(1)(i). Because the plants did not comply 

with the closure requirements in sections 257.102(d)(1) and 

(2), EPA proposed that it could not grant the requested

extensions. See id. § 257.103(a)(1). 

Second, EPA proposed that Clifty Creek’s proposal to

construct concrete settling tanks for coal residual storage was, 

in effect, a proposal to build a new coal residual surface 

impoundment. And, because Clifty Creek had not established 

that the new surface impoundment complied with the 2015 

Rule’s liner design criteria in 40 C.F.R. § 257.72, EPA 

proposed finding that it could not grant the extension.

Lastly, EPA proposed finding that Ottumwa Generating 

Station’s closure plan was not compliant with the closure 

requirements because Ottumwa proposed, contrary to existing 

regulations, placing additional coal residuals in a surface 

impoundment during closure. The 2015 Rule explicitly 

requires that the owner or operator of an existing unlined 

surface impoundment “cease placing” coal residuals into that 

impoundment, 40 C.F.R. § 257.101(a)(1); EPA explained that 

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there is, contrary to Ottumwa’s assertion, no exception for 

placement that might be considered a “beneficial use.”

The same day EPA published the proposed decisions, the 

agency issued a press release announcing its intention to

“protect communities and hold facilities accountable for 

controlling and cleaning up the contamination created by 

decades of coal ash disposal.” Press Release at 1 (J.A. 1, No. 

22-1056). The press release described EPA’s “propos[ed]

decisions on requests for [closure-deadline] extensions,”

which, in the agency’s words, “re-state[d] EPA’s consistently 

held position that surface impoundments or landfills cannot be 

closed with coal ash in contact with the groundwater.” Id. at 1, 

3 (J.A. 1, 3, No. 22-1056). It also announced that EPA was

“putting several facilities on notice regarding their obligations 

to comply with [the existing coal residual] regulations” and 

“laying out plans for future regulatory actions.” Id. at 1-2 (J.A. 

1-2, No. 22-1056). 

As forecasted in the press release, EPA directors sent 

letters that same day to Georgia’s Environmental Protection 

Division and to four companies with power stations in Indiana, 

Ohio, Kansas, and Puerto Rico, describing how the 2015 Rule’s 

closure standards applied to those companies’ coal residual

units that are saturated in groundwater. EPA’s letter to Duke 

Energy, for example, informed it that two of its unlined surface 

impoundments in New Albany, Indiana—which it had 

removed from service and covered with soil and grass in 1989, 

but which continued to sit in 20 feet of groundwater—are 

“subject to the requirements of 40 C.F.R. Part 257.” Duke 

Energy Letter at 1 (J.A. 9, No. 22-1056). If Duke Energy 

planned to close the two sites with waste in place, EPA 

explained, it would need to “implement engineering measures 

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to remove groundwater from the unit[s]” before installing the 

final cover system. Id. at 3 (J.A. 11, No. 22-1056). 

Taken together, we call the issuance of the January 11, 

2022 documents—the proposed decisions, the press release, 

and the letters—the January 2022 actions. 

C.

On November 28, 2022, EPA published in the Federal 

Register notice of its final order on Gavin’s extension request. 

See Final Decision on Request for Extension of Closure Date 

Submitted by Gavin Power, LLC, 87 Fed. Reg. 72989 (Nov. 

28, 2022). As it had proposed to do, EPA rejected Gavin’s 

extension request and ordered the facility to cease receipt of

coal residuals into the Bottom Ash Pond no later than April 12, 

2023. Id. at 72990. In support of its denial, EPA cited Gavin’s 

failure to demonstrate its compliance with the 2015 Rule’s 

closure performance standards for a separate unlined surface 

impoundment known as the Fly Ash Reservoir, which had 

ostensibly been closed while indefinitely saturated in 64 feet of 

groundwater. 

That impoundment, EPA explained, did not meet two of 

the closure requirements set forth in the 2015 Rule. 

Specifically, Gavin’s submission failed to show: (1) that the 

facility had eliminated “free liquids” from the Fly Ash 

Reservoir before closure, as required by 40 C.F.R. 

