Source: http://acoel.org/category/Clean-Air-Act.aspx
Timestamp: 2019-04-23 17:59:42+00:00

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Southeast Wisconsin’s continued relief from nonattainment rules is not assured yet. And did we mention we are about to build a large new factory just over the Illinois border?
Southeast Wisconsin labored under some form of ozone nonattainment status for 20 years – but in July 2012 the area was declared to be in compliance with the then-applicable 8 hour ozone standard. The region has enjoyed five years of relief from the enhanced permitting, emission offsets, and other restrictions on expansion that come with Nonattainment New Source Review.
That glorious period appeared to be coming to a close when, on December 20, 2017, EPA informed Governor Walker that the proposed nonattainment areas for the more restrictive 2015 ozone standard would include all of five southeastern Wisconsin counties, and parts of four other counties bordering Lake Michigan. The Walker administration and the business community were not pleased.
In public comments filed with EPA, the State of Wisconsin and every major business group for the state and affected counties pushed back on EPA’s policy decision, with arguments based heavily on the scientific data collected during the past 20 years. Commenters emphasized that the air quality and meteorological data does not support including the entire geographic boundaries of all of the counties, there is a seasonal component to the nonattainment data, and as the state has emphasized for years in nearly every context involving air emissions, most of the ozone impacting southeast Wisconsin is transported from outside Wisconsin, including from our neighbor to the south – Illinois.
EPA listened, and on May 1, 2018, released a substantially pared down final list of counties designated as nonattainment for ozone –the list only includes the lakeshore areas of six counties. Notably, because of gaps in the certified data, Racine County, which will be home to a new $10 billion development by Foxconn Technology Group, will not be included in the nonattainment area. Foxconn and its affiliated vendors will manufacture liquid crystal display screens at the Racine location, which was chosen over other contenders, including sites in Illinois.
The new designations have not yet been published in the Federal Register, but this neighborhood dispute may be headed to court. Responding to Ms. Madigan’s press release, Governor Walker said “The State of Wisconsin will push back.” If Illinois wants to pick a fight, Wisconsin could consider a counter claim, or its own suit against Illinois under Section 126 of the Clean Air Act, which allows downwind states to pursue out of state upwind emission sources. Ozone monitors in southeastern Kenosha County have shown for years that emissions from Illinois are the primary source of nonattainment on the Wisconsin side of the border.
Posted on April 25, 2018 by H. Thomas Wells Jr.
When someone asks what type of law I practice, and the answer is “environmental law”, the next question often is, “How did you become an environmental lawyer?” My answer to that question is simple: I reported for duty on Tuesday. The full story is a bit more complicated.
Having gone through undergraduate school at the University of Alabama on an Air Force ROTC scholarship, I had a commitment to serve as an Air Force officer. Upon graduation from undergraduate school in 1972, I was commissioned as second lieutenant in the United States Air Force. (This was during the Vietnam War. Although my draft number was over 300, I still went through advanced ROTC because of the scholarship). The Air Force then granted me an educational delay to attend law school. With the Vietnam War still ongoing, obtaining the educational delay was not guaranteed, but once it was granted, I was off to law school.
If there were any courses at the University of Alabama School of Law in environmental law at that time, I didn’t take them. The field of environmental law was not on my radar screen at all. In fact, it was not on many radar screens back then.
The day after my law school graduation ceremony, I received a call from a Colonel who was the Executive Officer for the Air Force General Counsel’s office in the Pentagon. He asked if I might be interested in coming up to the Pentagon for an interview. The explained that the Air Force General Counsel’s office had a “Military Honors Program” under which they took two or three recent law school graduates who had an obligation to serve in the Air Force to work in the General Counsel’s office rather than becoming a JAG officer. Of course, the interview had to be at my own expense.
So I flew to D.C., interviewed, and was selected as one of the three recent law graduates with an obligation to serve in the Air Force on active duty to work in the Air Force General Counsel’s office. This office was on the civilian side of the Department of the Air Force. That meant we reported to the civilian General Counsel, rather than to The Judge Advocate General (“TJAG”); The GC, in turn, reported to the Secretary of the Air Force rather than to the Chief of Staff. As noted, none of us were JAG officers, but were nevertheless promoted to Captain by order of the Secretary of the Air Force.
Upon moving to the D.C. area, I still didn’t know what area of law to which I would be assigned within the General Counsel’s office. There were three slots: one was Government Procurement law, one was International Law, and the third was Real Estate and Environmental Law. Without my knowledge, the lawyers in the office had decided the assignments would be based on when we reported for duty. Since I reported on the day after Columbus Day, a Tuesday in October 1975, I was assigned to be in the Real Estate and Environmental Law section of the office.
Environmental law in 1975 was really just beginning. We had NEPA, the old Clean Water Act, as amended in 1972 and the old Clean Air Act of 1970, and that was just about it. RCRA had yet to be enacted; TSCA wasn’t around, and Superfund was nonexistent. So I became an environmental lawyer with on the job training and by learning the amendments to the relevant Acts as they were enacted. All in all, things worked out pretty well, and I indeed became an environmental lawyer because I reported for duty on Tuesday.
