Source: https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/12-1182
Timestamp: 2015-04-26 16:02:28
Document Index: 33325774

Matched Legal Cases: ['§7408', '§7407', '§7410', '§7410', '§7410', '§7410', '§7410', '§7410', '§7607', '§7410', '§7410', '§1857', '§7408', '§7407', '§7410', '§7410', '§110', '§1857', '§108', '§7410', '§7410', '§7607', '§7410', '§7607', '§7410', '§7410', '§7410', '§7410', '§7511', '§7410', '§7607', '§7410', '§7401', '§7410', '§7410', '§7410', '§7409', '§7404', '§7521', '§7545', '§7547', '§7554', '§7571', '§7651', '§7410', '§7410', '§74', '§7607', '§706', '§7410']

EPA v. EME HOMER CITY GENERATION, L. P. | LII / Legal Information Institute
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NOTE: The Reporter of Decisions for the U.S. Supreme Court requested that we make changes to this case; the text below reflects these changes.
EPA v. EME HOMER CITY GENERATION, L. P. (
v. EME HOMER CITY GENERATION, L. P., et al.
No. 12–1182. Argued December 10, 2013—Decided April 29, 20141
Congress and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA or Agency) have, over the course of several decades, made many efforts to deal with the complex challenge of curtailing air pollution emitted in upwind States, but causing harm in other, downwind States. As relevant here, the Clean Air Act (CAA or Act) directs EPA to establish national ambient air quality standards (NAAQS) for pollutants at levels that will protect public health. 42 U. S. C. §§7408, 7409. Once EPA settles on a NAAQS, the Agency must designate “nonattainment” areas, i.e., locations where the concentration of a regulated pollutant exceeds the NAAQS. §7407(d). Each State must submit a State Implementation Plan, or SIP, to EPA within three years of any new or revised NAAQS. §7410(a)(1). From the date EPA determines that a State SIP is inadequate, the Agency has two years to promulgate a Federal Implementation Plan, or FIP. §7410(c)(1). Among other components, the CAA mandates SIP compliance with the Good Neighbor Provision, which requires SIPs to “contain adequate provisions . . . prohibiting . . . any source or other type of emissions activity within the State from emitting any air pollutant in amounts which will . . . contribute significantly to nonattainment in, or interfere with maintenance by, any other State with respect to any . . . [NAAQS].” §7410(a)(2)(D)(i). Several times over the past two decades, EPA has attempted to delineate the Good Neighbor Provision’s scope by identifying when upwind States “contribute significantly” to nonattainment downwind. The D. C. Circuit found fault with the Agency’s 2005 attempt, the Clean Air Interstate Rule, or CAIR, which regulated both nitrogen oxide (NOX) and sulfur dioxide (SO2) emissions, the gasses at issue here. The D. C. Circuit nevertheless left CAIR temporarily in place, while encouraging EPA to act with dispatch in dealing with problems the court had identified. EPA’s response to that decision is the Cross-State Air Pollution Rule (Transport Rule), which curbs NOX and SO2 emissions in 27 upwind States to achieve downwind attainment of three NAAQS. Under the Transport Rule, an upwind State “contribute[d] significantly” to downwind nonattainment to the extent its exported pollution both (1) produced one percent or more of a NAAQS in at least one downwind State and (2) could be eliminated cost-effectively, as determined by EPA. Upwind States are obliged to eliminate only emissions meeting both of these criteria. Through complex modeling, EPA created an annual emissions “budget” for each regulated State upwind, representing the total quantity of pollution an upwind State could produce in a given year under the Transport Rule. Having earlier determined each regulated State’s SIP to be inadequate, EPA, contemporaneous with the Transport Rule, promulgated FIPs allocating each State’s emissions budgets among its in-state pollution sources. A group of state and local governments (State respondents), joined by industry and labor groups (Industry respondents), petitioned for review of the Transport Rule in the D. C. Circuit. The court vacated the rule in its entirety, holding that EPA’s actions exceeded the Agency’s statutory authority in two respects. Acknowledging that EPA’s FIP authority is generally triggered when the Agency disapproves a SIP, the court was nevertheless concerned that States would be incapable of fulfilling the Good Neighbor Provision without prior EPA guidance. The court thus concluded that EPA must give States a reasonable opportunity to allocate their emission budgets before issuing FIPs. The court also found the Agency’s two-part interpretation of the Good Neighbor Provision unreasonable, concluding that EPA must disregard costs and consider exclusively each upwind State’s physically proportionate responsibility for air quality problems downwind.
Held: 1. The CAA does not command that States be given a second opportunity to file a SIP after EPA has quantified the State’s interstate pollution obligations. Pp. 13–18.
(b) The CAA’s plain text supports the Agency: Disapproval of a SIP, without more, triggers EPA’s obligation to issue a FIP. The statute sets precise deadlines for the States and EPA. Once EPA issues any new or revised NAAQS, a State “shall” propose a SIP within three years,
42 U. S. C. §7410(a)(1), and that SIP “shall” include, inter alia, provisions adequate to satisfy the Good Neighbor Provision, §7410(a)(2). If the EPA finds a SIP inadequate, the Agency has a statutory duty to issue a FIP “at any time” within two years. §7410(c)(1). However sensible the D. C. Circuit’s exception to this strict time prescription may be, a reviewing court’s “task is to apply the text [of the statute], not to improve upon it.” Pavelic & LeFlore v. Marvel Entertainment Group, Div. of Cadence Industries Corp.,
493 U. S. 120. Nothing in the Act differentiates the Good Neighbor Provision from the several other matters a State must address in its SIP. Nor does the Act condition the duty to promulgate a FIP on EPA’s having first quantified an upwind State’s good neighbor obligations. By altering Congress’ SIP and FIP schedule, the D. C. Circuit allowed a delay Congress did not order and placed an information submission obligation on EPA Congress did not impose. Pp. 14–17.
(c) The fact that EPA had previously accorded upwind States a chance to allocate emission budgets among their in-state sources does not show that the Agency acted arbitrarily by refraining to do so here. EPA retained discretion to alter its course provided it gave a reasonable explanation for doing so. Motor Vehicle Mfrs. Assn. of United States, Inc. v. State Farm Mut. Automobile Ins. Co.,
463 U. S. 29. Here, the Agency had been admonished by the D. C. Circuit to act with dispatch in amending or replacing CAIR. Endeavoring to satisfy that directive, EPA acted speedily, issuing FIPs and the Transport Rule contemporaneously. Pp. 17–18.
