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Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 1857', '§ 118', '§ 107', '§ 1857', '§ 109', '§ 1857', '§ 110', '§ 1857', '§ 110', '§ 110', '§ 111', '§ 118', '§ 1857', '§ 118', '§ 5', '§ 5', '§ 118', '§ 113', '§ 5', '§ 118', '§ 118', '§ 118', '§ 118', '§ 118', '§ 118', '§ 110', '§ 1857', '§ 110', '§ 1857', '§ 118', '§ 118', '§ 118', '§ 118', '§ 118', '§ 118', '§ 111', '§ 111', '§ 1857', '§ 1857', '§ 112', '§ 111', '§ 111', '§ 1857', '§ 111', '§ 114', '§ 111', '§ 1', '§ 114', '§ 111', '§ 114', '§ 114', '§ 1857', '§ 1857', '§ 304', '§ 302', '§ 304', '§ 118', '§ 304', '§ 304', '§ 118', '§ 118', '§ 304', '§ 304', '§ 304', '§ 118', '§ 118', '§ 118', '§ 304', '§ 304', '§ 118', '§ 118', '§ 304', '§ 304', '§ 118', '§ 118', '§ 1251', '§ 118', '§ 111', '§ 1857', '§ 420', '§ 116', '§ 116', '§ 118', '§ 111', '§ 1857']

Hancock v. Train :: 426 U.S. 167 (1976) :: Justia U.S. Supreme Court Center Log In
› Hancock v. Train
Hancock v. Train 426 U.S. 167 (1976)
U.S. Supreme CourtHancock v. Train, 426 U.S. 167 (1976)Hancock v. TrainNo. 74-220Argued January 13, 1976Decided June 7, 1976426 U.S. 167CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
WHITE, J., delivered the opinion of the Court in which BURGER, C.J., and BRENNAN, MARSHALL, BLACKMUN, POWELL, and STEVENS, JJ., joined. STEWART and REHNQUIST, JJ., filed a dissenting statement, post, p. 426 U. S. 199. Page 426 U. S. 168
The question for decision in this case is whether a State whose federally approved implementation plan forbids an air contaminant source to operate without a state permit may require existing federally owned or operated installations to secure such a permit. The case presents an issue of statutory construction requiring examination of the Clean Air Act, as amended, 42 U.S.C. § 1857 et seq., and its legislative history in light of established constitutional principles governing the determination of whether and the extent to which federal installations have been subjected to state regulation. [Footnote 1] The specific question is whether obtaining a permit to operate Page 426 U. S. 169 is among those "requirements respecting control and abatement of air pollution" with which existing federal facilities must comply under § 118 of the Clean Air Act. [Footnote 2]
Last Term, in Train v. Natural Resources Defense Council, 421 U. S. 60 (1975), we reviewed the development of federal air pollution legislation through the Clean Air Amendments of 1970 (Amendments), [Footnote 3] and observed that, although the Amendments "sharply increased federal authority and responsibility in the continuing effort to combat air pollution," they "explicitly preserved the principle" that "[e]ach State shall have the primary responsibility for assuring air quality within the entire geographic area comprising such State . . . ,'" id. at 421 U. S. 64, quoting from § 107(a) of the Clean Air Act, as added, 84 Stat. 1678, 42 U.S.C. § 1857c-2(a). Consistently with this principle, the Amendments required that, within nine months after the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) promulgated the primary and secondary ambient air quality standards required by § 109(a) of the Clean Air Act, as added, 84 Stat. 1679, 42 U.S.C. § 1857c-4(a), [Footnote 4] for certain air pollutants, [Footnote 5] each State submit to the EPA a plan by which it would implement and maintain those standards within its territory. § 110(a)(1) of the Clean Air Act, as added, 84 Stat. 1680, 42 U.S.C. § 1857c-5(a)(1). See 40 CFR pt. 51 (1975). The EPA was required to approve each State's Page 426 U. S. 170 implementation plan as long as it was adopted after public hearings and satisfied the conditions specified in § 110(a)(2).
