The EPA Regional Administrator may extend this 60 day period if more time is required to review a submission. The facility may request, within 10 days, reconsideration by the EPA Regional Administrator. The Administrator has discretion to decide whether the reconsideration should be based on a review of the existing record, an additional conference, or other appropriate means. Finally, a facility found unacceptable may seek to regain acceptability after the relevant violations have been corrected. Petitioners timely sought review of this rule.
Petitioners allege myriad procedural deficiencies.
We need not enumerate every perceived inadequacy, but rather present an overview of petitioners' contentions. First, while the rule directs the EPA to issue a notice of unacceptability based on a finding of noncompliance, the rule does not require that these findings satisfy any threshold level, or be documented in a particular manner. None of these documents must necessarily contain findings made by an impartial decisionmaker. In addition, the rule provides no ascertainable standard for reviewing such findings. The EPA may simply decide whether a particular violation is relevant, thus bypassing the fundamental question of whether the facility is actually in violation.