Source: http://openjurist.org/604/f2d/239
Timestamp: 2015-11-26 01:13:40
Document Index: 354765503

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 1369', '§ 301', '§ 304', '§ 10', '§ 304', '§ 434', '§ 309', '§ 505']

604 F2d 239 Consolidation Coal Company v. M Costle | OpenJurist
604 F. 2d 239 - Consolidation Coal Company v. M Costle HomeFederal Reporter, Second Series 604 F.2d.
604 F2d 239 Consolidation Coal Company v. M Costle 604 F.2d 239
13 ERC 1289, 9 Envtl. L. Rep. 20,511
CONSOLIDATION COAL COMPANY, Petitioner,v.Douglas M. COSTLE, as Administrator, EnvironmentalProtection Agency, Respondent.*
Nos. 76-1690, 76-1859, 76-1862, 76-1912, 76-1981, 76-1982,76-2019, 76-2020, 76-2059, 76-2145 to 76-2147, 77-1474,77-1490, 77-1491, 77-1534, 77-1592 to 77-1594, 77-1828,77-1845, 77-1892, 77-1893, 77-1957, 77-1989, 77-1990 and 77-2088.
Argued Oct. 5, 1978.Decided June 25, 1979.
George C. Freeman, Jr., Richmond, Va. (Michael B. Barr, Hunton & Williams, Richmond, Va., on brief), for National Coal Association.
Theodore L. Garrett, Washington, D. C. (Covington & Burling, Washington, D. C., on brief), for Cedar Coal Company, Central Appalachian Coal Company, Central Coal Company, Central Ohio Coal Company, Southern Appalachian Coal Company, Southern Ohio Coal Company and Windsor Power House Coal Company.
Lawrence A. Demase, Pittsburgh, Pa. (Michael G. Kushnick, Washington, D. C., Ronald S. Cusano, Rose, Schmidt, Dixon, Hasley & Whythe, Pittsburgh, Pa., on brief), for Consolidation Coal Company and Bethlehem Steel Corporation.
Patrick McGinley, Pittsburgh, Pa. (John Philip Williams, East Tennessee Research Corporation, Lafollette, Tenn., on brief), for Citizen Environmental Group, petitioners.
K. W. James Rochow, Asst. Atty. Gen., Harrisburgh, Pa. (Gary Waxman, Asst. Atty. Gen., Harrisburgh, Pa., on brief), for Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Department of Environmental Resources.
James A. Rogers, Associate Gen. Counsel, Environmental Protection Agency, Washington, D. C. (Joan Z. Bernstein, Gen. Counsel, Environmental Protection Agency, James W. Moorman, Asst. Atty. Gen., Angus Macbeth and Lee R. Tyner, Attys., Dept. of Justice, Washington, D. C., on brief), for respondent.
Robert F. Stauffer, Gen. Counsel, Washington, D. C., on brief, for National Coal Association.
Thos. E. Cahill, Evansville, Ind., and Thomas F. Linn, St. Louis, Mo., on brief, for Peabody Coal Company.
George L. Raymond, Indianapolis, Ind., on brief, for AMAX, Inc. and Gibralter Coal Corporation.
Peter G. Veeder, Frank J. Clements, Thorp, Reed & Armstrong, Pittsburgh, Pa., on brief, for National Steel Corporation, Republic Steel Corporation and United States Steel Corporation.
William B. Long, Tuscaloosa, Ala., on brief, for The Drummond Company.
Jerry A. Fullmer, Ronald R. Janke, Jones, Day, Reavis & Pogue, Cleveland, Ohio, on brief, for The North American Coal Corporation.
In 27 consolidated cases, 17 coal producers, their trade association, 5 citizens' environmental associations, and the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania seek review, pursuant to 33 U.S.C. § 1369(b)(1)(E), of water pollution control regulations for existing facilities in the coal industry promulgated by the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency.1 We uphold the regulations with the exception of a clause establishing criteria for variances.