For existing sources, [Footnote 6] the State must propose "emission limitations, schedules, and timetables for compliance with such limitations" necessary to meet the air quality standards. § 110(a)(2)(b). As we observed in Train, supra at 421 U. S. 779, given the EPA's nationwide air quality standards, the State is to adopt a plan setting
Along with increasing federal authority and "taking a stick to the States" [Footnote 7] by requiring them to implement the Page 426 U. S. 171 federal standards promulgated pursuant to that authority, Congress also intended the Amendments "to strengthen the strictures against air pollution by federal facilities." [Footnote 8] Before 1970, § 111(a) of the Clean Air Act simply declared "the intent of Congress" to be that federal installations
federal and state air pollution control authorities "in preventing and controlling the pollution of the air in any area insofar as the discharge of any matter from or by such" federal installation "may cause or contribute to pollution of the air in such area." [Footnote 9]
Experience with performance by federal sources of air pollution under this voluntary scheme [Footnote 10] led the Congress to conclude that admonishing federal agencies to prevent and control air pollution was inadequate because, "[i]nstead of exercising leadership in controlling or eliminating air pollution," [Footnote 11] "Federal agencies have been notoriously laggard in abating pollution." [Footnote 12] Both to provide the leadership to private industry and to abate violations of air pollution standards by federal facilities, in 1970, Congress added § 118 to the Clean Air Act. The first sentence of the section provides:
"Each department, agency, and instrumentality of the executive, legislative, and judicial branches of Page 426 U. S. 172 the Federal Government (1) having jurisdiction over any property or facility, or (2) engaged in any activity resulting, or which may result, in the discharge of air pollutants, shall comply with Federal, State, interstate, and local requirements respecting control and abatement of air pollution to the same extent that any person is subject to such requirements."
42 U.S.C. § 1857f. The remainder of § 118 authorizes the President, upon a determination that it is "in the paramount interest of the United States to do so," and subject to several limitations, to exempt certain federal emission sources from "compliance with such a requirement." [Footnote 13]
In February, 1972, Kentucky submitted its implementation plan to the EPA. On May 31, 1972, the plan was approved by the Administrator in relevant part. [Footnote 14] Chapter 7 of the plan included Kentucky Air Pollution Control Commission (Commission) Regulation No. AP-1, § 5(1), which provides:
"No person shall construct, modify, use, operate, or maintain an air contaminant source or maintain Page 426 U. S. 173 or allow physical conditions to exist on property owned by or subject to the control of such person, resulting in the presence of air contaminants in the atmosphere, unless a permit therefor has been issued by the Commission and is currently in effect. [Footnote 15]"
"when specifically requested by the Commission, include an analysis of the characteristics, properties, and volume of the air contaminants based upon source or stack samples of the air contaminants taken under normal operating conditions. [Footnote 16]"
The process of review of the application may include hearings. [Footnote 17] Permits are denied if the applicant does not supply the "information required or deemed necessary by the Commission to enable it to act upon the permit application," [Footnote 18] or when "the air contaminant source will prevent or interfere with the attainment or maintenance of state or federal air quality standards." [Footnote 19] When granted, a permit may be
"subject to such terms and conditions set forth and embodied in the permit as the Commission shall deem necessary to insure compliance with its standards. [Footnote 20]"
Once issued, a permit may be revoked or modified for failure to comply with the terms and conditions of the permit, with emission standards applicable to the air contaminant source, or with the Page 426 U. S. 174 ambient air standards for the area in which the air contaminant source is located. Reg. AP-1, § 5(5), CA App. 122.
Soon after the implementation plan was approved, a Commission official wrote to numerous officials responsible for various Kentucky facilities of the United States Army, [Footnote 21] of the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) [Footnote 22] and of the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) [Footnote 23] requesting that they apply for and obtain permits as requested by the EPA-approved plan. The responses to these requests were to the effect that federally owned or operated facilities located in Kentucky were not required to secure an operating permit. Each response, however, either offered to or did supply the information and data requested on the standard permit application form. [Footnote 24]
The Commission continued to press the federal officials Page 426 U. S. 175 to apply for Operating permits. In October, 1972, the Regional Administrator of the EPA sent a letter to the operators of all federal facilities in the region, including those to which the Kentucky officials had addressed their requests, and to the Commission. Setting forth EPA policy and the agency's interpretation of § 118 of the Clean Air Act, [Footnote 25] the Regional Administrator stated:
"Federal agencies are [not] required to apply for state operating permits . . . [o]ur aim is to encourage Federal agencies to provide the states with all the information required to assess compliance of pollution sources with standards, emission and discharge limitations and the needs for additional abatement measures. [Footnote 26]"
Ibid. Page 426 U. S. 176
Kentucky then brought this suit in the United States District Court for the Western District of Kentucky. [Footnote 27] The complaint sought declaratory and injunctive relief requiring the Army, TVA, and AEC facilities to secure operating permits. Kentucky also named several EPA officials as defendants, and asked the District Court to order them to commence appropriate actions under § 113 of the Clean Air Act, directing the Army, the TVA, and the AEC facilities to comply with the provisions of Regulation AP-1, § 5(1). [Footnote 28] On cross-motions for summary Page 426 U. S. 177 judgment; the District Court ordered the complaint dismissed. Kentucky ex rel. Hancock v. Ruckelshaus, 362 F.Supp. 360 (1973).