§ 257.102(d)(2)(i); and (2) that the facility had taken 

engineering measures to “control, minimize, or eliminate to the 

maximum extent feasible” the “post-closure infiltration of 

liquids from either side or base of the units into the waste,” or 

to “preclude the probability of future impoundment of water, 

sediment, or slurry,” as required by 40 C.F.R. 

§ 257.102(d)(1)(i) and (ii). EPA also denied the extension 

request because Gavin had not demonstrated compliance with 

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the 2015 Rule’s groundwater monitoring and sampling 

standards.

D.

Two groups of petitioners sought review in this court. 

First, in Case No. 22-1056 and the consolidated petition,

entities that operate or represent coal-fueled power plants 

challenged EPA’s January 2022 actions as unlawfully 

amending the existing closure regulations. Petitioners argue 

that EPA violated both the Administrative Procedure Act and 

RCRA by announcing in a series of informal documents what 

they claim is a legislative rule subject to notice-and-comment 

rulemaking. See 5 U.S.C. § 553. Second, in No. 23-1035 and 

consolidated petitions, another (partially overlapping) group of 

companies filed what they describe as a “protective” petition, 

in the event this court lacks jurisdiction to review the January 

2022 actions. As in Case No. 22-1056, petitioners in Case No. 

23-1035 assert that EPA promulgated, in its final denial of the 

Gavin plant’s application, a legally binding amendment to the 

existing coal residuals regulations without the requisite noticeand-comment rulemaking.

II.

Our consideration of the petitions begins and ends with 

jurisdiction. RCRA vests this court with original, exclusive

jurisdiction over “petition[s] for review of action of the 

Administrator in promulgating any regulation, or requirement 

under this chapter or denying any petition for the promulgation, 

amendment or repeal of any regulation.” 42 U.S.C. 

§ 6976(a)(1). The statute governs venue, mandating that 

“challenges to final regulations be brought before us rather than 

in another court.” Molycorp., Inc. v. EPA, 197 F.3d 543, 545 

(D.C. Cir. 1999). It also operates as “a limitation on our 

jurisdiction,” cabining our review to final regulations, 

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requirements, and denials of petitions to promulgate, amend, or 

repeal a regulation. Id. Challenges to other final EPA actions

under RCRA must be brought in the first instance in federal 

district court. See 42 U.S.C. § 6976(a).

Both sets of petitioners contend that the challenged EPA

actions are reviewable as final “regulations” because they 

amend existing legislative rules and because an “amendment to 

a legislative rule must itself be legislative.” Sierra Club v. 

EPA, 873 F.3d 946, 952 (D.C. Cir. 2017). EPA, for its part, 

asserts that we have jurisdiction to review only the final Gavin 

Denial, which it contends is a reviewable “requirement” within 

the meaning of 42 U.S.C. § 6976(a)(1). We consider our 

jurisdiction to review the January 2022 documents at issue in 

Case No. 22-1056 before turning to whether we have 

jurisdiction to review the final Gavin Denial at issue in Case 

No. 23-1035.

A.

Petitioners assert that, in the January 2022 actions, EPA 

promulgated a binding legislative rule subject to direct review 

in this court. Specifically, they argue that the January 2022 

documents are legislative rules because they amended the 

existing coal residuals rule in two important ways: (1) by 

announcing a new prohibition on closing coal residual units 

with waste in contact with groundwater; and (2) by expanding 

the types of waste storage units and practices subject to the coal 

residuals regulations.

To ascertain whether regulatory action constitutes the 

promulgation of a reviewable regulation under 42 U.S.C. 

§ 6976(a)(1), we look to whether the action “binds private 

parties or the agency itself with the ‘force of law.’” Cement 

Kiln Recycling Coal. v. EPA, 493 F.3d 207, 227 (D.C. Cir. 

2007) (quoting Gen. Elec. Co. v. EPA, 290 F.3d 377, 382 (D.C. 