2. EPA’s cost-effective allocation of emission reductions among upwind States is a permissible, workable, and equitable interpretation of the Good Neighbor Provision. Pp. 18–31. (a) Respondents’ attack on EPA’s interpretation of the Good Neighbor Provision is not foreclosed by §7607(d)(7)(B), which provides that “[o]nly an objection to a rule . . . raised with reasonable specificity during the period for public comment . . . may be raised during judicial review.” Even assuming that respondents failed to object to the Transport Rule with “reasonable specificity,” that lapse is not jurisdictional. Section 7607(d)(7)(B) is a “mandatory,” but not“jurisdictional,” rule, see Arbaugh v. Y & H Corp.,
546 U. S. 500, which speaks to a party’s procedural obligations, not a court’s authority, see Kontrick v. Ryan,
540 U. S. 443. Because EPA did not press this argument unequivocally before the D. C. Circuit, it does not pose an impassable hindrance to this Court’s review. Pp. 18–19.
(b) This Court routinely accords dispositive effect to an agency’s reasonable interpretation of ambiguous statutory language. The Good Neighbor Provision delegates authority to EPA at least as certainly as the CAA provisions involved in Chevron U. S. A. Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc.,
467 U. S. 837. EPA’s authority to reduce upwind pollution extends only to those “amounts” of pollution that “contribute significantly to nonattainment” in downwind States. §7410(a)(2)(D)(i). Because a downwind State’s excess pollution is often caused by multiple upwind States, however, EPA must address how to allocate responsibility among multiple contributors. The Good Neighbor Provision does not dictate a method of apportionment. Nothing in the provision, for example, directs the proportional allocation method advanced by the D. C. Circuit, a method that works neither mathematically nor in practical application. Under Chevron, Congress’ silence effectively delegates authority to EPA to select from among reasonable options. See United States v. Mead Corp.,
533 U. S. 218. EPA’s chosen allocation method is a “permissible construction of the statute.” Chevron, 467 U. S., at 843. The Agency, tasked with choosing which among equal “amounts” to eliminate, has chosen sensibly to reduce the amount easier, i.e., less costly, to eradicate. The Industry respondents argue that the final calculation cannot rely on costs, but nothing in the Good Neighbor Provision’s text precludes that choice. And using costs in the Transport Rule calculus is an efficient and equitable solution to the allocation problem the Good Neighbor Provision compels the Agency to address. Efficient because EPA can achieve the same levels of attainment, i.e., of emission reductions, the proportional approach aims to achieve, but at a much lower overall cost. Equitable because, by imposing uniform cost thresholds on regulated States, EPA’s rule subjects to stricter regulation those States that have done less in the past to control their pollution. Pp. 20–28.
1 Together with No. 12–1183, American Lung Association et al. v. EME Homer City Generation, L. P., et al., also on certiorari to the same court.
12–1182
12–1183
These cases concern the efforts of Congress and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA or Agency) to cope with a complex problem: air pollution emitted in one State, but causing harm in other States. Left unregulated, the emitting or upwind State reaps the benefits of the economic activity causing the pollution without bearing all the costs. See Revesz, Federalism and Interstate Environmental Externalities, 144 U. Pa. L. Rev. 2341, 2343 (1996). Conversely, downwind States to which the pollution travels are unable to achieve clean air because of the influx of out-of-state pollution they lack authority to control. See S. Rep. No. 101–228, p. 49 (1989). To tackle the problem, Congress included a Good Neighbor Provision in the Clean Air Act (Act or CAA). That provision, in its current phrasing, instructs States to prohibit in-state sources “from emitting any air pollutant in amounts which will . . . contribute significantly” to downwind States’ “nonattainment . . . , or interfere with maintenance,” of any EPA-promulgated national air quality standard.
42 U. S. C. §7410(a)(2)(D)(i).
, we reversed a D. C. Circuit decision that failed to accord deference to EPA’s reasonable interpretation of an ambiguous Clean Air Act provision. Satisfied that the Good Neighbor Provision does not command the Court of Appeals’ cost-blind construction, and that EPA reasonably interpreted the provision, we reverse the D. C. Circuit’s judgment.
Over the past 50 years, Congress has addressed interstate air pollution several times and with increasing rigor. In 1963, Congress directed federal authorities to “encourage cooperative activities by the States and local governments for the prevention and control of air pollution.”
42 U. S. C. §1857a (1964 ed.). In 1970, Congress made this instruction more concrete, introducing features still key to the Act. For the first time, Congress directed EPA to establish national ambient air quality standards (NAAQS) for pollutants at levels that will protect public health. See
1679–1680, as amended, 42 U. S. C. §§7408, 7409 (2006 ed.). Once EPA settles on a NAAQS, the Act requires the Agency to designate “nonattainment” areas, i.e., locations where the concentration of a regulated pollutant exceeds the NAAQS. §7407(d).
The Act then shifts the burden to States to propose plans adequate for compliance with the NAAQS. Each State must submit a State Implementation Plan, or SIP, to EPA within three years of any new or revised NAAQS. §7410(a)(1). If EPA determines that a State has failed to submit an adequate SIP, either in whole or in part, the Act requires the Agency to promulgate a Federal Implementation Plan, or FIP, within two years of EPA’s determina-tion, “unless the State corrects the deficiency” before a FIP is issued. §7410(c)(1).
The Act lists the matters a SIP must cover. Among SIP components, the 1970 version of the Act required SIPs to include “adequate provisions for intergovernmental cooperation” concerning interstate air pollution. §110(a)(2)(E),
42 U. S. C. §1857c–5(a)(2)(E). This statutory requirement, with its text altered over time, has cometo be called the Good Neighbor Provision.
In 1977, Congress amended the Good Neighbor Provision to require more than “cooperation.” It directed States to submit SIPs that included provisions “adequate” to “prohibi[t] any stationary source within the State from emitting any air pollutant in amounts which will . . . prevent attainment or maintenance [of air quality standards] by any other State.” §108(a)(4),
42 U. S. C. §7410(a)(2)(E) (1976 ed., Supp. II). The amended provision thus explicitly instructed upwind States to reduce emissions to account for pollution exported beyond their borders. As then written, however, the provision regulated only individual sources that, considered alone, emitted enough pollution to cause nonattainment in a downwind State. Because it is often “impossible to say that any single source or group of sources is the one which actually prevents attainment” downwind, S. Rep. No. 101–228, p. 21 (1989), the 1977 version of the Good Neighbor Provision proved ineffective, see ibid. (noting the provision’s inability to curb the collective “emissions [of] multiple sources”).
Congress most recently amended the Good Neighbor Provision in 1990. The statute, in its current form, requires SIPs to “contain adequate provisions . . . prohibiting . . . any source or other type of emissions activity within the State from emitting any air pollutant in amounts which will . . . contribute significantly to nonattainment in, or interfere with maintenance by, any other State with respect to any . . . [NAAQS].”
42 U. S. C. §7410(a)(2)(D)(i) (2006 ed.). The controversy before us centers on EPA’s most recent attempt to construe this provision.