497 F.2d at 1177. We granted Kentucky's petition for certiorari, 420 U.S. 971 (1975), to resolve a conflict in the Courts of Appeals, [Footnote 29] and now affirm. Page 426 U. S. 178
Id. at 17 U. S. 427. The effect of this corollary, which derives from the Supremacy Clause [Footnote 30] and is exemplified in the Plenary Powers Clause [Footnote 31] giving Congress exclusive legislative authority over federal enclaves purchased with the consent of a State, is "that the activities of the Federal Government are free from regulation by any state." [Footnote 32] As Mr. Justice Holmes put it in Johnson v. Maryland, 254 U. S. 51, 254 U. S. 57 (1920):
"[T]he immunity of the instruments of the United States from state control in the performance of their duties extends to a requirement that they Page 426 U. S. 179 desist from performance until they satisfy a state officer upon examination that they are competent for a necessary part of them. . . ."
Taken with the "old and well known rule that statutes which in general terms divest preexisting rights or privileges will not be applied to the sovereign" [Footnote 33] "without a clear expression or implication to that effect," [Footnote 34] this immunity means that, where "Congress does not affirmatively declare its instrumentalities or property subject to regulation," "the federal function must be left free" of regulation. [Footnote 35] Particular deference should be accorded that "old and well known rule" where, as here, the rights and privileges of the Federal Government at stake not only find their origin in the Constitution, but are to be divested in favor of and subjected to regulation by a subordinate sovereign. Because of the fundamental importance of the principles shielding federal installations and activities from regulation by the States, an authorization of state regulation is found only when and to the extent there is "a clear congressional mandate," [Footnote 36] "specific congressional action" [Footnote 37] that makes this authorization of state regulation "clear and unambiguous." [Footnote 38]
Neither the Supremacy Clause nor the Plenary Powers Clause bars all state regulation which may touch the activities of the Federal Government. See Penn Dairies Page 426 U. S. 180 v. Pennsylvania Milk Control Comm'n, 318 U. S. 261 (1943); Alabama v. King & Boozer, 314 U. S. 1, 314 U. S. 9 (1941), and cases cited. "Here, however, the State places a prohibition on the Federal Government." [Footnote 39] The permit requirement is not intended simply to regulate the amount of pollutants which the federal installations may discharge. Without a permit, an air contaminant source is forbidden to operate even if it is in compliance with every other state measure respecting air pollution control and abatement. It is clear from the record that prohibiting operation of the air contaminant sources for which the State seeks to require permits, App. 14-17, is tantamount to prohibiting operation of the federal installations on which they are located. Id. at 89-93.
Kentucky, like the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in Alabama v. Seeber, 502 F.2d 1238, 1247-1248 (1974), finds in § 118 a sufficient congressional authorization to the States not only to establish the amount of pollutants a federal installation may discharge, but also to condition operation of federal installations on securing a state permit. We disagree, because we are not convinced that Congress intended to subject federal agencies to state permits. We are unable to find in § 118, on its face or in relation to the Clean Air Act as a whole, or to derive from the legislative history of the Amendments, any clear and unambiguous declaration by the Congress that federal installations may not perform their activities unless a state official issues a permit. Nor can congressional intention to submit federal activity to state control be implied from the claim that, under Kentucky's EPA-approved implementation plan, it is only through the permit system that compliance schedules and other Page 426 U. S. 181 requirements may be administratively enforced against federal installations.