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Cir. 2002)). In other words, we ask whether the agency action 

constitutes a final legislative rule. See id.; Nat’l Mining Ass’n 

v. McCarthy, 758 F.3d 243, 250 (D.C. Cir. 2014) (explaining 

that a legislative rule has the “force and effect of law” (quoting 

INS v. Chadha, 462 U.S. 919, 986 n.19 (1983))). Because an 

agency’s amendment of an existing legislative rule must itself 

be legislative, see Sierra Club, 873 F.3d at 952, we would have 

jurisdiction to review amendments to the legislative rules 

governing coal residual disposal. But we are unpersuaded by 

petitioners’ assertion that the January 2022 documents amend 

the 2015 Rule.

1.

Start with petitioners’ claim that EPA announced, for the 

first time in January 2022, a prohibition on closing unlined 

surface impoundments while coal residuals sat in contact with

groundwater. Petitioners assert that EPA thereby “eliminate[d]

one of th[e closure] options” the existing regulations

contemplate for surface impoundments: the option to close 

with waste in place. Pet’r Br. 36, No. 22-1056; see 40 C.F.R. 

§ 257.102(a) (providing that landfills and surface 

impoundments can close either with waste in place or by 

removing waste). 

The 2022 documents announce no such novel requirement. 

They do provide that, if operators wish to close their coal 

residual units with waste in place, EPA may require them to 

implement engineering measures designed to interrupt any 

contact between the groundwater and coal residuals in the 

relevant unit. But that much was clear from the text of the 2015 

Rule. After all, it is the 2015 Rule, not the January 2022 

documents, that requires unit operators closing surface 

impoundments with waste in place to eliminate “free 

liquids”—“liquids that readily separate from the solid portion 

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of a waste under ambient temperature and pressure,” 40 C.F.R. 

§ 257.53—from the impoundment before installing the final 

cover system. Id. § 257.102(d)(2)(i). And it is the 2015 Rule, 

not the January 2022 documents, that mandates closure in a 

manner that will “control, minimize or eliminate, to the 

maximum extent feasible, post-closure infiltration of liquids 

into the waste and releases of [coal residuals], leachate, or 

contaminated run-off to the ground or surface waters.” Id. 

§ 257.102(d)(1)(i). A unit operator closing a surface 

impoundment with waste saturated feet-deep in groundwater 

has neither eliminated “free liquids” from the impoundment 

nor controlled the “infiltration of liquids” into that unit. See id. 

§ 257.102(d)(1)(i), (2)(i). 

The 2015 Rule, standing on its own, makes clear that 

operators cannot close their surface impoundments with 

groundwater leaching in and out of the unit and mixing with

the coal residuals. EPA’s proposed action contemplates 

enforcing those closure standards by requiring the unit’s 

operator to discuss “the engineering measures taken” before 

installation of the cover system “to ensure that the groundwater 

had been removed from the unit,” and to describe the steps 

taken to control water and waste flow in and out of the surface 

impoundment. Proposed Gavin Denial at 46 (J.A. 75, No. 22-

1056); see id. at 47 (J.A. 76, No. 22-1056). That is a 

straightforward application, not an amendment, of the 2015 

Rule. Nothing in EPA’s description of those requirements as a 

prohibition on closing coal residual units with “coal ash in 

contact with groundwater” amends the 2015 Rule. Press 

Release at 3 (J.A. 3, No. 22-1056).

Petitioners insist that, to “shoehorn the new prohibition 

into the text of the existing regulations,” EPA changed the 

meaning of two key terms in 40 C.F.R. § 257.102(d), which 

sets out the requirements for closure with waste in place. Pet’r

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Br. 38, No. 22-1056. First, petitioners argue that the January 

2022 documents newly define “free liquids”—which, per the 

2015 Rule, must be “eliminated” before closure, 40 C.F.R. 

§ 257.102(d)(2)(i)—to include groundwater. They assert that 

“free liquids” in the 2015 Rule do not include groundwater. 

