Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/23pdf/23a349_0813.pdf
Page Number: 43.0

Cite as:  603 U. S. ____ (2024) 

21 

BARRETT, J., dissenting 

referenced.  See, e.g., 88 Fed. Reg. 36693; Response to Com-
ments 149–151.  Would that same EPA have “significantly 
changed”  the  FIP  had  it  just  explained  more  thoroughly 
why the plan did not depend on the States covered?12  And 
on top of all this, EPA has in fact refused to reconsider the 
FIP now that it applies to fewer States, explaining in detail 
why  its  methodology  was  unaffected  by  the  States  it  cov-
ered.13 

* 

  * 

  * 
  With little to say in response to the FIP’s apparent state-
agnostic  methodology  for setting  emissions  limits  and  the 
Clean Air Act’s stringent harmless-error rule, the Court re-
sorts  to  raising  forfeiture.    Ante,  at  17–19.    But  it  is  the 
Court that goes out of its way to develop a failure-to-explain 

—————— 

12 The  Court  faults  EPA  for  “refus[ing]  to  say  with  certainty”  at  oral 
argument that it would have reached the same conclusions if  different 
States were included in the FIP.  Ante, at 18.  But §7607(d)(8) does not 
require the Government to show that the rule would be the same; it is 
most naturally read to require the challenger to demonstrate a “substan-
tial likelihood that the rule would have been significantly changed if such 
  (Emphasis  added.)    And  though 
errors  had  not  been  made.” 
§7607(d)(9)(A) appears to allow reversal of “ ‘any’ ” arbitrary or capricious 
“ ‘action,’ ” ante, at 19, §7607(d)(8)’s more specific harmless-error rule and 
§7607(d)(9)(D)’s  more  specific  requirements  for  reversal based  on  arbi-
trary or capricious procedural errors would seem to control. 

13 The Court claims that the Clean Air Act prevents us from consider-
ing EPA’s denial of reconsideration.  Ante, at 14–15, n. 11.  But it is not 
obvious  that  the  relevant  provision  of  the  Act—§7607(d)(7)(A)’s  defini-
tion of the “record for judicial review”—bars consideration of later devel-
opments  for  purposes  of  the  Act’s  stringent  harmless-error  rule, 
§7607(d)(8).  Even assuming that the denial of reconsideration itself can-
not count as evidence of harmlessness, we are judging applicants’ likeli-
hood of success on the merits.  On the merits, we can expect EPA to make 
just the sort of arguments it made in its denial: EPA likely will explain 
why the covered States did not matter by citing and interpreting mate-
rial in the record.  See, e.g., Denial 11 (“Record Basis Establishing Why 
the Plan Functions Independently by State”); id., at 15, and nn. 16–18 
(citing the final rule and technical support documents on the rulemaking 
docket).