The parties rightly agree that § 118 obligates federal installations to conform to state air pollution standards or limitations and compliance schedules. [Footnote 40] With the enactment of the Amendments in 1970 came the end of the era in which it was enough for federal facilities to volunteer their cooperation with federal and state officials. In Kentucky's view, that era has been replaced by one in which federal installations are not only required to limit their air pollutant emissions to the same extent as their nonfederal neighbors, but also, subject only to case-by-case Presidential exemption, to submit themselves completely to the state regime by which the necessary information to promulgate emission limitations and compliance schedules is gathered, and by which collection of that information and enforcement of the emission limitations and compliance schedules are accomplished. Respondents (hereafter sometimes EPA) take the position that the Congress has not gone so far. While federal and nonfederal installations are governed by the same emission standards, standards which the States have the primary responsibility to develop, the EPA maintains that the authority to compel federal installations to provide necessary information to the States and to conform to state standards necessary to carry out the federal policy to control and regulate air pollution has not been extended to the States. Page 426 U. S. 182
Analysis must begin with § 118. [Footnote 41] Although the language of this provision is notable for what it states in comparison with its predecessor, [Footnote 42] it is also notable for what it does not state. It does not provide that federal installations "shall comply with all federal, state, interstate, and local requirements to the same extent as any other person." Nor does it state that federal installations "shall comply with all requirements of the applicable state implementation plan." Section 118 states only to what extent -- the same as any person -- federal installations must comply with applicable state requirements; it does not identify the applicable requirements. There is agreement that § 118 obligates existing federal installations to join nonfederal sources in abating Page 426 U. S. 183 air pollution, that comparable federal and nonfederal sources are expected to achieve the same levels of performance in abating air pollution, and that those levels of performance are set by the States. Given agreement that § 118 makes it the duty of federal facilities to comply with state-established air quality and emission standard, the question is, as the Fifth Circuit put it in another case,
"is the mechanism through which [it] is able to compel the production of data concerning air contaminant sources, including the ability to prescribe the monitoring techniques to be employed, and it is the only mechanism which allows [it] to develop and review a source's compliance schedule and insure that schedule is followed. [Footnote 43]"
When a State is without administrative means of implementing and enforcing its standards Page 426 U. S. 184 against federal sources, a duty to comply with those standards is said to be utterly meaningless. [Footnote 44]
The Clean Air Act, as amended, does not expressly provide for a permit system as part of a State's implementation plan. [Footnote 45] It is true that virtually every State Page 426 U. S. 185 has adopted a form of permit system much like that adopted by Kentucky, see 40 CFR pt. 52 (1975), as a means of gathering information to determine what emission standards to set and compliance schedules to approve and of assuring compliance with them. Also, only an implementation plan enabling a State to meet these -- and other -- objectives can be approved by the EPA. [Footnote 46] Nonetheless, we find in the 1970 Amendments several firm indications that the Congress intended to treat emission standards and compliance schedules -- those requirements which, when met, work the actual reduction of air pollutant discharge -- differently from administrative and enforcement Page 426 U. S. 186 methods and devices -- those provisions by which the States were to establish and enforce emission standards, compliance schedules, and the like. This is so in spite of the absence of any definition of the word "requirements" or of the phrase "requirements respecting control and abatement of air pollution." [Footnote 47] Page 426 U. S. 187
In § 110(e)(1)(A), for example, the EPA is authorized to extend for two years a State's three-year deadline for attaining a national primary air quality standard if, upon timely application, it is determined that an emission source is unable to meet "the requirements of such plan which implement such primary standard because the necessary technology" is unavailable. 42 U.S.C. § 1857c-5(e)(1)(A). Although compiling the information necessary for a permit may require familiarity with technology, it is plain that the "requirements" to which this section refers are those for which technologically adequate industrial processes might not be available. Section 110(e)(2)(A) necessarily contemplates the same meaning of "requirements," that is, emission standards and compliance schedules, as does § 110(f), which provides for one-year postponement of the application of "requirements" to sources the continued operation of which is "essential to national security or to the public health." 42 U.S.C. § 1857c-5(f)(1)(D). See Train, 421 U.S. at 421 U. S. 80-84. [Footnote 48]
Stronger indications that the term "requirements" as used in § 118 does not embrace every measure incorporated in a State's implementation limitations and compliance Page 426 U. S. 188 schedules appear in the emergence of § 118 from the House bill and Senate amendment from which it was derived.