Petitioners stress that the Rule defines “free liquids” as “liquids 

that readily separate from the solid portion of a waste under 

ambient temperature and pressure,” and separately defines 

“groundwater” as “water below the land surface in a zone of 

saturation.” Pet’r Br. 42, No. 22-1056 (emphases omitted) 

(quoting 40 C.F.R. § 257.53). But the fact that the Rule 

includes distinct definitions of “free liquids” and

“groundwater” gives us no reason to doubt that, when 

groundwater makes its way into a coal residual unit, it “readily 

separate[s] from the solid portion of a waste under ambient 

temperature and pressure,” becoming a free liquid. 40 C.F.R. 

§ 257.53. Indeed, petitioners offer no argument that 

groundwater would not, once in a coal residual unit, separate

as described. See O.A. Tr. 33:15-23.

Second, petitioners argue that the January 2022 documents 

newly require facilities closing with waste in place to control 

the post-closure infiltration of liquids not just “downward” 

through the final cover system, but also from “any direction, 

including the top, sides, and bottom of the unit.” Pet’r Br. 38, 

No. 22-1056 (emphases omitted) (quoting Proposed Gavin 

Denial at 47 (J.A. 76, No. 22-1056)); see id. at 38-39. But 

EPA’s description of “infiltration” works no change to the 

existing regulatory text. Nothing in the 2015 Rule supports 

petitioners’ assertion that unit operators must minimize 

infiltration from only one direction—in their words, “the 

downward movement of water through the final cover system.” 

Id. at 38. To the contrary, the mandate in section 257.102(d)(1) 

that units “control, minimize or eliminate . . . post-closure 

infiltration of liquids into the waste” appears in a set of

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requirements applicable to the closure of the coal residual

“unit” as a whole. 40 C.F.R. § 257.102(d)(1)(i). 

Section (d)(1) is distinct from a different subsection of the 

Rule—section 257.102(d)(3)—which requires that the final 

cover system itself be “designed to minimize infiltration and 

erosion,” including through the installation of an “infiltration 

layer” of earthen material in the final cover system. Id. 

§ 257.102(d)(3), (d)(3)(i)(B). Section 257.102(d)(3) appears to 

be limited to controlling infiltration from above through the 

final cover system. But nothing in section 257.102(d)(1)

suggests that it could be so limited. As EPA confirmed in a 

2020 summary of a proposed rulemaking, “the [coal residual] 

regulations currently include [both] detailed technical 

standards for final cover systems in § 257.102(d)(3)” and “a 

general performance standard” in section 257.102(d)(1). 

Hazardous and Solid Waste Management System: Disposal of 

CCR; A Holistic Approach to Closure Part B: Alternate 

Demonstration for Unlined Surface Impoundments; 

Implementation of Closure, 85 Fed. Reg. 12456, 12464 (Mar. 

3, 2020). And “surface impoundment[s] that extend[] into the 

groundwater table will need to include measures to comply”

with the general “performance standard[].” Id.

In sum, the January 2022 documents did not amend 

petitioners’ obligations to remove existing groundwater and to 

prevent future groundwater infiltration from coal residual units 

when closing with waste in place.

2.

Petitioners also claim that the January 2022 actions 

expanded the types of waste storage units and practices subject 

to the coal residuals regulations without using the requisite 

rulemaking procedures. In particular, they argue that EPA 

amended existing coal residuals regulations by: (1) expanding 

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the definition of “inactive surface impoundment” to apply to 

facilities that stopped receiving coal residuals before EPA 

promulgated the 2015 Rule; (2) expanding the meaning of 

regulated “surface impoundment[s]” to include self-supporting 

concrete settling tanks; and (3) narrowing the regulatory 

exclusion for “beneficial use.” Pet’r Br. 44, No. 22-1056. We 

are not persuaded. 

First, regarding regulation of units that stopped receiving 

coal residuals before October 2015, the plain text of the 2015 

Rule applies to “inactive service impoundments,” 40 C.F.R. 

§ 257.50(c), which the Rule defines as “surface 

impoundment[s] that no longer receive[] [coal residuals] on or 

after October 19, 2015 and still contain[] both [coal residuals] 

and liquids on or after October 19, 2015,” id. § 257.53. 

