Source: https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/F2/552/25/169257/
Timestamp: 2017-11-21 11:42:58
Document Index: 506833547

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 110', '§ 1857', '§ 304', '§ 1857', '§ 304', '§ 101', '§ 1857', '§ 107', '§ 1857', '§ 1857', '§ 110', '§ 1857', '§ 110', '§ 1857', '§ 307', '§ 1857', '§ 304', '§ 1857', '§ 4', '§ 307', '§ 110', '§ 1857', '§ 110', '§ 307', '§ 304', '§ 110', '§ 201', '§ 110', '§ 110']

Friends of the Earth et al., Plaintiffs-appellants, v. Hugh Carey et al., Defendants-appellees,andrussell E. Train, Defendant.friends of the Earth et al., Petitioners, v. Honorable Kevin T. Duffy, United States District Judge Forthe Southern District of New York, Respondent, 552 F.2d 25 (2d Cir. 1977) :: Justia
Justia › US Law › Case Law › Federal Courts › Courts of Appeals › Second Circuit › 1977 › Friends of the Earth et al., Plaintiffs-appellants, v. Hugh Carey et al., Defendants-appellees,andru...
Friends of the Earth et al., Plaintiffs-appellants, v. Hugh Carey et al., Defendants-appellees,andrussell E. Train, Defendant.friends of the Earth et al., Petitioners, v. Honorable Kevin T. Duffy, United States District Judge Forthe Southern District of New York, Respondent, 552 F.2d 25 (2d Cir. 1977)
U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit - 552 F.2d 25 (2d Cir. 1977)
Submitted Nov. 1, 1976. Decided Jan. 18, 1977
For the third time the Transportation Control Plan for the Metropolitan New York City Area ("the Plan"), a plan for control of that area's automobile pollution, submitted by the State of New York ("the State") to the Environmental Protection Agency ("EPA") pursuant to § 110(a) (1) of the Clean Air Amendments of 1970, 42 U.S.C. § 1857c-5(a) (1), and approved by it, is before this Court. In 1974 we upheld the validity of the Plan in all material respects, see Friends of the Earth v. EPA, 499 F.2d 1118, 1126 (2d Cir. 1974) ("Friends I "), and on April 26, 1976, we reversed a decision of the Southern District of New York denying enforcement of the Plan in a citizen suit instituted under the Clean Air Act and ordered that partial summary judgment be granted in favor of plaintiffs enforcing four strategies of the Plan,1 as to which the defendants were admittedly in default, see Friends of the Earth v. Carey, 535 F.2d 165 (2d Cir. 1976) ("Friends II") . We noted that the defendants' implementation of the Plan was already almost a year in default, that carbon monoxide pollution in New York City had climbed to five times the federal health standards, and that this Court could not "consistently with its duty be a party to the delaying process that has led to this situation." We ordered that consideration of the case on remand be given priority.
After hearing argument on the constitutional issues Judge Duffy on July 13, 1976 modified the partial summary judgment previously granted by interpreting § 304 of the Act, 42 U.S.C. § 1857h-2, as permitting enforcement of the Plan against the State or its subdivisions (including the City) only to the extent that they might be direct polluters but not as obligating them, although they were the architects and sponsors of the Plan, to implement it against others despite the fact that they had agreed to do so under the terms of the Plan and they controlled, operated, and managed the roads and facilities upon which the polluting activities by others occurred.2 His interpretation of § 304 was based on the theory that Congressional use of the Commerce Clause to compel the City to enforce the Plan against others would violate the City's rights under the Tenth Amendment, as recently expounded by the Supreme Court in National League of Cities v. Usery, 426 U.S. 833, 96 S. Ct. 2465, 49 L. Ed. 2d 245 (1976), and by several other circuits in decisions holding that Congress may not order a state to draft an implementation plan or to enforce an EPA-promulgated plan. See Brown v. EPA, 521 F.2d 827 (9th Cir. 1975), cert. granted, 426 U.S. 904, 96 S. Ct. 2224, 48 L. Ed. 2d 829 (1976); District of Columbia v. Train, 172 U.S.App.D.C. 311, 521 F.2d 971 (1975), cert. granted, 426 U.S. 904, 96 S. Ct. 2224, 48 L. Ed. 2d 829 (1976); and Maryland v. EPA, 530 F.2d 215 (4th Cir. 1975), cert. granted, 426 U.S. 904, 96 S. Ct. 2224, 48 L. Ed. 2d 829 (1976). Relying heavily upon these decisions, the district court all but emasculated the Plan as an enforceable instrument.