Under the Transport Rule, EPA employed a “two-step approach” to determine when upwind States “contribute[d] significantly to nonattainment,” id., at 48254, and therefore in “amounts” that had to be eliminated. At step one, called the “screening” analysis, the Agency excluded as de minimis any upwind State that contributed less than one percent of the three NAAQS
to any downwind State “receptor,” a location at which EPA measures air quality. See id., at 48236–48237.
If all of an upwind State’s contributions fell below the one-percent threshold, that State would be considered not to have “contribute[d] signifi-cantly” to the nonattainment of any downwind State. Id., at 48236. States in that category were screened out and exempted from regulation under the rule.
The control analysis proceeded this way. EPA first calculated, for each upwind State, the quantity of emissions the State could eliminate at each of several cost thresholds. See id., at 48248–48249. Cost for these purposes is measured as cost per ton of emissions prevented, for instance, by installing scrubbers on powerplant smokestacks.
EPA estimated, for example, the amount each upwind State’s NOX emissions would fall if all pollution sources within each State employed every control measure available at a cost of $500 per ton or less. See id., at 48249–48251. The Agency then repeated that analysis at ascending cost thresholds. See ibid.
Armed with this information, EPA conducted complex modeling to establish the combined effect the upwind reductions projected at each cost threshold would have on air quality in downwind States. See id., at 48249. The Agency then identified “significant cost threshold[s],” points in its model where a “noticeable change occurred in downwind air quality, such as . . . where large upwind emission reductions become available because a certain type of emissions control strategy becomes cost-effective.” Ibid. For example, reductions of NOX sufficient to resolve or significantly curb downwind air quality problems could be achieved, EPA determined, at a cost threshold of $500 per ton (applied uniformly to all regulated upwind States). “Moving beyond the $500 cost threshold,” EPA concluded, “would result in only minimal additional . . . reductions [in emissions].” Id., at 48256.
Finally, EPA translated the cost thresholds it had se-lected into amounts of emissions upwind States would be required to eliminate. For each regulated upwind State, EPA created an annual emissions “budget.” These budgets represented the quantity of pollution an upwind State would produce in a given year if its in-state sources implemented all pollution controls available at the chosen cost thresholds. See id., at 48249.
If EPA’s projected improvements to downwind air quality were to be realized, an upwind State’s emissions could not exceed the level this budget allocated to it, subject to certain adjustments not relevant here.
Taken together, the screening and control inquiries defined EPA’s understanding of which upwind emissions were within the Good Neighbor Provision’s ambit. In short, under the Transport Rule, an upwind State “contribute[d] significantly” to downwind nonattainment to the extent its exported pollution both (1) produced one percent or more of a NAAQS in at least one downwind State (step one) and (2) could be eliminated cost-effectively, as determined by EPA (step two). See id., at 48254. Upwind States would be obliged to eliminate all and only emissions meeting both of these criteria.
For each State regulated by the Transport Rule, EPA contemporaneously promulgated a FIP allocating that State’s emission budget among its in-state sources. See id., at 48271, 48284–48287.
For each of these States, EPA had determined that the State had failed to submita SIP adequate for compliance with the Good Neighbor Provision. These determinations regarding SIPs became final after 60 days, see
42 U. S. C. §7607(b)(1)(2006 ed., Supp. V ), and many went unchallenged.
EPA views the SIP determinations as having triggered its statutory obligation to promulgate a FIP within two years, see §7410(c), a view contested by respondents, see Part II, infra.
According to the Court of Appeals, EPA had also failed to ensure that the Transport Rule did not mandate up-wind States to reduce pollution unnecessarily. The Good Neighbor Provision, the D. C. Circuit noted, “targets [only] those emissions from upwind States that ‘contribute significantly to
nonattainment’ ” of a NAAQS in downwind States. Id., at 22. Pollution reduction beyond that goal was “unnecessary over-control,” outside the purview of the Agency’s statutory mandate. Ibid. Because the emission budgets were calculated by reference to cost alone, the court concluded that EPA had done nothing to guard against, or even measure, the “over-control” potentially imposed by the Transport Rule. See ibid.
Before reaching the merits of this argument, we first reject EPA’s threshold objection that the claim is untimely. According to the Agency, this argument—and the D. C. Circuit’s opinion accepting it—rank as improper collateral attacks on EPA’s prior SIP disapprovals. As earlier recounted, see supra, at 9–10, EPA, by the time it issued the Transport Rule, had determined that each regulated upwind State had failed to submit a SIP adequate to satisfy the Good Neighbor Provision. Many of those determinations, because unchallenged, became final after 60 days, see
42 U. S. C. §7607(b)(1), and did so before the petitions here at issue were filed. EPA argues that the Court cannot question exercise of the Agency’s FIP authority without subjecting these final SIP disapprovals to untimely review.
We disagree. The gravamen of the State respondents’ challenge is not that EPA’s disapproval of any particular SIP was erroneous. Rather, respondents urge that, notwithstanding these disapprovals, the Agency was obliged to grant an upwind State a second opportunity to promul-gate adequate SIPs once EPA set the State’s emission budget. This claim does not depend on the validity of the prior SIP disapprovals. Even assuming the legitimacy of those disapprovals, the question remains whether EPA was required to do more than disapprove a SIP, as the State respondents urge, to trigger the Agency’s statutory authority to issue a FIP.
Turning to the merits, we hold that the text of the statute supports EPA’s position. As earlier noted, see supra, at 4–5, the CAA sets a series of precise deadlines to which the States and EPA must adhere. Once EPA issues any new or revised NAAQS, a State has three years to adopt a SIP adequate for compliance with the Act’s requirements. See
42 U. S. C. §7410(a)(1). Among those requirements is the Act’s mandate that SIPs “shall” include provisions sufficient to satisfy the Good Neighbor Provision. §7410(a)(2).
However sensible (or not) the Court of Appeals’ position,
a reviewing court’s “task is to apply the text [of the statute], not to improve upon it.” Pavelic & LeFlore v. Marvel Entertainment Group, Div. of Cadence Industries Corp.,
. Nothing in the Act dif-ferentiates the Good Neighbor Provision from the several other matters a State must address in its SIP. Rather, the statute speaks without reservation: Once a NAAQS has been issued, a State “shall” propose a SIP within three years, §7410(a)(1), and that SIP “shall” include, among other components, provisions adequate to satisfy the Good Neighbor Provision, §7410(a)(2).
The practical difficulties cited by the Court of Appeals do not justify departure from the Act’s plain text. See Barnhart v. Sigmon Coal Co.,
534 U. S. 438–462 (2002) (We “must presume that a legislature says in a statute what it means and means in a statute what it says there.” (internal quotation marks omitted)). When Congress elected to make EPA’s input a prerequisite to state action under the Act, it did so expressly. States developing vehicle inspection and maintenance programs under the CAA, for example, must await EPA guidance before issuing SIPs.