Consistent with that regulatory text, EPA’s letter to Duke 

Energy contemplated applying the 2015 Rule to surface 

impoundments that no longer receive coal residuals but still

contain coal residuals and groundwater. 

Second, we are unpersuaded that EPA amended the 2015 

Rule when it asserted, in the proposed Clifty Creek Denial, that 

a self-supporting concrete settling tank system is a coal residual

surface impoundment within the meaning of 40 C.F.R. 

§ 257.53. Section 257.53 defines a surface impoundment as “a 

natural topographic depression, man-made excavation, or 

diked area, which is designed to hold an accumulation of [coal 

residuals] and liquids.” 40 C.F.R. § 257.53. Petitioners assert 

that the Rule does not specifically “define ‘[coal residual] 

surface impoundment’ to include ‘tanks.’” Pet’r Br. 46, No. 

22-1056. But an EPA determination that a specific selfsupporting tank system is a “man-made excavation” or “diked 

area” does not change the definition of “surface 

impoundment.” At most, EPA advanced an application of the 

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rule’s terms that, as we explain below, is not a reviewable 

“regulation.”

Finally, petitioners contend EPA functionally amended the 

2015 Rule when it proposed applying to the Ottumwa facility 

the Rule’s prohibition on “placing [coal residuals] in a [surface 

impoundment] that is required to close.” Proposed Ottumwa 

Denial at 35 (J.A. 232-33, No. 22-1056); see id. at 35-36. 

Petitioners contend that the facility could add coal residuals as 

“fill” to a closing unit because the added waste is a “beneficial 

use” exempt from regulation. Pet’r Br. 33, 47, No. 22-1056. 

True enough, the 2015 Rule “does not apply to [waste disposal] 

practices that meet the definition of a beneficial use” of coal 

residuals. 40 C.F.R. § 257.50(g). But it is not at all clear that 

Ottumwa’s use would meet the definition. A “beneficial use” 

subject to the exception is limited to practices, like the use of 

encapsulated coal residuals as a filler in concrete, plastics, and 

brick, that “provide a functional benefit” and “substitute for the 

use of a virgin material, conserving natural resources that 

would otherwise need to be obtained through practices, such as 

extraction.” 40 C.F.R. § 257.53; see 80 Fed. Reg. at 21327-28. 

More fundamentally, there was nothing new about how 

EPA proposed to apply the prohibition to Ottumwa. Well 

before the challenged January 2022 actions, EPA spelled out 

its understanding that, once the provisions of section 257.101 

are triggered, “[a]ll further placement of [coal residuals] into 

the unit,” whether it “might be considered beneficial 

use . . . [or] disposal,” is prohibited. Hazardous and Solid 

Waste Management System: Disposal of Coal Combustion 

Residuals from Electric Utilities; Amendments to the National 

Minimum Criteria (Phase One); Proposed Rule, 83 Fed. Reg. 

11584, 11605 (Mar. 15, 2018). EPA’s reiteration in 2022 of its 

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preexisting view of the closure standard’s interaction with the 

beneficial-use exception does not prescribe new law.

3.

None of the January 2022 documents, then, amends the 

2015 Rule. Each simply explains, interprets, and applies the 

2015 Rule’s obligations. It is the 2015 Rule, not the challenged 

set of 2022 documents, that “binds private parties [and] the 

agency itself with the ‘force of law.’” Cement Kiln Recycling 

Coal., 493 F.3d at 227 (quoting General Elec. Co., 290 F.3d at

382). 

In a final effort to establish that the January 2022 

documents are legislative rules, petitioners draw our attention 

to EPA’s later communications encouraging state 

environmental commissions to read the January 2022 proposed 

decisions “to understand EPA’s application of closure in place” 

to facilities with “waste below the water table,” including in 

their own jurisdictions. J.A. 500, No. 22-1056. They also point 

to a meeting EPA convened in March 2022 with agencies from 

eight states for a discussion of coal residual disposal. That 

discussion was informed by EPA’s January 2022 proposed 

decisions, which the agency described as “re-stat[ing] EPA’s 

position that surface impoundments or landfills cannot be 

closed with coal ash in contact with groundwater.” J.A. 456, 

No. 22-1056.