The House bill provided that federal installations "shall comply with applicable Federal, State, interstate, and local emission standards." [Footnote 49] The House Report stated that this "legislation directs Federal agencies in the executive, legislative, and judicial branches to comply with applicable Federal, State, interstate, and local emission standards." [Footnote 50] The Senate amendment provided that federal agencies
"shall provide leadership in carrying out the policy and purposes of this Act and shall comply with the requirements of this Act in the same manner as any person. . . . [Footnote 51]"
"requires that Federal facilities meet the emission standards necessary to achieve ambient air quality standards, as well as those established in other sections of Title I. [Footnote 52]"
Thus, while the House bill spoke of "emission standards," the Senate amendment, like § 118, as enacted, spoke of "requirements." In accommodating the different language in the two bills and formulating what is now § 118, the Conference Committee simply combined the House and Senate provisions. If, as Kentucky argues, Page 426 U. S. 189 the Conference Committee in taking the Senate language of "requirements" meant thereby to subject federal facilities to enforcement measures obviously not embraced in the language of the House bill, it is remarkable that it made no reference to its having reconciled this difference in favor of extending state regulation over federal installations. Given the interchangeable use of "emission standards" and "emission requirements" in the Senate amendment, see n 52, supra, the predominance of the language of the Senate version in § 118 as enacted, [Footnote 53] and the absence of any mention of disagreement between the two bills, it is more probable that the Conference Committee intended only that federal installations comply with emission standards and compliance schedules than that its intention was to empower a State to require federal installations to comply with every measure in its implementation plan. See Alabama v. Seeber, 502 F.2d at 1247.
"The conference substitute modifies the House Page 426 U. S. 190 provision to require that the President, rather than the Administrator, be responsible for assuring compliance by Federal agencies. [Footnote 54]"
This examination of § 118 and the central phrase "requirements respecting control or abatement of air pollution" discloses a regime of divided responsibility for the mobilization of federal installations in the effort to abate air pollution. Kentucky agrees, but persists in its contention that existing federal sources have been subjected to state regulation by differing on where that division places authority to enforce compliance by existing federal facilities -- "sources with respect to which state implementation plans establish the criteria for enforcement.'" [Footnote 55] For such -- existing -- sources, Kentucky maintains, the States are granted primary enforcement authority, while
"'the responsibility and authority for Page 426 U. S. 191 enforcement . . . is granted to EPA in those instances (i.e., new sources and hazardous pollutants) where EPA establishes the criteria.' [Footnote 56]"
In drawing on the manner in which the Clean Air Act has divided the authority to regulate new sources of air pollutants [Footnote 57] and the emission of hazardous air pollutants [Footnote 58] in comparison with existing air pollutant sources, Kentucky makes two separate, though related, arguments. The first is that, when Congress wanted to exempt federal facilities from compliance with a state requirement, it did so by express exclusionary language. Thus, § 111(c)(1) authorizes the Administrator to delegate to a State "any authority he has under this Act to implement and enforce" new-source standards of performance -- with which new sources owned or operated by the United States must comply (§ 111(b)(4)) -- "except with respect to new sources owned or operated by the United States." 42 U.S.C. § 1857c-6(c)(1). Section 114(b)(1) of the Clean Air Act, as added, 84 Stat. 1688, is to the same Page 426 U. S. 192 effect respecting inspections, monitoring, and entry of an emission source. 42 U.S.C. § 1857c-9(b)(1). Similarly, § 112(d)(1) authorizes the Administrator, upon finding that a State's plan to enforce emission standards for hazardous pollutants is adequate to the task, to delegate to that State
Kentucky's second argument is that the manner in which Congress differentiated treatment of new sources Page 426 U. S. 193 and existing sources in §§ 111 and 114 clearly implies that existing federal sources were to be subject to the enforcement provisions of a State's implementation plan. The implication is said to arise from the different nature of the control required for the two types of installations. The difference is explained as follows: for existing sources, the first step for a State is to determine the general quality of air in the relevant air quality region, and then to compute the amounts of pollution attributable to each source. Next, appropriate emission standards necessary to meet the national ambient air quality standards must be assigned to the various sources, followed by determining the compliance schedule by which each installation will achieve the assigned standards by the attainment date prescribed in the Act. To carry out this process of gathering information and coordinating control throughout the State, it is said to be necessary for the States to have ready administrative authority over all sources, federal and nonfederal. This administrative authority, concededly a major part of an implementation plan as to nonfederal sources, must therefore have been intended to extend to federal sources as well.