42 U. S. C. §7511a(c)(3)(B). A State’s obligation to adopt a SIP, moreover, arises only after EPA has first set the NAAQS the State must meet. §7410(a)(1). Had Congress intended similarly to defer States’ discharge of their obligations under the Good Neighbor Provision, Congress, we take it, would have included a similar direction in that section. See Jama v. Immigration and Customs Enforcement,
543 U. S. 335,
(“We do not lightly assume that Congress has omitted from its adopted text requirements that it nonetheless intends to apply, and our reluctance is even greater when Congress has shown elsewhere in the same statute that it knows how to make such a requirement manifest.”).
Whatever pattern the Agency followed in its NOX SIP call and CAIR proceedings, EPA retained discretion to alter its course provided it gave a reasonable explanation for doing so. Motor Vehicle Mfrs. Assn. of United States, Inc. v. State Farm Mut. Automobile Ins. Co.,
. The Agency presented such an explanation in the Transport Rule. As noted, see supra, at 6, the D. C. Circuit’s North Carolina decision admonished EPA to act with dispatch in amending or replacing CAIR, the Transport Rule’s predecessor. See 550 F. 3d, at 1178 (warning EPA that the stay of the court’s decision to vacate CAIR would not persist “indefinite[ly]”). Given North Carolina’s stress on expeditious action to cure the infir-mities the court identified in CAIR, EPA thoughtit “[in]appropriate to establish [the] lengthy transition period” entailed in allowing States time to propose new or amended SIPs implementing the Transport Rule emission budgets. See 76 Fed. Reg. 48220 (citing North Carolina, 550 F. 3d 1176). Endeavoring to satisfy the D. C. Circuit’s directive, EPA acted speedily, issuing FIPs contemporaneously with the Transport Rule. In light of the firm deadlines imposed by the Act, which we hold the D. C. Circuit lacked authority to alter, we cannot condemn EPA’s decision as arbitrary or capricious.
The CAA directs that “[o]nly an objection to a rule . . . raised with reasonable specificity during the period for public comment . . . may be raised during judicial review.”
42 U. S. C. §7607(d)(7)(B). Respondents failed to state their objections to the Transport Rule during the comment period with the “specificity” required for preservation, EPA argues. See Brief for Federal Petitioners 34–42. This failure at the administrative level, EPA urges, forecloses judicial review. Id., at 34.
Assuming, without deciding, that respondents did not meet the Act’s “reasonable specificity” requirement during the comment period, we do not regard that lapse as “jurisdictional.” This Court has cautioned against “profligate use” of the label “jurisdictional.” Sebelius v. Auburn Regional Medical Center, 568 U. S. ___, ___ (2013) (slip op., at 6). A rule may be “mandatory,” yet not “jurisdictional,” we have explained. See Arbaugh v. Y & H Corp.,
546 U. S. 500,
. Section 7607(d)(7)(B), we hold, is of that character. It does not speak to a court’s authority, but only to a party’s procedural obligations. See Kontrick v. Ryan,
540 U. S. 443,
. Had EPA pursued the “reasonable specificity” argument vigorously before the D. C. Circuit, we would be obligated to address the merits of the argument. See Gonzalez v. Thaler, 565 U. S. ___, ___ (2012) (slip op., at 10). But EPA did not press the argument unequivocally. Before the D. C. Circuit, it indicated only that the “reasonable specificity” prescription might bar judicial review. Brief for Respondent EPA et al. in No. 11–1302 (CADC), p. 30. See also id., at 32. We therefore do not count the prescription an impassable hindrance to our adjudication of the respondents’ attack on EPA’s interpretation of the Transport Rule. We turn to that attack mindful of the importance of the issues respondents raise to the ongoing implementation of the Good Neighbor Provision.
We routinely accord dispositive effect to an agency’s reasonable interpretation of ambiguous statutory language. Chevron U. S. A. Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc.,
, is the pathmarking decision, and it bears a notable resemblance to the cases before us. Chevron concerned EPA’s definition of the term “source,” as used in the 1977 Amendments to the CAA. Id., at 840, n. 1. Those amendments placed additional restrictions on companies’ liberty to add new pollution “sources” to their factories. See id., at 840. Although “source” might have been interpreted to refer to an individual smokestack, EPA construed the term to refer to an entire plant, thereby “treat[ing] all of the pollution-emitting devices within the [plant] as though they were encased within a single ‘bubble.’ ” Ibid. Under the Agency’s interpretation, a new pollution-emitting device would not subject a plant to the additional restrictions if the “alteration [did] not increase the total emissions [produced by] the plant.” Ibid.
This Court held EPA’s interpretation of “source” a reasonable construction of an ambiguous statutory term. When “Congress has not directly addressed the precise [interpretative] question at issue,” we cautioned, a reviewing court cannot “simply impose its own construction o[f] the statute.” Id., at 843. Rather, the agency is charged with filling the “gap left open” by the ambiguity. Id., at 866. Because “ ‘a full understanding of the force of the statutory policy . . . depend[s] upon more than ordinary knowledge’ ” of the situation, the administering agency’s construction is to be accorded “controlling weight unless . . . arbitrary, capricious, or manifestly contrary to the statute.” Id., at 844 (quoting United States v. Shimer,
367 U. S. 374,
382 (1961)
). Determining that none of those terms fit EPA’s interpretation of “source,” the Court deferred to the Agency’s judgment.
We conclude that the Good Neighbor Provision delegates authority to EPA at least as certainly as the CAA provisions involved in Chevron. The statute requires States to eliminate those “amounts” of pollution that “contribute significantly to nonattainment” in downwind States.
42 U. S. C. §7410(a)(2)(D)(i) (emphasis added). Thus, EPA’s task
is to reduce upwind pollution, but only in “amounts” that push a downwind State’s pollution concentrations above the relevant NAAQS. As noted earlier, however, the nonattainment of downwind States results from the collective and interwoven contributions of multiple upwind States. See supra, at 3. The statute therefore callsupon the Agency to address a thorny causation problem: How should EPA allocate among multiple contributing up-wind States responsibility for a downwind State’s excess pollution?