None of EPA’s communications in the months after 

January 2022—about the meeting or otherwise—indicates that 

EPA treated the January 2022 documents “in the same manner 

as it treats a legislative rule.” Pet’r Br. 55, No. 22-1056

(quoting Appalachian Power Co. v. EPA, 208 F.3d 1015, 1021

(D.C. Cir. 2000)). Rather than rendering the 2022 documents 

a legal requirement with independently binding force, the 

agency’s communications highlight that the agency viewed its

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2022 enforcement actions as examples informative for

regulated parties as to how the agency interprets and applies 

the codified closure regulations.

Petitioners assert in passing that the 2022 documents are 

reviewable directly in this court even if they are not legislative 

rules but simply announce the agency’s “interpretations of the 

existing regulations.” Pet’r Br. 61 n.6, No. 22-1056. Not so. 

An interpretive rule construing an existing regulation “can 

constitute final [agency] action” that courts may, under certain 

circumstances, review under the Clean Air Act or other statutes 

providing for judicial review of agency action. POET 

Biorefining, LLC v. EPA, 970 F.3d 392, 406 (D.C. Cir. 2020). 

But RCRA cabins our original jurisdiction to review of rules 

that “bind[] private parties [and] . . . agenc[ies] with the ‘force 

of law.’” Cement Kiln Recycling Coal., 493 F.3d at 227

(quoting General Elec. Co., 290 F.3d at 382). Mere 

interpretive rules lack “the force and effect of law” carried by 

an underlying legislative rule or statute. Cal. Cmtys. Against 

Toxics v. EPA, 934 F.3d 627, 635 (D.C. Cir. 2019); see Perez 

v. Mortgage Bankers Ass’n, 575 U.S. 92, 97 (2015) 

(“Interpretive rules ‘do not have the force and effect of 

law . . . .’” (quoting Shalala v. Guernsey Mem. Hosp., 514 U.S. 

87, 99 (1995))). Even assuming that the January 2022 

documents operated as a final interpretive rule, we would lack 

power to review them under RCRA.

We accordingly dismiss the petitions in Case No. 22-1056 

(and related petitions) for lack of jurisdiction. 

B.

We turn next to Case No. 23-1035 and related petitions, in 

which Gavin and operators of other coal-fueled power plants

raise a similar challenge to what they frame as a legislative rule 

announced in the final Gavin Denial. Like the petitioners in 

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Case No. 22-1056, petitioners here argue that the final Gavin 

Denial announced a prohibition on waste-in-place closures for

coal residual units saturated in groundwater. That prohibition, 

they contend, amounts to a legislative rule promulgated 

without the requisite notice-and-comment rulemaking. 

As above, we begin and end with our jurisdiction over 

these petitions, an issue on which the parties take conflicting 

and somewhat counterintuitive stances. 

Petitioners argue that we have jurisdiction to review only 

the legislative rule that, in their view, EPA announced in the 

final Gavin Denial—but not the denial itself. In other words, 

petitioners here, as in Case No. 22-1056, seek to challenge a

generally applicable prohibition on closing coal residual units 

with waste in contact with groundwater, not EPA’s 

determinations in the final Gavin Denial that Gavin itself failed 

to comply with the closure regulations. In fact, petitioners 

argue that, apart from the generally applicable legislative rule 

announced therein, the final Gavin Denial is not a reviewable

“regulation” or “requirement” under 42 U.S.C. § 6976(a)(1).

Pet’r Br. 52, No. 23-1035. Gavin has instead sought to 

challenge the Gavin-specific compliance findings in federal 

district court in the Southern District of Ohio. See Gavin 

Power, LLC v. EPA, No. 2:24-cv-41 (S.D. Ohio filed Jan. 4, 

2024). 

