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Page Number: 27

6 

ENTERGY CORP. v. RIVERKEEPER, INC. 

Opinion of BREYER, J. 

(emphasis added).

I  believe,  as  I  said,  that  this  language  is  deliberately 
nuanced.  The statement says that where the statute uses 
the  term  “best  practicable,”  the  statute  requires  compari-
sons of costs and benefits; but where the statute uses the 
term “best available,” such comparisons are not “required.” 
Ibid. (emphasis added).  Senator Muskie does not say that
all efforts to compare costs and benefits are forbidden. 

Moreover,  the  statement  points  out  that  where  the
statute  uses  the  term  “best  available,”  the  Administrator 
“will be bound by a test of reasonableness.”  Ibid. (empha-
sis  added).    It  adds  that  the  Administrator  should  apply 
this  test  in  a  way  that  reflects  its  ideal  objective,  moving
as  closely  as  is  technologically  possible  to  the  elimination 
of  pollution. 
It  thereby  says  the  Administrator  should 
consider, i.e., take into account, how much pollution would
still  remain  if  the  best  available  technology  were  to  be
applied  everywhere—“without  regard  to  cost.”    Ibid.    It  
does not say that the Administrator must set the standard 
based solely on the result of that determination. (It would 
be  difficult  to  reconcile  the  alternative,  more  absolute 
reading of this language with the Senator’s earlier “test of 
reasonableness.”)

I  say  that  one  may,  not  that  one  must,  read  Senator 
Muskie’s  statement  this  way.    But  to  read  it  differently
would  put  the  Agency  in  conflict  with  the  test  of  reason-
ableness  by  threatening  to  impose  massive  costs  far  in 
excess of any benefit.  For 30 years the EPA has read the 
statute and its history in this way.  The EPA has thought 
that it would not be “reasonable to interpret Section 316(b)
as requiring use of technology whose cost is wholly dispro-
portionate  to  the  environmental  benefit  to  be  gained.” 
In re  Pub.  Serv.  Co.  of  N. H.  (Seabrook  Station,  Units  1 
and  2),  1  E.  A.  D.  332,  340  (1977),  remanded  on  other 
grounds,  Seacoast  Anti-Pollution  League  v.  Costle,  572 
F. 2d  872  (CA1  1978)  (emphasis  added);  see  also  In re