A brief review of the litigation surrounding the Plan is necessary to fully understand the issues now before us. As amended in 1970, the Clean Air Act, § 101(b) (1), 42 U.S.C. §§ 1857, et seq., contains a comprehensive regulatory scheme designed to promote public health and welfare by reducing air pollution caused by various sources controlled or regulated by the State, including motor vehicles operated on its state highways, bridges, and other facilities. Acting pursuant to the Act the Administrator of the EPA has established standards governing maximum concentrations of specific pollutants in the air. Under the Act, state and local governments assume the primary responsibility for establishing and implementing air quality control programs to meet these standards, § 107(a), 42 U.S.C. § 1857c-2(a). Section 110(a) (1) of the Act, 42 U.S.C. § 1857c-5(a) (1), requires each state to submit to the EPA a plan for "implementation, maintenance, and enforcement" of these standards, which the EPA must approve if the plan satisfies the statutory criteria, see § 110(a) (2), 42 U.S.C. § 1857c-5(a) (2). If a state fails to submit a plan or if its plan fails to meet the criteria, the EPA is obligated to prepare and promulgate a substitute plan for that state, § 110(c) (1), 42 U.S.C. § 1857c-5(c) (1), which may be enforced by the EPA.
Upon remand the district court, in its decision of July 13, 1976, held that the City was not barred from advancing arguments against enforcement by the 30-day limitation of § 307(b) (1) of the Act, 42 U.S.C. § 1857h-5(b) (1), stating:
In interpreting § 304(a) of the Act, 42 U.S.C. § 1857h-2(a), as authorizing citizen suits against states and their subdivisions only for non-compliance based on their own actual pollution rather than upon their failure or refusal to enforce a state-promulgated plan, Judge Duffy reasoned that to interpret the Act as permitting a citizen or the EPA to obtain a court order requiring the State or City to enforce a state-promulgated plan approved by the EPA would pose the same constitutional hurdles as those suggested in Brown v. EPA, 521 F.2d 827 (9th Cir. 1975), cert. granted, 426 U.S. 904, 96 S. Ct. 2224, 48 L. Ed. 2d 829 (1976), and District of Columbia v. Train, 172 U.S.App.D.C. 311, 521 F.2d 971 (1975), cert. granted, 426 U.S. 904, 96 S. Ct. 2224, 48 L. Ed. 2d 829 (1976),5 where the courts held that unless the Act was interpreted to preclude the federal government from imposing sanctions on a state or its officials for failure to implement or enforce EPA-promulgated anti-pollution regulations, the use of the federal commerce power to do so might violate the Tenth Amendment and the Constitution's guarantee of a republican form of government to the states, Const. Art. IV, § 4. Said the district court:
The City claims that a judgment directing it to enforce the Plan would interfere with its governmental interests in allocating funds, police resources and in making policy decisions. In its recent decision in National League of Cities v. Usery, 426 U.S. 833, 96 S. Ct. 2465, 49 L. Ed. 2d 245 (1976), the Supreme Court held that Congress is prohibited by the Tenth Amendment from using its power under the Commerce Clause to impair "attributes of sovereignty attaching to every state government" and that these attributes extend to a state's political subdivisions, including local governmental units. Said the Court: "Interference with integral governmental services provided by such subordinate arms of a state government is therefore beyond the reach of congressional power under the Commerce Clause just as if such services were provided by the State itself." Id. 826, 96 S. Ct. at 2476 n.20. The Court further made it clear that the federal Commerce Clause may not "impermissibly interfere with the integral governmental functions," which were defined to include "such areas as fire prevention, police protection, sanitation, public health, and parks and recreation." 426 U.S. 851, 96 S. Ct. 2474.
Applying these standards, the City's claim satisfies traditional notions of standing since the City is allegedly threatened with injury to its governmental interests and is within the class of entities which the Supreme Court has held to be protected from incursions of federal power. See Warth v. Seldin, 422 U.S. 490, 498-502, 95 S. Ct. 2197, 45 L. Ed. 2d 343 (1975). Where a state has delegated to a city as one of its subdivisions the furnishing of services which constitute part of traditional governmental functions, the city has standing to raise a claim of impermissible interference with "those fundamental employment decisions upon which their systems for performance of these functions must rest . . . ." National League of Cities v. Usery,supra, 426 U.S. at 851, 96 S. Ct. at 2474.
Nor does the City lack standing because of the failure of its creator, the State, to join in its claims. It is true that the State has not only failed to join the City in asserting the latter's defenses to enforcement of the Plan but, to the contrary, has defended the Plan and concedes that it is enforceable against it. However, we are not faced with a situation in which enforcement is sought solely against the State, or with a challenge by the City directed against a State-implemented statute, in either of which events the City might lack standing, see e.g., New York v. Richardson, 473 F.2d 923 (2d Cir.), cert. denied, 412 U.S. 950, 93 S. Ct. 3012, 37 L. Ed. 2d 1002 (1973). Instead this enforcement proceeding is directed against the City and its officials. To the extent that the State has delegated certain sovereign powers to the City and left it up to the City to comply with the Plan, the State's failure to join in the City's claim does not eliminate the City's claim that it will be directly injured in the performance of governmental functions by the allegedly impermissible exercise of federal power. The City therefore has standing.