EPA, by contrast, argues that the entire Gavin Denial must 

be challenged in the first instance in this court because it 

imposed a binding “requirement” for Gavin to initiate closure 

of its Bottom Ash Pond. EPA contends that any challenges to 

the Gavin Denial raised only in the Ohio case and not in 

petitioners’ opening brief here are forfeited. But because the 

Gavin Denial does not announce a legislative rule—or any 

other kind of rule—but rather is a classic site-specific, factUSCA Case #23-1038 Document #2062157 Filed: 06/28/2024 Page 22 of 27
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intensive adjudication of Gavin’s extension request, EPA 

asserts that it is not a “regulation” under RCRA subject to the 

requirements of notice-and-comment rulemaking. 

We consider first whether the final Gavin Denial 

announces a reviewable legislative rule (i.e., a “regulation”) 

before ascertaining whether the Denial, as a whole, is

reviewable as the “promulgation” of a “requirement.” 42 

U.S.C. § 6976(a)(1).

1.

Petitioners’ assertion that the final Gavin Denial

announces a legislative rule boils down to the same argument 

addressed in our discussion of Case No. 22-1056: that, in the 

Gavin Denial, EPA amended the 2015 coal residuals regulation 

by announcing therein that the agency is “unaware of a 

circumstance where [the closure] standards could be, or have 

been, met when the waste in a closed, unlined impoundment 

remains in contact with groundwater that freely migrates in and 

out of the [coal residuals] remaining in the closed unit.” Final 

Gavin Denial at 33 (J.A. 33, No. 23-1035). But, as we 

explained above, EPA regulations adopted long before 2022 

independently established that unit operators could not close 

surface impoundments with coal residuals saturated in 

groundwater. See supra 14-17. EPA did not amend the 

existing regulations when it spelled that out in the final Gavin 

Denial. Nor are we persuaded by petitioners’ assertion that 

EPA announced, in the final Gavin Denial, an interpretation of 

the term “infiltration” in 40 C.F.R. § 257.102(d)(1)(i) that

conflicts with its prior description of the term “infiltration” as 

“applying ‘only’ to ‘percolation’ through the cap.” Pet’r Br. 

43, No. 23-1035 (quoting EPA, Human and Ecological Risk 

Assessment of Coal Combustion Residuals, K-1 (Dec. 2014)). 

The source of that description pre-dates the 2015 Rule, and 

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nothing in the 2015 Rule itself suggests that EPA incorporated 

that understanding or expressly limited “infiltration” in that 

manner.

To the extent the Gavin Denial contains any “rule,” that 

rule could at most be interpretive, not legislative, because it 

clarified and explained preexisting regulatory requirements. 

See Mendoza v. Perez, 754 F.3d 1002, 1021 (D.C. Cir. 2014). 

And, as we explained above, an interpretive rule—which lacks 

the force and effect of law—is not a “regulation” directly 

reviewable in this court under RCRA. See Cement Kiln

Recycling Coal., 493 F.3d at 226-27.

We are also unpersuaded that EPA announced a rule of any 

sort in the final Gavin Denial. It engaged in classic factspecific adjudication. Unlike rulemaking, which typically 

announces “generally applicable legal principles” and 

“governs only the future,” adjudication involves “case-specific 

determinations” that “immediately bind parties by retroactively 

applying law to their past actions.” ITServe All., Inc. v. U.S. 

Dep’t of Homeland Sec., 71 F.4th 1028, 1035 (D.C. Cir. 2023) 

(formatting modified). EPA issued the final Gavin Denial in 

response to an individual facility’s claim of entitlement to an 

alternative closure deadline under 40 C.F.R. § 257.103. In it, 

EPA interpreted the existing 2015 Rule’s closure standards for

coal residual units and applied them to deny the extension 

request. The denial immediately bound the Gavin plant to 

conform its pending closure proposals to the closure standards. 

In other words, the Gavin Denial “reads and functions like a 

judicial decision interpreting an agency regulation and then 

applying it to resolve a case or controversy.” Id.