A simplified example illustrates the puzzle EPA faced. Suppose the Agency sets a NAAQS, with respect to a particular pollutant, at 100 parts per billion (ppb), and that the level of the pollutant in the atmosphere of downwind State A is 130 ppb. Suppose further that EPA has determined that each of three upwind States—X, Y, and Z—contributes the equivalent of 30 ppb of the relevant pollutant to State A’s airspace. The Good Neighbor Provision, as just observed, prohibits only upwind emissions that contribute significantly to downwind nonattainment. EPA’s authority under the provision is therefore limited to eliminating a total of 30 ppb,
How is EPA to divide responsibility among the three States? Should the Agency allocate reductions proportionally (10 ppb each), on a per capita basis, on the basis of the cost of abatement, or by some other metric? See Brief for Federal Petitioners 50 (noting EPA’s consideration of different approaches). The Good Neighbor Provision does not answer that question for EPA. Cf. Chevron, 467 U. S., at 860 (“[T]he language of [the CAA] simply does not compel any given interpretation of the term ‘source.’ ”). Under Chevron, we read Congress’ silence as a delegation of authority to EPA to select from among reasonable options. See United States v. Mead Corp.,
The realities of interstate air pollution, however, are not so simple. Most upwind States contribute pollution to multiple downwind States in varying amounts. See 76 Fed. Reg. 48239–48246. See also Brief for Respondent Calpine Corp. et al. in Support of Petitioners 48–49 (offering examples). Suppose then that States X and Y also contribute pollutants to a second downwind State (State B), this time in a ratio of seven to one. Though State Y contributed a relatively larger share of pollution to State A, with respect to State B, State X is the greater offender. Following the proportionality approach with respect to State B would demand that State X reduce its emissions by seven times as much as State Y. Recall, however, that State Y, as just hypothesized, had to effect five times as large a reduction with respect to State A. The Court of Appeals’ proportionality edict with respect to both State A and State B appears to work neither mathematically nor in practical application. Proportionality as to one down-wind State will not achieve proportionality as to others. Quite the opposite. And where, as is generally true, upwind States contribute pollution to more than two downwind receptors, proportionality becomes all the more elusive. Neither the D. C. Circuit nor respondents face up to this problem. The dissent, for its part, strains to give meaning to the D. C. Circuit’s proportionality constraint as applied to a world in which multiple upwind States contribute emissions to multiple downwind locations. In the dissent’s view, upwind States must eliminate emissions by “whatever minimum amount reduces” their share of the overage in each and every one of the downwind States to which they are linked. See post, at 8. In practical terms, this means each upwind State will be required to reduce emissions by the amount necessary to eliminate that State’s largest downwind contribution. The dissent’s formulation, however, does not account for the combined and cumu-lative effect of each upwind State’s reductions on attainment in multiple downwind locations. See ibid. (“Under a proportional-reduction approach, State X would be required to eliminate emissions of that pollutant by whatever minimum amount reduces both State A’s level by 0.2 unit and State B’s by 0.7 unit.” (emphasis added)). The result would be costly overregulation unnecessary to, indeedin conflict with, the Good Neighbor Provision’s goal of attainment.
Suppose, for example, that the industries of upwind State A have expended considerable resources installing modern pollution-control devices on their plants. Factories in upwind State B, by contrast, continue to run old, dirty plants. Yet, perhaps because State A is more populous and therefore generates a larger sum of pollution overall, the two States’ emissions have equal effects on downwind attainment. If State A and State B are required to eliminate emissions proportionally (i.e., equally), sources in State A will be compelled to spend far more per ton of reductions because they have already utilized lower cost pollution controls. State A’s sources will also have to achieve greater reductions than would have been required had they not made the cost-effective reductions in the first place. State A, in other words, will be tolled for having done more to reduce pollution in the past.
EPA’s cost-based allocation avoids these anomalies.
Obligated to require the elimination of only those “amounts” of pollutants that contribute to the nonattainment of NAAQS in downwind States, EPA must decide how to differentiate among the otherwise like contributions of multiple upwind States. EPA found decisive the difficulty of eliminating each “amount,” i.e., the cost incurred in doing so. Lacking a dispositive statutory instruction to guide it, EPA’s decision, we conclude, is a “reasonable” way of filling the “gap left open by Congress.” Chevron, 467 U. S., at 866.
Neither possibility, however, justifies wholesale invalidation of the Transport Rule. First, instances of “over-control” in particular downwind locations, the D. C. Circuit acknowledged, see 696 F. 3d, at 22, may be incidental to reductions necessary to ensure attainment elsewhere. Because individual upwind States often “contribute significantly” to nonattainment in multiple downwind locations, the emissions reduction required to bring one linked downwind State into attainment may well be large enough to push other linked downwind States over the attainment line.
As the Good Neighbor Provision seeks attainment in every downwind State, however, exceeding attainment in one State cannot rank as “over-control” unless unnecessary to achieving attainment in any downwind State. Only reductions unnecessary to downwind attainment anywhere fall outside the Agency’s statutory authority.
If any upwind State concludes it has been forced to regulate emissions below the one-percent threshold or beyond the point necessary to bring all downwind States into attainment, that State may bring a particularized, as-applied challenge to the Transport Rule, along with any other as-applied challenges it may have. Cf. Babbitt v. Sweet Home Chapter, Communities for Great Ore.,
515 U. S. 687–700 (1995) (approving agency’s reasonable interpretation of statute despite possibility of improper applications); American Hospital Assn. v. NLRB,
499 U. S. 606,
619 (1991)
(rejecting facial challenge to National Labor Relations Board rule despite possible arbitrary applications). Satisfied that EPA’s cost-based methodol-ogy, on its face, is not “arbitrary, capricious, or manifestly contrary to the statute,” Chevron, 467 U. S., at 844, we uphold the Transport Rule. The possibility that the rule, in uncommon particular applications, might exceed EPA’s statutory authority does not warrant judicial condemnation of the rule in its entirety.
2 FIPs and SIPs were introduced in the 1970 version of the Act; the particular deadlines discussed here were added in 1990. See
2422–2423, 42 U. S. C. §§7401(a)(1), 7410(c) (2006 ed.).
3 With respect to each NAAQS addressed by the rule, the one-percent threshold corresponded to levels of 0.15 micrograms per cubic meter (µg/m3) for annual PM2.5, 0.35 µg/m3 for daily PM2.5, and 0.8 parts per billion (ppb) for 8-hour ozone. See 76 Fed. Reg. 48236–48237.
6 For SO2, EPA modeled reductions that would be achieved at cost levels of $500, $1,600, $2,300, $2,800, $3,300, and $10,000 per ton eliminated. See id., at 48251–48253.
7 For SO2, EPA determined that, for one group of upwind States, all downwind air quality problems would be resolved at the $500 per ton threshold. See id., at 48257. For another group of States, however, this level of controls would not suffice. For those States, EPA found that pollution controls costing $2,300 per ton were necessary. See id., at 48259.
8 In 2014, for example, pollution sources within Texas would be permitted to emit no more than 243,954 tons of SO2, subject to variations specified by EPA. See id., at 48269 (Table VI.F–1).
9 Similarly, upwind States EPA independently determined to be “interfer[ing] with [the] maintenance” of NAAQS downwind were required to eliminate pollution only to the extent their emissions satisfied both of these criteria. See id., at 48254. 10 These FIPs specified the maximum amount of pollution each in-state pollution source could emit. Sources below this ceiling could sell unused “allocations” to sources that could not reduce emissions to the necessary level as cheaply. See id., at 48271–48272. This type of “cap-and-trade” system cuts costs while still reducing pollution to target levels.
