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Page Number: 39

10 

ENTERGY CORP. v. RIVERKEEPER, INC. 

STEVENS, J., dissenting 

was silent on the matter when it expressly authorized its 
use  in  another.9   See,  e.g.,  Allison  Engine  Co.  v.  United 
States ex rel. Sanders, 553 U. S. ___, ___ (2008) (slip op., at 
7–8);  Russello  v.  United  States,  464  U. S.  16,  23  (1983)
(“[W]here  Congress  includes  particular  language  in  one
section of a statute but omits it in another . . . , it is gener-
ally  presumed  that  Congress  acts  intentionally  and  pur-
posely  in  the  disparate  inclusion  or  exclusion”  (internal
quotation marks omitted)).  This is particularly true given 
Congress’ decision that cost-benefit analysis  would play  a 
temporary  and exceptional role in the CWA to help exist-
ing plants transition to the Act’s ambitious environmental
standards.10    Allowing  cost-benefit  analysis  in  the  BTA 
standard,  a  permanent  mandate  applicable  to  all  power-
plants, serves no such purpose and instead fundamentally 

—————— 

9 The Court argues that, if silence in §316(b) signals the prohibition of
cost-benefit  analysis,  it  must  also  foreclose  the  consideration  of  all 
other  potentially  relevant  discretionary  factors  in  setting  BTA  stan-
dards.  Ante,  at  12.    This  all-or-nothing  reasoning  rests  on  the  deeply
flawed  assumption  that  Congress  treated  cost-benefit  analysis  as  just
one among many factors upon which the EPA could potentially rely to
establish  BTA.    Yet,  as  explained  above,  the  structure  and  legislative
history  of  the  CWA  demonstrate  that  Congress  viewed  cost-benefit 
analysis with special skepticism and controlled its use accordingly.  The 
Court’s  assumption  of  equivalence  is  thus  plainly  incorrect.    Properly 
read,  Congress’  silence  in  §316(b)  forbids  reliance  on  the  cost-benefit
tool but does not foreclose reliance on all other considerations, such as a 
determination  whether  a  technology  is  so  costly  that  it  is  not  “avail-
able” for industry to adopt.    

10 In 1977, Congress established an additional technology-based stan-
dard,  commonly  referred  to  as  “best  conventional  pollutant  control
technology,”  or  “BCT,”  to  govern  conventional  pollutants  previously
covered by the BAT standard.  See 33 U. S. C. §1311(b)(2)(E).  The BCT 
standard  required  the  EPA  to  consider,  among  other  factors,  “the
relationship between the costs of attaining a reduction in effluents and
the effluent reduction benefits derived.”  §1314(b)(4)(B).  That Congress 
expressly authorized cost-benefit analysis in BCT further confirms that
Congress  treated  cost-benefit  analysis  as  exceptional  and  reserved  for
itself the authority to decide when it would be used in the Act.