The role of EPA’s final Gavin Denial in elucidating

principles that could inform future agency decision-making

does not make it a legislative rule. Nor does the fact that EPA 

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cited the final Gavin Denial in its later proposed disapproval of 

Alabama’s Coal Residual program. EPA’s denial of 

Alabama’s program noted that the agency “ha[d] previously 

explained” in the final Gavin Denial that it “considers 

groundwater to be a liquid under the existing regulation” and 

that “a closed, unlined impoundment, where the [coal residual] 

remains in groundwater several feet deep” did not meet the 

requirements of § 257.102(d). Alabama: Denial of State Coal 

Combustion Residuals Permit Program, 88 Fed. Reg. 55220, 

55236-37 (Aug. 14, 2023). 

“The fact that an order rendered in an adjudication may 

affect agency policy and have general prospective application” 

does not make it a legislative rule. Neustar, Inc. v. FCC, 857 

F.3d 886, 894 (D.C. Cir. 2017) (quotation marks omitted). To 

the contrary, “[a]djudicating a specific controversy requires 

identifying the governing law, which may involve resolving 

disputes about what that law means.” ITServe All., Inc., 71 

F.4th at 1035. “Neither does [a] tangential impact on other 

entities necessarily transform an informal adjudication into a 

rulemaking since ‘the nature of adjudication is that similarly 

situated non-parties may be affected by the policy or precedent 

applied, or even merely announced in dicta, to those before the 

tribunal.’” Neustar, Inc., 857 F.3d at 895 (quoting Goodman 

v. FCC, 182 F.3d 987, 994 (D.C. Cir. 1999)). We accordingly

conclude that the final Gavin Denial did not announce a 

legislative rule.

2.

Having determined that EPA’s final Gavin Denial does not 

include a legislative rule, we consider EPA’s assertion that the 

Denial is nevertheless reviewable in this court under 42 U.S.C. 

§ 6976(a)(1) as a “requirement,” and that petitioners therefore 

forfeited any future challenges to the final Gavin Denial not 

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raised in their opening brief. EPA argues that, because the 

regulatory closure deadline of April 10, 2021, is, upon 

submission of a complete extension application, 

“toll[ed] . . . until issuance of a decision,” 40 C.F.R. 

§ 257.103(f)(3)(ii), the order’s April 12, 2023, closure deadline 

imposes a “new obligation that carries legal consequence” and 

that accordingly constitutes a legal requirement: “Gavin must 

cease receiving waste . . . by April 12, 2023 (a date not supplied 

by any statute or regulation).” EPA Br. 22, No. 23-1035. 

We need not delineate the exact contours of the word 

“requirement” in section 6976(a)(1) to decide that the April 12, 

2023, deadline set forth in the Gavin Denial is not one. That is 

because the Gavin Denial imposes no new legal obligations on 

Gavin. The regulatory scheme always required the Gavin Plant 

to cease placing coal‐combustion residuals in the Bottom Ash 

Pond by the compliance deadline. See 40 C.F.R. 

§ 257.101(a)(1). 

EPA highlights that, under section 257.103(f)(3)(ii),

“[s]ubmission of a complete demonstration will toll the 

facility’s deadline to cease receipt of waste until issuance of a 

decision” on the extension, and that an extension decision “will 

contain” a new deadline “to cease receipt of waste.” EPA Br. 

20, No. 23-1035. But EPA is wrong to suggest that, absent a 

decision on Gavin’s extension request, the Gavin Plant is under 

no obligation to close. The fact that the deadline was tolled and 

then reinstated after the tolling condition expired does not 

transform the reinstatement of that deadline into a new legal 

requirement. Moreover, the 2015 Rule mandates that even 

surface impoundments eligible for an extension must close “no 

later than October 15, 2023,” or, under specified eligibility 

requirements, “no later than October 15, 2024.” Id. 

§ 257.103(f)(1)(vi). In light of the nature of tolling as pausing 

rather than eliminating the deadline, reinforced by the 

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regulatory backstop deadline, we reject EPA’s contention that 

its identification of the closure deadline “impose[d] a new 

obligation that carries legal consequence” for the Gavin Plant. 

EPA Br. 22, No. 23-1035. We accordingly lack jurisdiction to 

review the final Gavin Denial.

* * *

For the foregoing reasons, we dismiss the petitions for 

lack of jurisdiction. 

So ordered.

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