11 Three States did challenge EPA’s determinations. See Petition for Review in Ohio v. EPA, No. 11–3988 (CA6); Petition for Review in Kansas v. EPA, No. 12–1019 (CADC); Notice in Georgia v. EPA, No. 11–1427 (CADC). Those challenges were not consolidated with this proceeding, and they remain pending (held in abeyance for these cases) in the Sixth and D. C. Circuits. See Twelfth Joint Status Report in Ohio v. EPA, No. 11–3988 (CA6); Order in Kansas v. EPA, No. 11–1333 (CADC, May 10, 2013); Order in Georgia v. EPA, No. 11–1427 (CADC, May 10, 2013).
13 On this point, the dissent argues that it is “beyond responsible debate that the States cannot possibly design FIP-proof SIPs without knowing the EPA-prescribed targets at which they must aim.” Post, at 18. Many of the State respondents thought otherwise, however, when litigating the matter in Michigan v. EPA, 213 F. 3d 663 (CADC 2000). See Final Brief for Petitioning States in No. 98–1497 (CADC), p. 34 (“EPA has the responsibility to establish NAAQS,” but without further intervention by EPA, “States [have] the duty and right to develop . . . SIPs . . . to meet those NAAQS.”). See also id., at 37 (“EPA’s role is to determine whether the SIP submitted is ‘adequate’ . . . not to dictate contents of the submittal in the first instance. . . . [E]ach State has the right and the obligation to write a SIP that complies with §[74]10(a)(2), including the ‘good neighbor’ provision.”).
14 In light of the CAA’s “core principle” of cooperative federalism, the dissent believes EPA abused its discretion by failing to give States an additional opportunity to submit SIPs in satisfaction of the Good Neighbor Provision. Post, at 19. But nothing in the statute so restricts EPA. To the contrary, as earlier observed, see supra, at 16, the plain text of the CAA grants EPA plenary authority to issue a FIP “at any time” within the two-year period that begins the moment EPA determines a SIP to be inadequate. §7410(c)(1) (emphasis added).
15 Though we speak here of “EPA’s task,” the Good Neighbor Provision is initially directed to upwind States. As earlier explained, see Part II–B, supra, only after a State has failed to propose a SIP adequate for compliance with the provision is EPA called upon to act.
16 Because of the uncertainties inherent in measuring interstate air pollution, see supra, at 3–4, reductions of exactly 30 ppb likely are unattainable. See infra, at 30–31.
18 The statutory gap identified also exists in the Good Neighbor Provision’s second instruction. That instruction requires EPA to eliminate amounts of upwind pollution that “interfere with maintenance” of a NAAQS by a downwind State. §7410(a)(2)(D)(i). This mandate contains no qualifier analogous to “significantly,” and yet it entails a delegation of administrative authority of the same character as the one discussed above. Just as EPA is constrained, under the first part of the Good Neighbor Provision, to eliminate only those amounts that “contribute . . . to nonattainment,” EPA is limited, by the second part of the provision, to reduce only by “amounts” that “interfere with maintenance,” i.e., by just enough to permit an already-attaining State to maintain satisfactory air quality. (Emphasis added.) With multiple upwind States contributing to the maintenance problem, however, EPA confronts the same challenge that the “contribute significantly” mandate creates: How should EPA allocate reductions among multiple upwind States, many of which contribute in amounts sufficient to impede downwind maintenance? Nothing in either clause of the Good Neighbor Provision provides the criteria by which EPA is meant to apportion responsibility.
19 To see why, one need only slightly complicate the world envisioned by the dissent. Assume the world is made up of only four States—two upwind (States X and Y), and two downwind (States A and B). Suppose also, as the dissent allows, see post, at 9, that the reductions State X must make to eliminate its share of the amount by which State A is in nonattainment are more than necessary for State X to eliminate its share of State B’s nonattainment. As later explained, see infra, at 29–30, this kind of “over-control,” we agree with the dissent, is acceptable under the statute. Suppose, however, that State Y also contributes to pollution in both State A and State B such that the reductions it must make to eliminate its proportion of State B’s overage exceed the reductions it must make to bring State A into attainment. In this case, the dissent would have State X reduce by just enough to eliminate its share of State A’s nonattainment and more than enough to eliminate its share of State B’s overage. The converse will be true as to State Y: Under the dissent’s approach, State Y would have to reduce by the “minimum” necessary to eliminate its proportional share of State B’s nonattainment and more than enough to eliminate its proportion of State A’s overage. The result is that the total amount by which both States X and Y are required to reduce will exceed what is necessary for attainment in all downwind States involved (i.e., in both State A and State B). Over-control thus unnecessary to achieving attainment in all involved States is impermissible under the Good Neighbor Provision. See infra, at 30, n. 23. The problem would worsen were the hypothetical altered to include more than two downwind States and two upwind States, the very real circumstances EPA must address. 20 The dissent’s approach is similarly infirm. It, too, would toll those upwind States that have already invested heavily in means to reduce the pollution their industries cause, while lightening the burden on States that have done relatively less to control pollution emanating from local enterprises.
21 The dissent, see post, at 12–13, relies heavily on our decision in Whitman v. American Trucking Assns., Inc.,
531 U. S. 457 (2001)
. In Whitman, we held that the relevant text of the CAA “unambiguously bars” EPA from considering costs when determining a NAAQS. Id., at 471. Section 7409(b)(1) commands EPA to set NAAQS at levels “requisite to protect the public health” with “an adequate margin of safety.” This mandate, we observed in Whitman, was “absolute,” and precluded any other consideration (e.g., cost) in the NAAQS calculation. Id., at 465 (internal quotation marks omitted). Not so of the Good Neighbor Provision, which grants EPA discretion to eliminate “amounts [of pollution that] . . . contribute significantly to nonattainment” downwind. On the particular “amounts” that should qualify for elimination, the statute is silent. Unlike the provision at issue in Whitman, which provides express criteria by which EPA is to set NAAQS, the Good Neighbor Provision, as earlier explained, fails to provide any metric by which EPA can differentiate among the contributions of multiple upwind States. See supra, at 21–22.
22 The following example, based on the record, is offered in Brief for Respondent Calpine Corp. et al. in Support of Petitioners 52–54. Ohio, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Indiana each contribute in varying amounts to five different nonattainment areas in three downwind States. Id., at 52. Implementation of the Transport Rule, EPA modeling demonstrates, will bring three of these five areas into attainment by a comfortable margin, and a fourth only barely. See id., at 53, fig. 2. The fifth downwind receptor, however, will still fall short of attainment despite the reductions the rule requires. See ibid. But if EPA were to lower the emission reductions required of the upwind States to reduce over-attainment in the first three areas, the area barely achieving attainment would no longer do so, and the area still in nonattainment would fall even further behind. Thus, “over-control” of the first three downwind receptors is essential to the attainment achieved by the fourth and to the fifth’s progress toward that goal.