On January 25, 2018, The EPA published a guidance memorandum withdrawing the “once in always in” policy for the classification of major sources of hazardous air pollutants under section 112 of the Clean Air Act. This new EPA guidance allows stationary sources of hazardous air pollutants (HAPs) that are classified as “major sources” to limit their HAP emissions to below major source thresholds and thereby be reclassified as “area” sources at any time. As Bill Wehrum, assistant administrator of EPA’s Office of Air and Radiation, puts it, “It will reduce regulatory burden for industries and the states, while continuing to ensure stringent and effective controls on hazardous air pollutants.” I agree.
A major source is one that emits or has the potential to emit 10 tons per year of any single HAP or 25 tons per year of combination of HAPs. For the last 20 years, once a source became subject to a MACT it remained in that status even if it reduced emissions below the major source threshold(s).
The new policy follows a similar theme emerging from the Pruitt EPA: legally speaking, the once in always in policy was not supported by the language of the Clean Air Act. Under this new policy, a source can voluntarily accept limitations (even after previously triggering major source status) and avoid major source requirements. This would eliminate some of the resource intensive burdens of MACT such as recordkeeping and reporting requirements.
In 2007, the Bush EPA proposed a rule that would have replaced the historic policy. After taking comment on the proposal, the EPA never took a final action and it has never been withdrawn. Based upon the new guidance, EPA intends to revive the pending rulemaking consistent with the Wehrum guidance document.
This new policy is a significant incentive for major sources to take efforts to reduce emissions on an actual or potential basis and fall below the triggering thresholds. As such, this new policy is good for business and the environment.
While some still debate climate change, on 11/22/17, eight of the oil and gas industry’s biggest players signed on to a set of Guiding Principles for reducing methane emissions across the natural gas value chain. BP, Eni, Exxon Mobil, Repsol, Shell, Statoil, Total and Wintershall, in collaboration with international institutions, NGOs and academics, drafted the Guiding Principles.
The five guiding principles are: continually reduce methane emissions; advance strong performance across value chains; improve accuracy of methane emissions data; advance sound policy and regulations on methane emissions; and increase transparency. Click here for the entire Guiding Principles document.
It will be interesting to see if these “voluntary principles” eventually become enforceable regulations. Likewise, it will be interesting to see if these guidelines become “industry standards” and, accordingly, whether by acquiescence, private litigation, or lender requirements, become de facto regulations.
It is significant to see so many major oil and gas industry actors responsibly, firmly and publicly commit to both reduce methane emissions and advance monitoring. Perhaps now others in the industry will be more inclined to join the responsible eight and commit to pass less gas.
What’s Happening with the Other Clean Air Act (CAA) §111(d) Rule?
Long ago and in what seems like a faraway place, the D.C. Circuit vacated the NESHAP for boilers and the NSPS for Commercial and Industrial Solid Waste Incineration (CISWO) units. (See “EPA in the D.C. Circuit – Where Has All the Deference Gone”, ACOEL Blog, September 23, 2008). The demarcation between boilers and other process heaters and CISWI units is whether or not they burn waste. The D.C. Circuit held that EPA had improperly drawn that line. Since the source categories are mutually exclusive under the Clean Air Act, the improper line drawing resulted in the improper definition of each source category, resulting in the demise of the rules. Fast forwarding (sort of) to 2013, EPA finally promulgates a new and improved boiler NESHAP and new NSPS rules for new and existing CISWI units. These rulemakings were only made possible by the Non-Hazardous Secondary Materials (NHSM) rule which defines what is or is not a waste when burned. It takes the entirety of 40 C.F.R. Part 241 to provide this definition and the processes for determining if something is a waste or a fuel.
Now comes the fun part. An existing boiler burning clean wood had to be in compliance with the NESHAP by early 2016, but the same existing boiler burning “dirty” wood categorized as a waste under the NHSM rule didn’t have to comply with the NESHAP since it is not a boiler but an incinerator. Well, it must have to comply with CISWI existing incinerator standards, right? Well no. In fact, there really aren’t any applicable NESHAP requirements for existing boilers burning waste.
The CISWI standards for existing units, 40 C.F.R Part 60, subpart DDDD, are §111(d) guidelines, which additionally must address the requirements enacted for incinerators in §129 of the CAA. Those who have followed the Clean Power Plan (CPP) about which much has been written, including several ACOEL blogs (Is You Is Or Is You Ain’t Transformative?, Unprecedented Program Leads To Unprecedented Response, Pulling the Plug on Greenhouse Gas Emissions), recognize that most states were in the process of developing state implementation plans (SIPs) to implement the CPP when the Supreme Court stayed the rule. That’s because the CPP was also a §111(d) “guideline” for existing electric steam generation units. Actual application of the CPP was dependent upon SIPs approved by EPA which implement the guidelines or, if a state defaults, a federal implementation plan (FIP) implementing the CPP guidelines. Similarly, the CISWI standards for existing units must be implemented through approved SIPs or a FIP. The SIPs or FIP required to implement the CISWI standards for existing units are required to be in place within five years, or February 7, 2018 and compliance is required by that same date. However, no such SIP has been approved and no FIP finally promulgated. Polite inquiries to EPA have provided no insight to the ultimate timing.
