Source: https://www.chanrobles.com/usa/us_supremecourt/426/200/case.php
Timestamp: 2020-07-02 18:21:52
Document Index: 553778236

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 1251', '§ 309', '§ 1319', '§ 402', '§ 1342', '§ 402', '§ 1342', '§ 402', '§ 402', '§ 1342', '§ 402', '§ 1342', '§ 402', '§ 402', '§ 1342', '§ 509', '§ 313', '§ 402', '§ 1323', '§ 313', '§ 118', '§ 1857', '§ 313', '§ 118', '§ 313', '§ 313', '§ 313', '§ 118', '§ 313', '§ 313', '§ 313', '§ 510', '§ 510', '§ 510', '§ 313', '§ 313', '§ 313', '§ 402', '§ 402', '§ 505', '§ 1365', '§ 505', '§ 402', '§ 1342', '§ 505', '§ 505', '§ 505', '§ 301', '§ 505', '§ 402', '§ 304', '§ 124', '§ 313', '§ 1857', '§ 510', '§ 505', '§ 313', '§ 402', '§ 505', '§ 505', '§ 505']

US Supreme Court Decisions On-Line> Volume 426 > EPA V. CALIFORNIA, 426 U. S. 200 (1976)
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WHITE, J., delivered the opinion of the Court in which BURGER, C.J.,and BRENNAN, MARSHALL, BLACKMUN, POWELL, and STEVENS, JJ., joined. STEWART and REHNQUIST, JJ., filed a dissenting statement, post, p. 426 U. S. 228. chanrobles.com-red
The issue in this case which arises under the Federal Water Pollution Control Act Amendments of 1972 (Amendments), 86 Stat. 816, 33 U.S.C. § 1251 et seq. (1970 ed., Supp. IV), is whether federal installations discharging water pollutants in a State with a federally approved permit program are to secure their permits from the State, or from the Environmental Protection chanrobles.com-red
Before it was amended in 1972, the Federal Water Pollution Control Act [Footnote 2] employed ambient water quality standards specifying the acceptable levels of pollution in a State's interstate navigable waters as the primary mechanism in its program for the control of water pollution. [Footnote 3] This program based on water quality standards, which were to serve both to guide performance by polluters and to trigger legal action to abate pollution, proved ineffective. The problems stemmed from the character of the standards themselves, which focused on the tolerable effects, rather than the preventable causes, of water pollution, from the awkwardly shared federal and state responsibility for promulgating such standards, [Footnote 4] and from the cumbrous enforcement procedures. These combined to make it very difficult to develop and chanrobles.com-red
In 1972, prompted by the conclusion of the Senate Committee on Public Works that "the Federal water pollution control program . . . has been inadequate in every vital aspect," [Footnote 7] Congress enacted the Amendments, declaring "the national goal that the discharge of pollutants into the navigable waters be eliminated by 1985." [Footnote 8] chanrobles.com-red
Such direct restrictions on discharges facilitate enforcement by making it unnecessary to work backward from an over-polluted body of water to determine which point sources are responsible and which must be abated. In addition, a discharger's performance is now measured against strict technology-based [Footnote 11] effluent limitations -- specified levels of treatment -- to which it must conform, rather than against limitations derived from water chanrobles.com-red
Second, the Amendments establish the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) [Footnote 13] as a means of achieving and enforcing the effluent limitations. Under the NPDES, it is unlawful for any person to discharge a pollutant without obtaining a permit and complying with its terms. [Footnote 14] An NPDES permit serves to transform generally applicable effluent limitations and other standards -- including those based on water quality -- into the obligations (including a timetable for compliance) of the individual discharger, and the Amendments provide for direct administrative and judicial enforcement of permits. §§ 309 and 505, 33 U.S.C. §§ 1319 and 1365 (1970 ed., Supp. IV). With few exceptions, for enforcement purposes, a discharger in compliance with the terms and conditions of an NPDES permit is deemed to be in compliance with those sections of the Amendments on which the permit conditions are based. § 402(k), 33 U.S.C. § 1342(k) (1970 ed., Supp. IV). In short, the permit defines, and facilitates compliance with, and enforcement of, a preponderance of a discharger's obligations under the Amendments. chanrobles.com-red
NPDES permits are secured, in the first instance, from the EPA, which issues permits under the authority of § 402(a)(1), 33 U.S.C. § 1342(a)(1) (1970 ed., Supp. IV). Section 402(a)(3) requires the EPA permit program and permits to conform to the "terms, conditions, and requirements" of § 402(b). [Footnote 15] Consonant chanrobles.com-red