* The Federal Water Pollution Control Act of 1972 is a legislative mandate to restore and maintain the chemical, physical, and biological integrity of the nation's waters.2 The Act sets a national goal to eliminate the discharge of pollutants into the navigable waters by 1985.3
As the first step toward the 1985 goal,4 Congress provided in § 301(b)(1) (A) of the Act5 that
there shall be achieved . . . not later than July 1, 1977, effluent limitations for point sources (of water pollution), other than publicly owned treatment works, (i) which shall require the application of the best practicable control technology currently available as defined by the Administrator (of the Environmental Protection Agency) pursuant to § 304(b) . . . .
This provision for effluent limitations marked a major change from prior law. Before the 1972 Act, water pollution control had been based upon water quality standards specifying the acceptable levels of pollution in the navigable waters. The program proved ineffective in part because the standards focused on the tolerable effects rather than the preventable causes of water pollution. Effluent limitations eliminate this problem because they directly restrict the concentrations of pollutants that may be discharged by any plant in a given industrial subcategory.6
Section 304(b)(1)7 requires the Administrator to publish regulations which must
identify, in terms of amounts of constituents and chemical, physical, and biological characteristics of pollutants, the degree of effluent reduction attainable through the application of the best practicable control technology currently available for classes and categories of point sources . . . and specify factors to be taken into account in determining the control measures and practices to be applicable to point sources . . . within such categories or classes.
The administrator promulgated final water pollution control regulations for existing plants in the coal industry on April 26, 1977.8 The regulations divide the industry into two categories (1) coal mines and (2) coal preparation plants and associated areas. These categories are each subdivided according to acidic and alkaline discharges. For each of the resulting subcategories, the regulations establish maximum concentrations of iron and total suspended solids. They also limit the permissible range of acidity and alkalinity of discharge water, and they restrict manganese concentrations in acidic drainage. None of the petitions before us challenges these maxima.9 The petitions question the validity of seven aspects of the regulations which we will discuss in parts II-VIII of this opinion.
Our review is governed by § 10(e)(2) of the Administrative Procedure Act.10 We must set aside any portion of the 1977 effluent limitations that is "arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion, or otherwise not in accordance with law;" is in excess of statutory authority; or is "without observance of procedure required by law."11 The ultimate standard of review is narrow. This court is not empowered to substitute its judgment for that of the agency.12 The Federal Water Pollution Control Act is to be given the broadest possible reading consistent with the commerce clause,13 and ambiguities as to the administrator's powers under the Act are to be resolved in his favor.14 Congress has required the agency to act quickly and decisively despite a recognized absence of exact data on pollution control technology, and we must hesitate to draw substantive conclusions differing from those of the agency in this area of imprecise knowledge. An overly expansive exercise of the judicial review power can impede accomplishment of the Act's goal of eliminating water pollution and thwart its requirement of national uniformity in effluent reduction technology.15
II. Variance Statutory Factors
The industrial petitioners challenge the "fundamentally different factors" variance clause contained in the regulations16 complaining that this provision fails to require the permit issuer to consider the factors set forth in §§ 304(b)(1)(B)17 and 301(c)18 of the Act.
An identical variance clause was before the court in National Crushed Stone Association v. EPA,19 which controls our disposition of this issue. National Crushed Stone holds that the clause is unduly restrictive, relying on Appalachian Power Co. v. EPA.20 Accordingly, we set aside the variance clauses contained in 40 C.F.R. §§ 434.22, 434.32, and 434.42 and remand them for revision to conform with National Crushed Stone.
III. Variance Environmental Benefits
The industrial petitioners also insist that the regulations dealing with variances must be disapproved because they fail to require the agency to consider the environmental benefits of applying the effluent limitations to a particular source of pollution. The only specific error they attribute to the regulations is the absence of a provision requiring the agency to take into account the quality of the receiving water when it decides whether to grant a variance.
At the outset, we reject the agency's argument that consideration of this aspect of the variance regulations would be premature. In a recent adjudicatory proceeding, the administrator unequivocally ruled that the Act and, consequently, the regulations, do not authorize him to grant a variance to an industrial discharger by providing "relief from technology-based effluent limitations guidelines due solely to the characteristics of particular receiving waters . . . ."21 Since the administrator's interpretation of the regulations precludes any speculation about its meaning, review is not premature.22 We therefore turn to the merits of the petition.