The delay in taking final agency action to implement CISWI standards for existing sources creates some interesting circumstances. A state may recognize that through a renewal or a reopener of a facility’s Title V permit it should incorporate CISWI requirements, but it really can’t since there isn’t a federally enforceable requirement for CISWI. Subpart DDDD guidelines contain some provisions for determining whether certain sources qualify for an exemption from CISWI under §129. If they are exempt from CISWI, then they should be complying with the currently applicable boiler NESHAP, but there really isn’t any applicable rule for determining the validity of an asserted exemption. Subpart DDDD guidelines also provide that if a waste-burning source does not want to comply with CISWI and instead intends to comply with an applicable NESHAP, it must cease burning waste six months in advance of the date its chooses to switch from being a CISWI source to a NESHAP source. So if that dirty wood burning boiler doesn’t intend to comply with CISWI as of the ostensible compliance date of February 7, 2018, should it have switched to clean wood in July of 2017 even though there was no applicable rule requiring the six month period?
WHICH WAY ARE THE WINDS BLOWING ON THE INTERNATIONAL TRANSPORT OF AIR POLLUTANTS?
The EPA has continued to discuss and work with states concerning designations, and now understands that the information gaps that formed the basis of the extension may not be as expansive as we previously believed.
While, as noted above, it is becoming increasingly clear that “but for” international emissions every monitor in the nation would be complying with ozone NAAQS requirements, the implementation of that conclusion is for the moment, at least, blowing in the winds of regulatory change.
Reuters reports that EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt, responding to a suggestion in a Wall Street Journal editorial, is planning to set up a “red team/blue team” war-game style debate to resolve the question in his mind about the validity of scientific predictions of catastrophic anthropogenic global warming. According to Administrator Pruitt, this “debate” would be televised. Pruitt said that this debate was “not necessarily” meant to undermine EPA’s 2009 Endangerment Finding that triggers Clean Air Act regulation of greenhouse gases, and added that he would prefer that Congress weigh in on the matter.
The prospect of a reality television show style competition designed to resolve for the United States a matter of scientific consensus reached by just about every other nation in the world should concern anyone hoping that EPA’s initial moves to regulate greenhouse gases might survive the Trump administration. But this prospect also illustrates tensions between the administrative state that allows a coherent system of environmental regulation to exist, and the American polity’s identity as a self-governing democracy where political truth is determined by trial in the “marketplace of ideas” guaranteed by First Amendment freedom of expression.
But when men have realized that time has upset many fighting faiths, they may come to believe even more than they believe the very foundations of their own conduct that the ultimate good desired is better reached by free trade in ideas -- that the best test of truth is the power of the thought to get itself accepted in the competition of the market, and that truth is the only ground upon which their wishes safely can be carried out.
In a later dissent, in Gitlow v. United States, Holmes expressed that his commitment to the results of this free competition in ideas was so strong that should the arguments in favor of a proletarian dictatorship gain majority approval, he must accept that result.
The foundations of the administrative state are in tension with this notion of popular resolution of scientific and economic truths. Administrative agencies are given authority to resolve scientific and technical issues while carrying out broad Congressional mandates, such as the Clean Air Act mandate to regulate air pollutants that “may reasonably be anticipated to endanger public health or welfare.” The basic theory behind this delegation of authority is threefold – 1) that agencies will be staffed by experts better able to resolve technical and scientific issues than Congress; 2) that Congress lacks the resources and attention to engage in the details of regulatory decisionmaking; and 3) that some policy decisions must be at least partially insulated from the political process.
But this delegation of scientific and economic factfinding is always conditional – Congress always retains the power to withdraw the delegation or overrule agency determinations through affirmative legislation.
Is the urgency of climate change a political truth on the order of the choice between socialism and capitalism? Is our commitment to the verdict of the marketplace of ideas in a democracy stronger than our commitment to urgent action to address climate change?
The Annual Texas Environmental Superconference—Austin in August?
The Texas Environmental Superconference is one of a kind. Held each year in Austin in sweltering early August, this conference consistently sells out, attracting over 500 participants from the public and private sectors.Indeed, now in its 29th year, it was the winner of the first American Bar Association Section of Environment, Energy & Resources (ABA SEER) award for Best State or Local Bar Environment, Energy and Resources Program of the Year.
The key to the conference’s popularity is its unabashed willingness to integrate humor into content--with annual themes, skits, quizzes, prizes, and, for the past several years, even a conference song.Past themes have included Yogi Berra quotes (“It’s like déjà vu all over again”); Clichés (“The best thing since sliced bread”); Shakespeare (“Much Ado About Pollution”); “Star Wars (“May the farce be with you”); and Willie Nelson songs (“On the Road Again”).Dwarfing all other past conferences, though, was the Disney movie-themed conference, which featured the song “SuperconferenceAustinTexasExpialidocious” and is the subject of 2 You Tube videos. (introductory remarks and conference song).