with its policy "to recognize, preserve, and protect the primary responsibilities and rights of States to prevent, chanrobles.com-red
The EPA retains authority to review operation of a State's permit program. Unless the EPA waives review for particular classes of point sources or for a particular permit application, §§ 402(d)(3), (e), 33 U.S.C. §§ 1342(d)(3), (e) (1970 ed., Supp. IV), a State is to forward a copy of each permit application to the EPA for review, and no permit may issue if the EPA objects that issuance of the permit would be "outside the guidelines and requirements" of the Amendments. §§ 402(d)(1), (2), 33 U.S.C. §§ 1342(d)(1), (2) (1970 ed., Supp. IV). In addition to this review authority, after notice and opportunity to take action, the EPA may withdraw approval of a state permit program which is not being administered in compliance with § 402. § 402(c)(3), 33 U.S.C. § 1342(c)(3) (1970 ed., Supp. IV). chanrobles.com-red
On May 14, 1973, the Acting EPA Administrator approved the State of California's request to administer its own NPDES permit program and, effective that date, suspended EPA issuance of all permits for "all discharges in the State of California, other than those from agencies and instrumentalities of the Federal government." App. 18. Soon after this first approval of a state program and after correspondence exchanging views on a State's authority to issue permits to federal installations, the EPA informed the State of Washington that it "does not have the prerogative to delegate permit issuance for Federal facilities to any state." Id. at 6. Shortly chanrobles.com-red
California and Washington filed petitions for review under § 509(b)(1), which authorizes a court of appeals to review "the Administrator's action . . . (D) in making any determination as to a State permit program submitted under section 402(b)." [Footnote 20] The two States argued that § 313 authorized States with approved NPDES permit programs to require federal dischargers to obtain state permits. The States also argued that § 402 gave the EPA no authority to suspend operation of its permit program in a State only for nonfederal dischargers. The Court of Appeals agreed. Mindful of "strong structural and terminological similarities between the Clean Air Act and the 1972 Water Pollution Control Act Amendments," and of the division in the Courts of chanrobles.com-red
86 Stat. 875, 33 U.S.C. § 1323 (1970 ed., Supp. IV). Except for the reference to service charges, § 313 is virtually identical to § 118 of the Clean Air Act, 42 U.S.C. § 1857f. [Footnote 23] Taken alone, § 313, like § 118 of the Clean Air Act, states only to what extent -- the same as any person -- federal installations must comply with applicable state requirements. Section 313 does not expressly provide that federal dischargers must obtain state NPDES permits. Nor does § 313 or any other section of the Amendments expressly state that obtaining a state chanrobles.com-red
From this, the States, recognizing that § 313 itself does not subject federal dischargers to their permit programs, derive their principal argument that a State's authority to subject federal installations to its EPA-approved permit program must be implied from the practical needs of administering an NPDES permit program, and that this implication is sufficiently clear to satisfy the governing constitutional standard. In their view, the EPA's agreement chanrobles.com-red
Congress used virtually the same language in § 313 as in § 118 of the Clean Air Act, and our conclusion in Hancock v. Train, ante, p. 426 U. S. 167, that the Clean Air Act is without clear indication that Congress intended federal installations emitting air pollutants to be subject to the permit program of a State's implementation plan makes it difficult for the States to establish that for similar purposes the same language becomes sufficiently clear in § 313 of the Amendments. There are, of course, significant differences between the Clean Air Act and the Amendments. Only the Amendments expressly provide for a permit program to aid in abating pollution. In comparison with the Clean Air Act, the Amendments give the EPA a more prominent role in relation to the States; a State is not required to develop an NPDES permit program, and, until a State does develop a permit program, all dischargers in the State are subject to a permit program developed and carried out by the EPA. In addition, under the Amendments, the EPA's role in developing the effluent limitations that serve as the basis for a State's NPDES permit conditions [Footnote 27] is more prominent than in developing the ambient air quality chanrobles.com-red
