Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/23pdf/23a349_0813.pdf
Page Number: 19.0

16 

OHIO v. EPA 

Opinion of the Court 

comments).    And,  as  we  have  just  seen,  EPA’s  own  state-
ments and actions confirm the agency appreciated that con-
cern.  In preparing the final rule in response to public com-
ments,  the  agency  emphatically  insists,  it  “did  consider 
whether the [r]ule could cogently be applied to a subset of 
the 23 covered States.”  EPA Response 27.  And as a result 
of that consideration, the agency observes, it opted to add a 
severability  provision  to  its  final  rule.    Ibid.    By  its  own 
words  and  actions,  then,  the  agency  demonstrated  that  it 
was on notice of the applicants’ concern.  Yet, as we have 
seen, it failed to address the concern adequately.12 
  Third, the government pursues one more argument in the 
alternative.  As the agency sees it, the applicants must re-
turn to EPA and file a motion asking it to reconsider its fi-
nal  rule  before  presenting  their  objection  in  court.    They 
must, the agency says, because the “grounds for [their] ob-
jection  arose  after  the  period  for  public  comment.”  
§7607(d)(7)(B); see EPA Response 20–21.  As just discussed, 

—————— 

12 The dissent resorts to a “hair-splitting approach” to the public com-
ments.  Post, at 8–11.  It stresses, for example, that some comments high-
lighted  variances  among  specific  emissions-producing  facilities  and in-
dustries, “not States.”  Post, at 8 (emphasis deleted).  But the dissent fails 
to acknowledge that, for purposes of the FIP, States are a sum of their 
emissions-producing facilities.  See, e.g., Ozone Transport Policy Analy-
sis Final Rule TSD 12 (EPA–HQ–OAR–2021–0668, 2023) (Final Ozone 
Analysis).  Similarly, the dissent characterizes the comment indicating 
EPA would need to “conduct a new assessment and modeling” if States 
dropped out of the FIP as a complaint about the “sequencing” of the pro-
posed  SIP  disapprovals and the  FIP.    Post,  at 10.    But  why  would  the 
sequencing matter?  Because the FIP cannot apply to a State if its SIP is 
not disapproved.  See Part I–A, supra.  And why would EPA need to per-
form a “new assessment and modeling of contribution”?  Because it may 
be  that  “the math . . .  wouldn’t  necessarily  turn  out  the same”  if some 
States were not covered by the FIP.  Tr. of Oral Arg. 59.  Fairly on notice 
of the concern, EPA needed to, and by its own admission sought to, “con-
sider” whether its FIP could apply to a subset of States.  EPA Response 
27.