Speakers generally weave the conference themes into their presentations and, on occasion, even appear in costume.For example, an EPA chief of enforcement appeared as Harry Truman in the politically-themed conference, “Join the Party,” and as Darth Vader, in the Star Wars-themed program. And an EPA General Counsel appeared as a tiara-wearing Wonder Woman in the super hero-themed program.A former EPA Regional Administrator and TCEQ Chairman appeared variously as the Beatles, the Odd Couple, Game Show contestants, and Yoda and Luke Skywalker.
This year’s conference – to be held on Thursday-Friday, August 4-5, 2017 – has as its theme board games and is entitled “Let the Games Begin.”The Wednesday evening session on enforcement is entitled “Trouble.”Registration is at Environmental Superconference-2017.
Participants look forward to attending each year for the chance not only to experience a fun and informative program, but also to network and to informally discuss issues of concern with other environmental professionals representing diverse perspectives, e.g., private and public sectors; regulators, regulated community, and environmental organizations; legal and technical professionals; and local, state, and federal governments.
The conference is organized by the Environmental and Natural Resources Law Section of the State Bar of Texas, in conjunction with other environmental professional organizations, including ABA SEER, the Air & Waste Management Association—Southwest Section, the Water Environment Association of Texas, the Texas Association of Environmental Professionals, and the Environmental Health and Safety Audit Center.Proceeds from the conference are used to fund environmental internships, student writing awards, and section outreach programs.
Thanks to a generous contribution from Supporter, EARTHx (formerly Earth Day Texas), the Superconference this year is offering –and last year offered--scholarships for employees of non-profit organizations with environmental matters as a significant focus.
The Annual Texas Environmental Superconference is the answer to the question, why come to Austin in early August?
No matter what your views on climate, Bob’s piece is worth reading. I find much to agree with in Bob’s observations, but would respectfully disagree with one.
Focusing on the president’s March 28 Executive Order (EO), Bob raises the valid question of why Mr. Trump touted it on job-saving, energy independence grounds. Bob makes a strong case (as if he really needed to) that coal mining jobs are dwindling due to market forces and that the U.S. energy outlook is just fine.
Bob posits that Trump’s job-energy independence focus reveals a divide and major discomfort within the Administration on whether and how much to deny that humans are involved with climate change. He notes that the March 28 Order side-steps any position on both the “Endangerment Finding” and the Paris Accords.
a. Following the 2007 Supreme Court Massachusetts ruling and EPA’s subsequent Endangerment Finding, EPA is not required by the Clean Air Act (CAA) to issue GHG rules with any particular degree of stringency – EPA must just issue rules.
b. The “beyond-the-fenceline” features of the Obama CPP are based upon truly adventurous interpretations of the words of the CAA. There is certainly nothing in the CAA that requires those interpretations. (Recall the U.S. Supreme Court has taken the unprecedented step of staying the Obama CPP throughout the entire judicial review process.) Even if the D.C. Circuit were to uphold these interpretations, it would only be upholding the Obama EPA’s discretion to adopt them; the Court could not rule that such interpretations were mandated by the CAA.
ii. There is no heightened standard of judicial review when an agency reverses course; and an agency need not convince the court that the reasons for the new policy are better than the reasons for the rejected one.
See my recent ACOEL blog for the citations to the cases.
d. Because the statutory interpretations supporting beyond-the-fenceline requirements are so adventurous (and stayed by the Supreme Court), it should be easy for the Trump EPA to defend a new CPP as a matter of policy based on CAA interpretations that are far less adventurous.
e. If and when the new CPP reaches the Supreme Court, it is difficult to see the Court departing from the precedents of the cases cited in my ACOEL blog, particularly with Justice Gorsuch filling Justice Scalia’s seat.
POTUS, SCOTUS & WOTUS: What Do They Have in Common With Michael Stipe and Jack Black?
Then-candidate Donald Trump’s unauthorized use of REM’s 1987 song, “It’s the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine)”, during a 2015 campaign rally sparked a sharp objection by the band’s Michael Stipe. Flash forward to 2017 and now-President Trump has been flexing his executive powers in a number of legal fields; for many environmental, energy or immigration lawyers it’s the end of the regulatory world as we knew it for decades, and they are not feeling so fine.
An EO can have the force of law, however, if the EO is based on either the Constitution or a statute, per the Supreme Court’s 1954 Youngstown decision. That is why one must carefully read each EO to determine the grounds of its authority, and then whether it is possibly contrary to a) existing laws or b) constitutional provisions such as due process or equal protection.
Facing an uncooperative Congress, POTUS Obama came to rely on EOs in his last two years in office (see this prophetic 2015 School House Rock episode). POTUS Trump took to EOs right out of the gate. The two Trump EOs that have garnered the most publicity and outcry deal with immigration restrictions The first EO was challenged in numerous courts, and the 9th Circuit issued on February 9 the first appellate decision on a Trump EO. Interestingly, and instructive for future litigants and legal counsel, the first issue addressed by the 9th Circuit, and the one they discussed the most, was . . . standing. The court then moved on to reviewability, and only briefly due process and equal protection. The complaint’s count on violating the Administrative Procedure Act for not following proper rulemaking proceedings was not even discussed in the ruling.