The pertinent regulations authorize the administrator to allow deviations from the national effluent limitations if factors peculiar to a specific source of pollution are fundamentally different from the factors considered in the establishment of the guidelines.23 The precise issue, therefore, is whether the factors peculiar to a source of pollution must include comparison of the expected improvements in the receiving water with the cost of achieving them. We dealt with this issue in Appalachian Power,24 where, in response to Consolidated Edison's request to be relieved of the effluent guidelines, we said:
(S)o far as its petition may be read as a request for leniency because of the already polluted condition of the harbor, it must be rejected. The 1972 amendments to the statute changed the system from that of control of the quality of the body of water to effluent limitations as we have before noted.
The Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit also examined this issue in Weyerhaeuser Co. v. Costle,25 and affirmed the administrator's refusal to consider receiving water quality in setting limitations.
These decisions recognize that after many years of experimenting with pollution control laws, Congress determined that emphasis on receiving water quality instead of effluent reduction technology was unacceptable for control of private sources of pollution. With exceptions not germane to this opinion, Congress has now mandated that even if the application of the best practicable control technology to a specific source of pollution results in no significant improvement in the quality of the receiving water, that technology must still be applied. Commenting on the change in the scheme for elimination of pollution, the Supreme Court said:
(A) discharger's performance is now measured against strict technology-based effluent limitations specified levels of treatment to which it must conform, rather than against limitations derived from water quality standards to which it and other polluters must collectively conform.26
Any possible doubt about congressional intent to preclude consideration of receiving water quality in industrial variance rulings was put to rest in 1977. While considering legislation necessary for mid-course corrections in the federal water pollution control program, Congress heard evidence about the asserted inequity of technology-based standards.27 In the resulting amendments,28 Congress permitted consideration of receiving water quality as a basis for less stringent discharge standards in one situation: discharges from publicly owned treatment works into marine waters.29 The intent to restrict this exception to municipalities is clear from the amendments and their legislative history.30
We therefore conclude that the variance regulations as interpreted by the administrator properly exclude consideration of the quality of the receiving water. We recognize, however, that elements of the environment apart from receiving water may be affected by enforcement of the effluent limitations, and in an appropriate case, these elements might warrant a variance.31
The industrial petitioners next argue that because the standards for the coal industry were promulgated barely two months before the statutory deadline for application of the best practicable control technology, they are in part unachievable, and therefore invalid, as to certain facilities. The petitioners suggest that the July 1, 1977, deadline for compliance with effluent limitations32 may not be enforced because the administrator did not promulgate final regulations until long after the Act required him to do so.33
Congress addressed this problem when it passed the 1977 amendments to the Act. Section 309(a)(5)(B),34 added by those amendments, authorizes the administrator to extend the deadline up to April 1, 1979, for companies that, despite good faith efforts to comply with the best practicable control technology standards, were unable to do so by July 1, 1977. This new provision speaks in general terms of persons who have violated the Act or who otherwise have not complied with its requirements. It does not specifically mention compliance problems caused by the administrator's delay in promulgating effluent limitations guidelines. Nevertheless, the legislative history establishes that the amendment is intended to afford relief in such situations to companies that satisfy its requirements.35
Industry also contends that an extension pursuant to § 309(a)(5)(B) will not prevent suits by private citizens pursuant to § 505 of the Act36 against companies that are unable to meet the statutory deadline. The courts, however, retain equitable discretion to determine whether and to what extent sanctions should be allowed against coal operators who qualify for relief under the amendment.37
Congress has adequately dealt with any dilemma that may confront a coal operator due to the agency's delay. Accordingly, the regulations are not invalidated by the short lead time.
V. Western Coal Mines
The industrial petitioners next challenge the administrator's decision to exclude mines in six western states from the coverage of the maximum total suspended solids level applicable to mine drainage. Concerned that the administrator will promulgate more stringent standards for the wes