In order to protect public health effectively Congress provided that such plans, after fair allowance for due process, would be enforceable. For these reasons § 307 has been upheld as a bastion of enforceability. See Union Electric Co. v. EPA, 427 U.S. 246, 96 S. Ct. 2518, 49 L. Ed. 2d 474 (1960); Oljato Chapter of Navajo Tribe v. Train, 169 U.S.App.D.C. 195, 515 F.2d 654 (1975); Getty Oil Co. v. Ruckelshaus, 467 F.2d 349 (3d Cir. 1972), cert. denied, 409 U.S. 1125, 93 S. Ct. 937, 35 L. Ed. 2d 256 (1973).
Had the City taken such action, the Administrator might well have disapproved the Plan on the ground that its provisions for implementation and enforcement were illusory and therefore did not meet the criteria specified in § 110(a) (2) of the Act, 42 U.S.C. § 1857c-5(a) (2). If the Administrator had nevertheless approved the Plan, the court upon a petition for review, would have been obligated to consider whether the Plan was, for the constitutional reasons now advanced by the City, unenforceable as written and decide whether the Administrator was required to approve it under § 110(a) (2). See Train v. Natural Resources Defense Council, 421 U.S. 60, 79, 95 S. Ct. 1470, 43 L. Ed. 2d 731 (1975); South Terminal Corp. v. EPA, 504 F.2d 646, 676-80 (1st Cir. 1974). Had the Administrator disapproved the Plan or the court set aside his approval of it, the Administrator would then have had the opportunity to take appropriate action, including the promulgation of an EPA-formulated plan in lieu of the Plan here under consideration, which the EPA could then have enforced. At this date, almost four years after the Administrator's approval of the Plan, to permit the City to renege upon its commitments would defeat the purpose of the Act, which is to protect the public health.
Since the City could have advanced its present contentions by way of a petition for review of the Administrator's approval of the Plan in 1973 and chose instead voluntarily to commit itself to enforcement of the Plan, we hold that the City has waived its right to assert these contentions and is precluded by § 307(b) (2) of the Act from raising them in an enforcement proceeding instituted under § 304. See Vargas v. Trainor, 508 F.2d 485 (7th Cir. 1974), cert. denied, 420 U.S. 1008, 95 S. Ct. 1454, 43 L. Ed. 2d 767 (1975) (waiver by state welfare official of state's Eleventh Amendment rights). Our modification of our mandate to permit the City to raise constitutional issues was not designed to permit the City to attack the Plan on grounds which amount to an about-face of its own endorsement of the Plan and which could have been raised by it years ago.
Nor can the City at this late date escape the obligations voluntarily undertaken by it on the ground that the Plan failed to furnish adequate assurances that the State would have the necessary personnel and funding to carry out implementation. The State has not been heard to assert this or any other argument as a basis for invalidating the Plan. Nor has the State sought to avoid responsibility for its enforcement. On the contrary, it has acknowledged the enforceability of the Plan. See Friends II, supra, at 170, 179-80. We would not be justified, therefore, in assuming that the necessary legislative and budgetary steps will not be undertaken to carry out the Plan. Should the State conclude that the Plan should be revised, it may submit such revisions as are necessary to the Administrator for approval under § 110(a) (3) of the Act.
The parties do not, and indeed cannot, dispute the fact that the Clean Air Amendments of 1970 regulate an area well within the federal government's plenary commerce power. Fry v. United States, 421 U.S. 542, 547, 95 S. Ct. 1792, 44 L. Ed. 2d 363 (1975); Heart of Atlanta Motel, Inc. v. United States, 379 U.S. 241, 85 S. Ct. 348, 13 L. Ed. 2d 258 (1964). The question, therefore, is whether this admittedly valid exercise of the commerce power nonetheless impermissibly interferes with the integral governmental functions of a state and its local governments. In National League of Cities the Supreme Court held that the principles embodied in the Tenth Amendment limit federal power to the extent that
"there are attributes of sovereignty attaching to every state government which may not be impaired by Congress, not because Congress may lack an affirmative grant of legislative authority to reach the matter, but because the Constitution prohibits it from exercising the authority in that manner,. . . ." 426 U.S. at 845, 96 S. Ct. at 2471.