Trump issued two EOs of more relevance to environmental and energy lawyers. First was the January 30, 2017 EO entitled “Reducing Regulation and Controlling Regulatory Costs”, aka the add-one-subtract-two, no-increase-in-incremental-costs [undefined]- of-regulations EO. That was followed by the February 2, 2017 Interim Guidance of the OMB implementing (and implicitly amending) the EO by limiting it to “significant regulatory actions”—i.e. those of $100 million or more of annual effect on the economy. A week later the EO and IG were both challenged in federal court in D.C. as violating the APA, separation of powers, the Constitution’s “Take Care Clause”, and as being ultra vires. Plaintiffs referenced in part OSHA, TSCA, the ESA and CAA, and other energy/environmental laws as being inconsistent with the EO’s requirement that a new rule can only be promulgated if its cost is offset by the elimination of two existing rules. The EO ironically signals the possible demise of cost-benefit analysis —first mandated by then POTUS Ronald Reagan by an EO in 1981—by disallowing consideration of the economic benefits of a regulation when weighing its costs.
Many more EOs are promised in the coming weeks concerning a variety of environmental and energy laws and regulations. Early in the wave was the February 28, 2017 EO with the majestic name of “Restoring the Rule of Law, Federalism, and Economic Growth by Reviewing the ‘Waters of the United States’ [aka WOTUS] Rule”. This EO directs the EPA to review the WOTUS Rule while keeping in mind the national interest of “promoting economic growth, minimizing regulatory uncertainty, and showing due regard for the roles of the Congress and the States under the Constitution.” Since WOTUS was a final rule published in the Federal Register, it can only be repealed and replaced by a new rule that goes through full notice-and-comment rulemaking, not simply by a non-legislative guidance or policy statement.
One who lives by the EO sword can slowly die from it too. POTUS Obama did not submit for approval to Congress the Paris Climate Change Agreement of 2016, calling it an “executive agreement”, thus POTUS Trump does not need Congressional approval to undo it. The Agreement terms do not allow withdrawal by a party before November 2019. However, the U.S. could withdraw from the overarching United Nations Framework on Climate Change with one year notice, if the Senate approves, and that in effect would undo our Paris “commitments”. And as a practical matter, the current Administration could also just choose not to implement the Paris obligations, because there is no binding duty to hit the emission reduction targets.
In sum, we live in interesting times. Although Jack Black has said of this Administration that “It’s the end of the world”, for College members and their clients it’s the start of some fascinating new adventures in regulation and litigation. Stay tuned.
We environmental lawyers are well-acquainted with the technology-forcing requirements of many statutes. I, however, do not love technology and I hate being forced.
The idea behind “technology forcing” statutory provisions is that if Congress adopts requirements beyond the demonstrated capability of currently available technology, that will cause smart people to develop new technology that will meet the new requirements. Simple. Better technology is just waiting to be developed. The cost or other impacts of new technology are seldom regarded as good reasons to hesitate. There may even be an implication that trying to count that cost or consider those impacts is an unreasonable hindrance to the unlimited and irrepressible march of technology, which is always good, right?
Not so fast. In my standard Dad-think, I bought our youngest daughter a brand-new, highly-acclaimed-for-safety-and-reliability Honda Accord to begin her new post-graduate life of go-everywhere-any-time-of-night independence. The reliable-as-a-hammer reputation of Honda, however, has been seriously tarnished for me because this car won’t always start. One Sunday morning in January as my daughter prepared to depart Birmingham for Washington, D.C., the dashboard of that Accord lit up light a fireworks display before going black and taking the entire electrical system of the auto with it. Because delay was not an option, she took her mother’s less efficient but more reliable old Lexus to DC while Dad spent Monday morning at the dealership. The problem? In pursuit of technology-forcing CAFÉ standards, Honda had a bright idea (all puns intended). Honda added a sensor to detect when the Accord’s battery had sufficient residual charge to switch the car’s alternator out of service until needed. Periodic reduction of the marginal drag of the alternator on the engine’s main drive belt at least theoretically benefited the Accord’s highway mileage rating. Unfortunately, when the new sensor fails, as it did that Sunday morning, the entire electrical system goes haywire and the engine will not run.
When I came to understand that this tiny piece of technology that had been added to my car to chase a microscopic mileage advantage had also become a critical failure pathway for my precious daughter’s car, I was angry. I admit it. I cussed. When the failure occurred again 45 days later on the Sunday morning my daughter was planning to return to DC with her Honda after bringing her Mom’s car home, I really cussed. The earlier fireworks had likely damaged the car’s battery that now became the critical failure barrier to normal operation.
Cooler heads will explain that thousands of Honda Accords have probably operated millions of miles with that microscopic mileage advantage adding up. But the personal travails of one little environmental lawyer at least microscopically demonstrate that there are costs and impacts to technology-forcing requirements. The rest of this story might be even more entertaining. What do you think will happen when a different kind of lawyer figures out that there may be thousands of Accord owners driving around with new technology-forcing battery sensor switches that are prone to failure and might cost you a battery?