23 The dissent suggests that our qualification of the term “over-control” is tantamount to an admission that “nothing stands in the way of [a] proportional-reduction approach.” Post, at 9. Not so. Permitting “over-control” as to one State for the purpose of achieving attainment in another furthers the stated goal of the Good Neighbor Provision, i.e., attainment of NAAQS. By contrast, a proportional-reduction scheme is neither necessary to achieve downwind attainment, nor mandated by the terms of the statute, as earlier discussed, see supra, at 21–25. Permitting “over-control” for the purpose of achieving proportionality would thus contravene the clear limits the statute places on EPA’s good neighbor authority, i.e., to eliminate only those “amounts” of upwind pollutants essential to achieving attainment downwind.
Too many important decisions of the Federal Government are made nowadays by unelected agency officials exercising broad lawmaking authority, rather than by the people’s representatives in Congress. With the statute involved in the present cases, however, Congress did it right. It specified quite precisely the responsibility of an upwind State under the Good Neighbor Provision: to eliminate those amounts
of pollutants that it contributes to downwind problem areas. But the Environmental Protection Agency was unsatisfied with this system. Agency personnel, perhaps correctly, thought it more efficient to require reductions not in proportion to the amounts of pollutants for which each upwind State is responsible, but on the basis of how cost-effectively each can decrease emissions.
“It is axiomatic that an administrative agency’s power to promulgate legislative regulations is limited to the authority delegated by Congress.” Bowen v. Georgetown Univ. Hospital,
208 (1988)
. Yet today the major-ity treats the text of the Clean Air Act not as the source and ceiling of EPA’s authority to regulate interstate air pollution, but rather as a difficulty to be overcome in pursuit of the Agency’s responsibility to “craf[t] a solution to the problem of interstate air pollution.” Ante, at 3. In reality, Congress itself has crafted the solution. The Good Neighbor Provision requires each State to eliminate whatever “amounts” of “air pollutant[s]” “contribute significantly to nonattainment” or “interfere with maintenance” of national ambient air-quality standards (NAAQS) in other States.
42 U. S. C. §7410(a)(2)(D)(i)(I). The statute addresses solely the environmental consequences of emissions, not the facility of reducing them; and it requires States to shoulder burdens in proportion to the size of their contributions, not in proportion to the ease of bearing them. EPA’s utterly fanciful “from each according to its ability” construction sacrifices democratically adopted text to bureaucratically favored policy. It deserves no deference under Chevron U. S. A. Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc.,
It would be extraordinary for Congress, by use of the single word “significantly,” to transmogrify a statute that assigns responsibility on the basis of amounts of pollut-ants emitted into a statute authorizing EPA to reduce interstate pollution in the manner that it believes most efficient. We have repeatedly said that Congress “does not alter the fundamental details of a regulatory scheme in vague terms or ancillary provisions—it does not, one might say, hide elephants in mouseholes.” Whitman v. American Trucking Assns., Inc.,
(citing MCI Telecommunications Corp. v. American Telephone & Telegraph Co.,
; FDA v. Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corp.,
529 U. S. 120–160 (2000)).
The statute’s history demonstrates that “significantly” is not code for “feel free to consider compliance costs.” The previous version of the Good Neighbor Provision required each State to prohibit emissions that would “prevent attainment or maintenance by any other State of any [NAAQS].”
693 (emphasis added). It is evident that the current reformulation (targeting “any air pollut-ant in amounts which will . . . contribute significantly to nonattainment in, or interfere with maintenance by, any other State with respect to any [NAAQS]”) was meant simply to eliminate any implication that the polluting State had to be a but-for rather than merely a contributing cause of the downwind nonattainment or maintenance problem—not to allow cost concerns to creep in through the back door.
But not only does the majority bring in cost-benefit analysis to fill a gap that does not really exist. Having filled that “gap,” it then extends the efficiency-based principle to situations beyond the imaginary gap—that is, situations where no apportionment is required. Even where only a single upwind State contributes pollutants to a downwind State, its annual emissions “budget” will be based not upon the amounts of pollutants it contributes, but upon what “pollution controls [are] available at the chosen cost thresholds.” Ante, at 9. EPA’s justification was its implausible (and only half-applicable) notion that “significantly” imports cost concerns into the provision. The majority, having abandoned that absurdity, is left to deal with the no-apportionment situation with no defense—not even an imaginary gap—against a crystal-clear statutory text.
In any case, the solution to over-control under a proportional-reduction system is not difficult to discern. In calculating good-neighbor responsibilities, EPA would simply be required to make allowance for what I have called collateral pollution reductions. The Agency would set upwind States’ obligations at levels that, after taking into account those reductions, suffice to produce attainment in all downwind States. Doubtless, there are multiple ways for the Agency to accomplish that task in accordance with the statute’s amounts-based, proportional focus.
The majority itself invokes an unexplained device to prevent over-control “in uncommon particular applications” of its scheme. Ante, at 31. Whatever that device is, it can serve just as well to prevent over-control under the approach I have outlined.
This is not the first time parties have sought to convert the Clean Air Act into a mandate for cost-effective regulation. Whitman v. American Trucking Assns., Inc.,
, confronted the contention that EPA should consider costs in setting NAAQS. The provision at issue there, like this one, did not expressly bar cost-based decisionmaking—and unlike this one, it even contained words that were arguably ambiguous in the relevant respect. Specifically, §7409(b)(1) instructed EPA to set primary NAAQS “the attainment and maintenance of which . . . are requisite to protect the public health” with “an adequate margin of safety.” One could hardly overstate the capaciousness of the word “adequate,” and the phrase “public health” was at least equally susceptible (indeed, much more susceptible) of permitting cost-benefit analysis as the word “significantly” is here. As the respondents in American Trucking argued, setting NAAQS without considering costs may bring about failing industries and fewer jobs, which in turn may produce poorer and less healthy citizens. See id., at 466. But we concluded that “in the context of” the entire provision, that interpretation “ma[de] no sense.” Ibid. As quoted earlier, we said that Congress “does not alter the fundamental details of a regulatory scheme in vague terms or ancillary provisions—it does not . . . hide elephants in mouseholes.” Id., at 468.
In American Trucking, the Court “refused to find im-plicit in ambiguous sections of the [Clear Air Act] an authorization to consider costs that has elsewhere, and so often, been expressly granted,” id., at 467, citing a tradition dating back to Union Elec. Co. v. EPA,
427 U. S. 246, and n. 5 (1976). There are, indeed, numerous Clean Air Act provisions explicitly permitting costs to be taken into account. See, e.g., §7404(a)(1); §7521(a)(2); §7545(c)(2); §7547(a)(3); §7554(b)(2); §7571(b); §7651c(f)(1)(A). American Trucking thus demanded “a textual commitment of authority to the EPA to consider costs,” 531 U. S., at 468—a hurdle that the Good Neighbor Provision comes nowhere close to clearing. Today’s opinion turns its back upon that case and is incompatible with that opinion.