In contrast, controlling "new sources" is described as a straightforward task. This is because "standards of performance" for such sources, which are established in light of technologically feasible emission controls, and not in relation to ambient air quality standards, [Footnote 59] are set by the EPA for various categories of sources and are uniform throughout the Nation. A comprehensive enforcement Page 426 U. S. 194 mechanism to develop and coordinate application of these standards is unnecessary, especially because all new sources must be in compliance before operation begins, § 111(e). The Congress is said, therefore, to have exempted new federal installations from state enforcement of federally promulgated standards of performance because it was unnecessary to submit those installations to the same kind of coordinated control to which existing sources had been submitted.
84 Stat. 1687, as added, 42 U.S.C. § 1857c-9(a). Unlike §§ 111 and 112, § 114 is doubly permissive. First, although the Administrator "shall" publish § 111 new source standards of performance and § 1 12 hazardous air pollutant emission standards, under § 114(a), the Administrator "may," but need not, require operators Page 426 U. S. 195 of emission sources to keep records, to make reports, to install, use, and maintain monitoring equipment, and to sample its emissions. Second, as with §§ 111 and 112, the States "may" develop procedures to carry out the section. That Congress provided for this slight possibility that existing federal sources would be obliged to conform to state procedures for carrying out § 114 in addition to emission standards and compliance schedules scarcely implies, as petitioner suggests, that Congress intended existing federal sources to comply with all state regulatory measures, not only emission standards and compliance schedules. Rather than exempting new federal sources from an obligation to which they would otherwise have been subject, Congress may as well have been extending the obligation to conform to state § 114 regulatory procedures to existing -- but not to new -- federal sources which would not otherwise have been thought subject to such regulation.
42 U.S.C. § 1857h-2. Page 426 U. S. 196 Section 302(e) includes a "State" in the definition of a "person," 42 U.S.C. § 1857h(e), and § 304(f) provides:
"in which any Federal property, facility, or activity is located may seek to enforce the provisions of this section pursuant to section 304 of this Act. [Footnote 60]"
When the Conference Committee eliminated this subsection from the Senate amendment, it retained the definition of "person," which included a "State" in § 302(e), and added § 304(f) with the parenthetical phrase "including a requirement applicable by reason of section 118." This made clear that § 118 was to be enforced through § 304, and § 304 is the only provision in the Act for state enforcement of the duties of a federal installation under § 118. In short, § 118 establishes the duty of federal installations to comply with state "requirements," and § 304 provides the means of enforcing that duty in federal court. In light of this Page 426 U. S. 197 close relationship between the two sections, we find it significant that § 304(f) extends the enforcement power only to "a schedule or timetable of compliance, emission limitation, standard of performance or emission standard," and not to all state implementation measures. Thus circumscribed, the scope of the § 304 power to enforce § 118 strongly suggests that § 118 duties themselves are similarly limited, for it seems most unlikely that, in providing that a State might bring suit in district court to enforce the duties of federal installations under § 118, the Congress would not make all of those duties enforceable in district court. Yet this is exactly what Kentucky argues, saying: "There can be no explanation for the existence of Section 118 if it imposes no obligations other than those imposed under Section 304." [Footnote 61]
The argument is defective on another count. Even if, standing alone, § 304 could be read to require federal facilities to comply with the matters within § 304(f), the assumption that the two sections independently impose duties on federal installations conflicts with the legislative history. Section 304(a) was first extended to apply to federal sources of pollution in Conference, at the same point at which the express provision for enforcement authority over federal installations was removed from § 118. [Footnote 62] Given this relationship between Page 426 U. S. 198 the two measures, we cannot credit the argument that § 118 was intended to impose on federal installations any broader duty to comply with state implementation measures than specified in § 304. The absence in § 304 of any express provision for enforcing state permit requirements in federal court is therefore too substantial an indication that congressional understanding was that the "requirements" federal facilities are obliged to meet under § 118 did not include permit requirements to be overcome by assertions to the contrary.
In view of the undoubted congressional awareness of the requirement of clear language to bind the United States, [Footnote 63] our conclusion is that with respect to subjecting federal installations to state permit requirements, the Clean Air Act does not satisfy the traditional requirement that such intention be evinced with satisfactory clarity. Should this nevertheless be the desire of Congress, it need only amend the Act to make its intention manifest. [Footnote 64] Absent such amendment, we can only conclude that, to the extent it considered the matter in enacting § 118, Congress has fashioned a compromise which, while requiring federal installations to abate their pollution to the same extent as any other air contaminant source and under standards which the States have prescribed, Page 426 U. S. 199 stopped short of subjecting federal installations to state control.