Here’s a thought exercise: I’ll give you a budget of 25 words (including conjunctions, articles, and all the other little ones). You use up a word by either deleting, adding, or replacing one in an existing federal environmental or natural resources statute. How much could you transform the field of practice with just those 25 word edits? The answer is, quite a lot.
When we think of statutory reform, we usually think big, right on up to “repeal and replace.” But after more than 25 years of very little legislative action on federal environmental and natural resources statutes—the National Wildlife Refuge Improvement Act, Sustainable Fishing Act, and the recent Toxic Substances Control Act reforms are a few exceptions since the 1990 Clean Air Act amendments—much rides on the accumulations of judicial and agency interpretations of the meaning of a word here and a phrase there. As we enter a period of potential legislative volatility in this field, therefore, the rifle shot may be just as much in play as the nuclear bomb.
Like any statutory reform, rifle shots can make regulatory statutes either more or less regulatory. For example, one could add “including carbon dioxide” or “excluding carbon dioxide” in just the right place in the Clean Air Act and with those three words put an end to a lot of debate and litigation. Given the current political climate, however, it’s reasonable to assume any rifle shot would be aimed at reducing regulatory impacts. But even with just 25 words in the clip, one could transform the impact of several regulatory programs before running out.
For example, delete the words “harm” and “harass” from the statutory definition of “take” in the Endangered Species Act (ESA) (16 U.S.C. 1532(19)) [LINK 1] and you have a very different regulatory program. Much if not most of the land use regulation impact under the ESA stems from the inclusion of those two words; without them, the ESA’s prohibition of unpermitted take would restrict actions like hunting, killing, shooting, and wounding, but could not reach indirect “harming” from habitat modification. Of course, the interagency consultation program under Section 7 (16 U.S.C. 1536(a)(2)) [LINK 2] would still be in place, prohibiting federal agencies from taking actions that “jeopardize” the continued existence of species. But just add “substantially” before “jeopardize” and the practical effect of that prohibition is greatly reduced.
I’ve managed to transform the ESA, vastly reducing its regulatory impact, with just three word tweaks. Twenty-two to go. Here are some more examples. I’ll let readers evaluate the impacts.
I’ll leave it to readers to think about how to use the last four words. The point here is that the system of environmental and natural resources law has become quite fragile. With Congress out of the picture for so long, courts and agencies have built up an interpretation infrastructure under which a single word or phrase often carries a tremendous burden of substantive and procedural program implementation. As a consequence, a mere tweak here and there can have dramatic effects on the program.
Granted, anyone who closely follows the statutes tweaked above will quickly appreciate the impact of any of the tweaks, and I’ve chosen some powerful examples unlikely to slip by any such experts. But subtler tweaks buried deep in a larger bill could more easily fly below the radar.
It remains to be seen whether Congress takes this rifle shot approach or goes bigger. Rifle shots don’t eliminate or “gut” entire programs, which may be the current congressional appetite, but the above examples show the potency of this approach. I for one will be keeping my eyes out for rifle shots in bills every bit as much as I will be following the big bomb reform efforts. Do not underestimate the power of the tweak!
ATSDR...A New Role under the Clean Air Act?
In recent months, the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR) and the “minimal risk levels” (MRLs) established by ATSDR have played a direct role in EPA’s efforts to regulate stationary sources under the Clean Air Act. The ATSDR is an advisory agency created by CERCLA in 1980 to help EPA assess health hazards associated with Superfund Sites. ATSDR’s role was expanded by the 1984 RCRA Amendments to assess risks from hazardous substance releases at landfills and surface impoundments. In 1986 SARA further expanded ATSDR’s responsibilities under CERCLA to assess the health impacts of hazardous substance releases.
In comparison to the MRLs developed under CERCLA, there are two sets of standards established by EPA under the federal Clean Air Act to address health impacts from air emissions. One of these is the National Ambient Air Quality Standards (“NAAQS”) which define the concentration of a criteria pollutant in ambient air deemed to be protective of human health. State implementation plans are designed to achieve compliance with NAAQS. Likewise, the air emissions from permitted stationary sources are analyzed to ensure consistency with NAAQS. NAAQS are developed through a rigorous process that solicits input from the scientific community and public at large, and are promulgated as rules which are invariably subject to legal challenge and judicial review.
EPA also establishes emission limitations under Section 112 of the Clean Air Act to control toxic air emissions. These standards limit the emissions of hazardous air pollutants from specified categories of stationary sources. EPA assesses the risk to public health and the environment that remains after implementation of these limitations and must promulgate new health based standards to mitigate those residual risks.
In recent months EPA has moved beyond the NAAQS and toxic air pollutant standards to rely upon the ATSDR and its MRLs in identifying the allowable, and ostensibly enforceable, concentration of pollutants in ambient air under the Clean Air Act.