To describe the effect of this statutory scheme in simple terms: After EPA sets numerical air-quality benchmarks, “Congress plainly left with the States . . . the power to determine which sources would be burdened by regulation and to what extent.” Union Elec. Co., 427 U. S., at 269. The States are to present their chosen means of achieving EPA’s benchmarks in SIPs, and only if a SIP fails to meet those goals may the Agency commandeer a State’s authority by promulgating a FIP. “[S]o long as the ultimate effect of a State’s choice of emission limitations is compliance with the [NAAQS], the State is at liberty to adopt whatever mix of emission limitations it deems best suited to its particular situation.” Train v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc.,
421 U. S. 60,
. EPA, we have emphasized, “is relegated by the Act to a secondary role in the process of determining and enforcing the spe-cific, source-by-source emission limitations which are necessary if the [NAAQS] are to be met.” Ibid.
The Agency consistently adopted that position prior to the Transport Rule. In 1998, when it issued the NOX SIP Call under §7410(k)(5), EPA acknowledged that “[w]ithout determining an acceptable level of NOX reductions, the upwind State would not have guidance as to what is an acceptable submission.” 63 Fed. Reg. 57370. EPA deemed it “most efficient—indeed necessary—for the Federal government to establish the overall emissions levels for the various States.” Ibid. Accordingly, the Agency quantified good-neighbor responsibilities and then allowed States a year to submit SIPs to implement them. Id., at 57450–57451. Similarly, when EPA issued the Clean Air Interstate Rule (CAIR) in 2005 under §7410(c), it explicitly “recognize[d] that States would face great difficulties in developing transport SIPs to meet the requirements of today’s action without th[e] data and policies” provided by the Rule, including “judgments from EPA concerning the appropriate criteria for determining whether upwind sources contribute significantly to downwind nonattainment under [§74]10(a)(2)(D).” 70 id., at 25268–25269. The Agency thus gave the States 18 months to submit SIPs implementing their new good-neighbor responsibilities. See id., at 25166–25167, 25176. Although EPA published FIPs before that window closed, it specified that they were meant to serve only as a “Federal backstop” and would not become effective unless necessary “a year after the CAIR SIP submission deadline.” 71 id., at 25330–25331 (2006).
Even since promulgating the Transport Rule, EPA has repeatedly reaffirmed that States cannot be expected to read the Agency’s mind. In other proceedings, EPA has time and again stated that although “[s]ome of the elements of the [SIP-submission process] are relatively straightforward, . . . others clearly require interpretation by EPA through rulemaking, or recommendations through guidance, in order to give specific meaning for a particular NAAQS.” 76 id., at 58751 (2011). As an example of the latter, the Agency has remarked that the Good Neighbor Provision “contains numerous terms that require substantial rulemaking by EPA in order to determine such basic points as what constitutes significant contribution,” citing CAIR. Ibid., n. 6. In fact, EPA repeated those precise statements not once, not twice, but 30 times following promulgation of the Transport Rule.
The majority states that the Agency “retained discretion to alter its course” from the one pursued in the NOX SIP Call and CAIR, ante, at 17, but that misses the point.The point is that EPA has discretion to arrange things so as to preserve the Clean Air Act’s core principle of state primacy—and that it is an abuse of discretion to refuse to do so. See §7607(d)(9)(A); see also
5 U. S. C. §706(2)(A) (identical text in the Administrative Procedure Act). Indeed, the proviso in §7410(c)(1) that the Agency’s authority to promulgate a FIP within the 2-year period terminates if “the State corrects the deficiency, and [EPA] approves the [SIP] or [SIP] revision” explicitly contemplates just such an arrangement.
Addressing the problem of interstate pollution in the manner Congress has prescribed—or in any other manner, for that matter—is a complex and difficult enterprise. But “[r]egardless of how serious the problem an administrative agency seeks to address, . . . it may not exercise its authority ‘in a manner that is inconsistent with the administrative structure that Congress enacted into law.’ ” Brown & Williamson, 529 U. S., at 125 (quoting ETSI Pipeline Project v. Missouri,
484 U. S. 495,
517 (1988)
). The majority’s approval of EPA’s approach to the Clean Air Act violates this foundational principle of popular government.
1 I agree with the majority’s analysis turning aside EPA’s threshold objections to judicial review. See ante, at 13–14, 18–19.
2 The majority insists that “proportionality cannot be one of those ways.” Ante, at 25. But it is easy to imagine precluding unnecessary over-control by reducing in a percent-based manner the burdens of each upwind State linked to a given downwind area, which would retain the proportionality produced by my approach.
3 The majority shrugs off American Trucking in a footnote, reasoning that because it characterized the provision there in question as “absolute,” it has nothing to say about the Good Neighbor Provision, which is not absolute. See ante, at 28, n. 21. This is a textbook example of begging the question: Since the Good Neighbor Provision is not absolute (the very point at issue here), American Trucking, which dealt with a provision that is absolute, is irrelevant. To the contrary, American Trucking is right on point. As described in text, the provision at issue here is even more categorical (“absolute”) than the provision at issue in American Trucking.
4 In addition to the citations in text, see 77 Fed. Reg. 50654, and n. 7 (2012); id., at 47577, and n. 7; id., at 46363, and n. 7; id., at 46356, and n. 9; id., at 45323, and n. 7; id., at 43199, and n. 7; id., at 38241, and n. 6; id., at 35912, and n. 7; id., at 34909, and n. 7; id., at 34901, and n. 8; id., at 34310, and n. 7; id., at 34291, and n. 8; id., at 33384, and n. 7; id., at 33375, and n. 7; id., at 23184, and n. 7; id., at 22543, and n. 4; id., at 22536, and n. 7; id., at 22253, and n. 8; id., at 21915, and n. 7; id., at 21706, and n. 6; id., at 16788, and n. 4; id., at 13241, and n. 5; id., at 6715, and n. 7; id., at 6047, and n. 4; id., at 3216, and n. 7; 76 id., at 77955, and n. 7 (2011); id., at 75852, and n. 7; id., at 70943, and n. 6; id., at 62636, and n. 3.
5 I am unimpressed, by the way, with the explanation that the major-ity accepts for EPA’s about-face: that the D. C. Circuit admonished it to “act with dispatch in amending or replacing CAIR.” Ante, at 18 (citing North Carolina v. EPA, 550 F. 3d 1176, 1178 (2008) (per curiam)). Courts of Appeals’ raised eyebrows and wagging fingers are not law, least so when they urge an agency to take ultra vires action. Nor can the encouragement to act illegally qualify as a “good reaso[n]” for an agency’s alteration of course under FCC v. Fox Television Stations, Inc.,