This conclusion does not mean that we are persuaded that the States are as able to administer their implementation plans as they would be if they possessed the degree of authority over federal installations urged here, although, as Kentucky acknowledged at oral argument, the EPA, acting under the impetus of Executive Order No. 11752, 3 CFR 380 (1974), has promulgated guidelines for compliance by federal agencies with stationary source air pollution standards, 40 Fed Reg. 20664 (1975), which will lead to federal agencies' entering "consent agreements which are exactly identical in every respect to what a compliance schedule would have been." [Footnote 65]
In EPA v. California ex rel. State Water Resources Control Board, post, p. 426 U. S. 200, also decided this day, we consider a closely related issue under the Federal Water Pollution Control Act, as amended, 33 U.S.C. § 1251 et seq. (1970 ed., Supp. IV).
The range of a State's initiative in meeting its primary responsibility to assure air quality is somewhat greater for existing sources of air pollution, such as those involved in this case, than for "new sources." See infra at 426 U. S. 190-194.
Train v. Natural Resources Defense Council, 421 U. S. 60, 421 U. S. 64 (1975).
In addition to § 118, the letter referred to Executive Order No. 11507, 3 CFR 889 (1966-1970 Comp.), which antedates the Amendments, as a policy source. This Order, cited in the complaint, has ben superseded by Executive Order No. 11752, 3 CFR 380 (1974). See infra at 426 U. S. 199.
Mayo v. United States, 319 U. S. 441, 319 U. S. 445 (1943) (footnote omitted).
United States v. United Mine Workers, 330 U. S. 258, 330 U. S. 272 (1947) (footnote omitted). See United States v. Herron, 20 Wall. 251, 87 U. S. 263 (1874); United States v. Knight, 14 Pet. 301, 39 U. S. 315 (1840).
United States v. Wittek, 337 U. S. 346, 337 U. S. 359 (1949) (footnote omitted).
Mayo v. United States, supra at 319 U. S. 447, 319 U. S. 448 (footnote omitted).
Kern-Limerick, Inc. v. Scurlock, 347 U. S. 110, 347 U. S. 122 (1954).
Paul v. United States, 371 U. S. 245, 371 U. S. 263 (1963).
California ex rel. State Water Resources Control Board v. EPA, 511 F.2d 963, 968 (CA9 1975), rev'd on other grounds, post, p. 426 U. S. 200.
California Pub. Util. Comm'n v. United States, 355 U. S. 534, 355 U. S. 54 (1958).
Basically, a compliance schedule is a means by which a State phases in attainment with the ultimate emission limitations that must be achieved. See Train, 421 U.S. at 421 U. S. 68-69.
Although use of a permit system may have been "encouraged" by the EPA as its "preferred approach," see Train, 421 U.S. at 421 U. S. 68-69, the EPA has never made a permit system to control emissions from existing stationary sources a mandatory part of an implementation plan. The closest the EPA has come to this was a provision in a proposed rulemaking, 36 Fed.Reg. 6680, 6682 (1971), later eliminated, id. at 15486, that might have been interpreted to mean that an implementation plan must include a system requiring permits for the construction and operation of modifications to existing sources that would be modified before the Administrator promulgated proposed standards of performance for new sources under § 111 of the Clean Air Act. Compare 42 U.S.C. § § 1857c-6(a)(2), (b), with 36 Fed.Reg. 6682 (1971), proposing 42 CFR § 420.11(a)(4).
(Emphasis added.) Although the meaning of the italicized phrase in this section, which was added by the Conference Committee, see H.R.Conf.Rep. No. 91-1783, p. 48 (1970), 1 Leg.Hist.198, is not entirely clear, it seems plain that as employed in § 116 the phrase is not synonymous with "emission standards and limitations." As the Fifth Circuit observed in Alabama v. Seeber, 502 F.2d at 1245, the use of "or' in § 116 is clearly disjunctive." Yet it is agreed that, as used in § 118, the phrase does embrace such standards and limitations; indeed the EPA argues the two are synonymous.
Regulation of "new sources" of air pollutants, by EPA-promulgated "standards of performance" (see infra, n 59), is provided for in § 111 of the Clean Air Act, as added, 84 Stat. 1683, 42 U.S.C. § 1857c-6.
See United States v. United Mine Workers, 330 U.S. at 330 U. S. 273.