In one case, EPA asked ATSDR to evaluate the ambient air quality surrounding a stationary source. ATSDR concluded that the monitored concentrations of manganese from that source exceeded the pollutant’s MRL. Based on this finding, US DOJ filed a civil complaint against the facility. One of the claims alleged that the monitored manganese concentrations presented an imminent and substantial endangerment to public health and that injunctive action was necessary under Section 303 of the Clean Air Act. The complaint requested a judicial order requiring installation of fence-line air monitors and implementation by the source of all measures necessary to prevent exceedance of the MRL for manganese at those monitors. In effect, EPA identified the MRL as the allowable concentration of manganese to be emitted under the Clean Air Act. The case has settled.
In other matters, EPA Region 5 utilized the information from an ATSDR health consultation to justify issuance of a Section 114 order under the Clean Air Act which required installation of fence-line PM10 monitors around a facility with outdoor storage piles where manganese emissions were also an issue. The company refused to install the monitors and EPA filed a civil complaint seeking to enforce the Section 114 order. EPA sought summary judgment, relying in part upon an ATSDR finding that manganese concentrations in the ambient air surrounding a nearby facility exceeded the MRL. The underlying ATSDR assessment also used PM10 Air Quality Guidelines (AQG) from the World Health Organization (WHO) to conclude that ambient PM10 concentrations might cause respiratory problems for sensitive individuals. Notably, the WHO AQG are more conservative than the NAAQS (the WHO AQG for PM10 is 50 μg/m3 as a 24-hour mean, whereas the NAAQS for PM10 is 150 μg/m3 averaged over that same time period). The case settled.
It’s worth noting that ATSDR has finalized approximately 150 inhalation based MRLs covering pollutants emitted by a broad range of industrial facilities. However, I think it is safe to assume that stationary sources do not view MRLs as imposing any additional Clean Air Act strictures on their operations since the MRLs are not listed as applicable requirements in air permits. Moreover, the Title I and V permitting programs do not require sources to perform dispersion modeling to ensure compliance with MRLs.
It remains to be seen whether EPA under the new administration will continue to reach out to ATSDR and utilize the MRLs in addressing air pollutant emissions, particularly where such limits have never been vetted through a rulemaking process. I wouldn’t bet on it.
As I reflect on my tenure as Assistant Attorney General, I have been especially proud of the Division’s cooperation with state and local governments in matters encompassing all aspects of the Division’s work – affirmative and defensive, civil and criminal. When we combine forces with our state and local partners, we leverage the resources of multiple sovereigns and, ultimately, achieve more comprehensive results for the American people.
In 2016, we had unprecedented success in civil enforcement with states, due primarily to the record‐breaking settlement with BP in the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill litigation. In April 2016, the trial court entered the final consent decree in the litigation, thereby resolving civil claims of the United States and the five Gulf Coast states against BP. The claims arose from the 2010 blowout of the Macondo well and the resulting massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. BP will pay the U.S. and the five Gulf States more than $20 billion under the consent decree, including: 1) a $5.5 billion civil penalty; 2) more than $8.1 billion in natural resource damages; 3) $600 million in further reimbursement of clean‐up costs and some royalty payments; and 4) up to $6 billion in economic damage payments for the Gulf States or their local units of government. This resolution is the largest settlement with a single entity in Department of Justice history; it includes the largest civil penalty ever awarded under the Clean Water Act, the largest ever natural resources damages settlement and massive economic damages payments to our state partners.
And, just this month we announced our plea agreement and civil consent decree with Volkswagen. In addition to the combined $4.3 billion penalty, corporate felony plea, and individual prosecutions, the previous civil consent decrees also provide $2.7 billion to all states for projects they select from the CD options to offset NOx pollution caused by the illegal car emissions. When the various settlements with VW are combined, and their value estimated, it approaches $20 billion.
Our state connections were vital to our criminal work. Cooperation ranged from providing training to state partners to close coordination in wildlife and pollution investigations. Prosecutors from ENRD’s Environmental Crimes Section presented at several events where state investigators learned of opportunities and methods for developing wildlife and environmental crimes cases, either in concert with federal counterparts or independently. Our prosecutors also trained their counterparts on the Division’s recently acquired authority over worker safety matters.
But environmental enforcement is not where ENRD’s work with state and local partners ends. We also are working with our counterparts at the state and local level in a relatively new area of responsibility for the Division – civil and criminal enforcement of federal laws that provide for humane treatment of captive, farmed, and companion animals across the United States. In July 2016, ENRD and the Office of Justice Programs co-hosted a roundtable discussion on Animal Welfare Enforcement. We were joined by more than 100 leaders in the area, including representatives of federal agencies, states and local governments, as well as researchers, scientists and others in the animal welfare field. The roundtable allowed us to focus collectively on information sharing, organizational strategies and cooperation in animal welfare enforcement.