Applying this basic principle, the Court held that the 1974 Amendments to the Fair Labor Standards Act, 29 U.S.C. §§ 201, et seq., which extended the coverage of its minimum wage and maximum hour provisions to almost all public employees of the states and local governments, transgressed the Tenth Amendment because the effects of the amendments would be to increase state and local budgetary requirements very substantially, to curtail state and local policy initiatives, and to cause significant cutbacks in state and local training programs, as well as in local affirmative action employment and internship programs. The net result would be to interfere with the integral functions of these governments by altering or displacing their ability to structure employer-employee relationships in such areas as fire prevention, police protection, sanitation, public health, and parks and recreation. Said the Court, "If Congress may withdraw from the States the authority to make those fundamental employment decisions . . . we think there would be little left of the States' 'separate and independent existence,' " 426 U.S. at 851, 96 S. Ct. at 2474.
In determining whether an otherwise valid exercise of the federal commerce power would impermissibly impair state sovereignty we are therefore required to balance the reason for the exercise against the extent of usurpation of state policy-making or invasion of integral state functions that would result, giving "appropriate recognition to the legitimate concerns of each government." Pacific Coast Dairy v. Department of Agriculture, 318 U.S. 285, 304, 63 S. Ct. 628, 635, 87 L. Ed. 761 (1942) (Murphy, J., dissenting). The present case presents neither an interference with integral governmental functions of the City, nor a usurpation of State or City decision-making. On the contrary, the Plan reflects State and City policy decisions to be carried out by them according to their own dictates rather than those of the federal government. In formulating, proposing, and revising the Plan through public notice and public hearings, the State exercised its sovereign powers to make policy choices participated in by its citizens and its political subdivisions. Indeed, the State's freedom to choose and formulate its own policy concerning crucial local issues was preserved by and written directly into the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1970. As Justice Rhenquist noted in Train v. Natural Resources Defense Council, supra, 421 U.S. at 60, 95 S. Ct. at 1481:
"Under § 110(a) (2), the Agency is required to approve a state plan which provides for the timely attainment and subsequent maintenance of ambient standards, which also satisfies that section's general requirements. The Act gives the Agency no authority to question the wisdom of a State's choices of emission limitations if they are part of a plan which satisfies the standards of § 110(a) (2). . . ." (Some emphasis supplied).
Moreover, the prospect that the City may be required to take action in the area of transportation control cannot be considered an interference with an "integral" governmental program or service. The regulation of traffic on roads and highways, with its strong regional and interstate character (particularly in the New York City metropolitan area), has long been considered to be a cooperative effort between City, State and federal authorities, with no single entity being able to provide or impose a comprehensive traffic system, and with federal power, where necessary, taking precedence. See City of Burbank v. Lockheed Air Terminal, Inc., 411 U.S. 624, 638-39, 93 S. Ct. 1854, 36 L. Ed. 2d 547 (1972). Quite significantly, in National League of Cities v. Usery, supra, 426 U.S. at 854 n.18, 96 S. Ct. 2465, the Court reaffirmed the validity of United States v. California, 297 U.S. 175, 56 S. Ct. 421, 80 L. Ed. 567 (1936), on the grounds that a state could be required to operate its railroad lines in conformity with federal regulations despite a claim of interference with state government. The Supreme Court distinguished United States v. California from National League of Cities on the ground that the operation of a railroad was not "an area that the States have regarded as integral parts of their governmental activities." The same can be said of the operation of streets and bridges so far as their impact on the national problem of air pollution is concerned.
The enforcement mechanism at issue in this case is, we believe, closer to the Economic Stabilization Act of 1970, upheld in Fry, et al. v. United States, 421 U.S. 542, 95 S. Ct. 1792, 44 L. Ed. 2d 363 (1975), and distinguished by the Court in National League of Cities, which authorized the President to freeze the wages of state employees during a severe threat to the national economy. Reasoning that "effectiveness of federal action would have been drastically impaired" if state employees were excluded from the Act, the Supreme Court upheld the statute. In National League of Cities, the Court found Fry "quite consistent" with its holding because in Fry (as here) there was (1) a "serious problem which endangered the well-being of all the component parts of our federal system and which only collective action by the National Government might forestall," (2) a carefully drafted program designed for very limited interference with states' freedom, and (3) a program that "displaced no state choices as to how overnmental operations should be structured." 426 U.S. at 853, 96 S. Ct. at 2474.
Two factually and legally similar cases are Maryland v. EPA, 530 F.2d 215 (4th Cir. 1973), cert. granted, 426 U.S. 904, 96 S. Ct. 2224, 48 L. Ed. 2d 829 (1976), and State of Arizona v. EPA, 521 F.2d 825 (9th Cir. 1975), cert. granted, 426 U.S. 904, 96 S. Ct. 2224, 48 L. Ed. 2d 829 (1976)