Finally, ENRD continued to develop and enhance relationships with our state counterparts by participating in several forums designed to share experiences and expertise. In the spring of 2016, for example, I had the honor of being the first ENRD Assistant Attorney General invited to speak to the annual meeting of the Environmental Council of the States, the national association of state and territorial environmental agency leaders. I joined colleagues from EPA, New Mexico and academia to discuss innovative ways to measure the success of environmental enforcement. ENRD attorneys also partnered with the National Association of Attorneys General to present webinars on topics of mutual interest, such as e‐discovery, and share expertise regarding federal bankruptcy law in the context of environmental cases. Finally, just this week we collaborated with the National Association of Attorneys General to publish Guidelines for Joint State/Federal Civil Environmental Enforcement Litigation, which is now available on the DOJ website.
As I depart from the Division, we are in good shape. In December, the Division accepted an award by the Partnership for Federal Service, which ranked the ENRD as the #2 best place to work in all of the federal government, as well as the best place to work in the Department of Justice. With more than 300 Federal agency subcomponents competing, our new rank places us well into the top 1% of all Federal workplaces.
Do air emissions of pollutants constitute a “disposal” under the federal hazardous waste laws? The Ninth Circuit said “no” in Pakootas, et al. v. Teck Cominco Metals, Ltd. based upon its reading of the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA or Superfund). The decision both sets important precedent and showcases the judicial process to discern legislative intent when a statute’s plain language is stressed by an unusual fact pattern. If air pollutants can create CERCLA disposals, then emissions from any stationary or mobile source, including animal emissions of methane (which is considered a pollutant subject to CERCLA by EPA), may be the basis of cleanup liability.
The decision involves a smelter located just north of the border with British Columbia. An earlier decision in that case held that a foreign-based facility can be liable under CERCLA for slag discharges into a river running to the United States. Plaintiffs then alleged the facility arranged for disposal by emitting hazardous air contaminants which were carried by the wind and deposited in Washington State. The district court denied a motion to dismiss and certified the matter for immediate appellate review.
Reading the plain language of CERCLA, the Ninth Circuit found that “a reasonable enough construction” of the law would be that the facility “arranged for disposal” of its air pollutants. No legislative history or EPA rules shed light on this subject. However, the Court concluded it was not writing on a blank slate. Noting that CERCLA incorporates the definition of “disposal” from the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA), the Court cited its prior decision in Ctr. for Cmty. Action and Envtl. Justice v. BNSF Rwy. Co., which held that diesel particulate emissions “transported by wind and air currents onto the land and water” did not constitute “disposal” of waste within the meaning of RCRA. To be a disposal, the solid or hazardous waste must first be placed into or on any land or water and thereafter be emitted into the air. The Court also cited its en banc decision in Carson Harbor Vill., Ltd. v. Unocal Corp., holding that passive migration was not a disposal under CERCLA.
The Ninth Circuit is the highest court to exclude air emissions from the reach of CERCLA and RCRA. The Court’s citation to Carson Harbor does not provide an exact analogy since a passive landowner has not “arranged” for the initial release of hazardous substances, as compared to the smelter operations which result in air emissions. But the Court’s unwillingness to create potentially unlimited CERCLA liability for air emissions is compelling. Under CERCLA, liability is strict, joint and several and retroactive. Air emissions are widely transported and dispersed in relatively small concentrations by large numbers of potential sources, making CERCLA liability findings and allocations difficult if not impossible.
The Court thereby divined Congress’ intent to make CERCLA’s scheme workable, apart from a literal reading of its text. For judges to “repair” statutory language in this way is controversial. The decision is reminiscent of the U.S. Supreme Court holding that the Obama health care plan provides tax credits to millions of people who purchase insurance from a federal marketplace, even though the statute only provides credits for those who purchase from marketplaces “established by the state.” According to Justice Roberts, that was the only way the law would work, and despite the plain wording in the statute, “Congress passed the Affordable Care Act to improve health insurance markets, not to destroy them.” CERCLA also is not a model of clarity, and the Ninth Circuit similarly incorporated practicality as a factor in discerning Congress’ intent to avoid overreaching in assigning liability for the cleanup of toxic chemical releases.
Today, the U.S. EPA and Department of Justice announced that Harley Davidson has accepted defeat on defeat devices. The icon of rebellion lost its black luster years ago when bankers, professors, and, of all things, lawyers, became the most noticeable owners and riders of their iron horses. The Gucci sunglasses betrayed the weekend gangsters to mere citizens who at first trembled at the rumble of Harley motors.
But now, the historic purveyor of the rawest available form of horsepower has agreed to stop selling popular “super tuners” for “Super Glides”, “Fat Boys”, “Road Kings”, “Electra Glides” and other iconic rides. The engine tuner kits are guaranteed to raise the rumble another notch or two. The problem? Emissions. What?! Yes, emissions.
Well, actually cheating about emissions. EPA says Harley’s “super tuned” engine emissions are higher than the emissions certified for stock engines. I’m shocked. The aftermarket nature of these horsepower enhancers does not matter. Harley is not supposed to help rabble rousing bikers exceed their emissions allowances, says EPA.
Wow. Is blaming Harley for breaking the rules within the rules? Has the last hope of rebellion been reduced from “rolling thunder” to a Vespa’s whine? I would take my stack of Harley t-shirts out in the backyard tonight for a ceremonial bonfire, but Birmingham has banned open burning until November.

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