standards, to effluent limitations and standards and schedules of compliance. 511 F.2d 969. [Footnote 28] chanrobles.com-red
With these obstacles to the States' position in mind, we examine the reasons which collectively led the Court of Appeals to conclude and the States to contend that the Amendments clearly require federal installations to secure state NPDES permits. The Court of Appeals first concluded that such an implication appears in the final phrase of the first sentence of § 313 -- "including the payment of reasonable service charges." This language, it is argued, must refer to charges incident to a state permit program: if payment of such charges is a "requirement," it must be that Congress intended federal installations to secure state NPDES permits, for there would be no reason to order federal installations to pay fees for a permit which they are not required to obtain. However, the legislative history of § 313 casts no light on the meaning of this clause, [Footnote 29] and it is not immediately chanrobles.com-red
The Court of Appeals also found textual support for its conclusion in § 510 of the Amendments. [Footnote 31] This chanrobles.com-red
Another contention drawing upon § 510 is that a State's authority to impose stricter substantive standards on federal installations is meaningless if a State cannot subject federal dischargers to its permit system. This is simply an adjunct [Footnote 34] to the States' primary argument chanrobles.com-red
Before a State has its NPDES program approved, it is the EPA which issues permits for all dischargers, federal and nonfederal. Since the Amendments do not require the States to develop NPDES programs, we must assume that the Congress was satisfied that the EPA could administer the program not only by promulgating the nationwide effluent limitations and other standards required by the Amendments, but also by translating those limitations into the conditions of individual permits for individual federal and nonfederal dischargers. We must also assume that the Congress contemplated that there may be some States which would elect not to develop an NPDES program, but would nonetheless determine -- as § 510 permits -- to adopt water quality standards or other limitations stricter than those the EPA itself had promulgated and would otherwise apply. This being the case, Congress must have contemplated that the EPA was capable of issuing permits in that State -- to both federal and nonfederal dischargers -- and of enforcing those stricter standards. Some of those standards -- in fact, all but those pegged to the quality of the receiving waters -- could be translated into permit conditions for each discharger without coordinating the conditions in other permits, because the effluent limitations in the Amendments are technology-based and the timetable by which compliance is to be achieved is not made to depend on the performance of other dischargers. Other standards, primarily those involving water quality standards, would require coordination among the permit conditions of numerous polluters -- federal and nonfederal, chanrobles.com-red
part of the conditions of the permits it must issue. [Footnote 35] We recognize that there may be some problems of coordination between the EPA and the state pollution control agency in the implementation of state water quality standards. State officials may view the EPA implementation of a State's -- or its own -- water quality standards as placing a disproportionate share of the additional abatement effort on the nonfederal dischargers in the State, thereby obligating the State to impose undesirably restrictive effluent limitations on those nonfederal -- predominantly private -- dischargers. At the same time, Congress might have been apprehensive that chanrobles.com-red
The States make several other arguments in support of their position that Congress intended federal dischargers to be subject to state NPDES permit programs, that "requirements" in § 313 include securing a state NPDES permit. We find none of them persuasive. They assert that, since the EPA's authority to issue permits to federal dischargers stems at least in part from § 313, it is "capricious" to conclude that the word "requirements" in § 313 refers to permits issued by the EPA under § 402(a), but not to permits issued by a State under § 402(b). The answer to this argument is that the EPA's authority to issue permits to federal, as well chanrobles.com-red
The States, like the Court of Appeals, 511 F.2d 973, also find support for their position in § 505 of the Amendments, 33 U.S.C. § 1365 (1970 ed., Supp. IV), which provides that a citizen may commence civil actions in district court
In a similar vein, Washington asserts that "[c]itizens may bring suit to enforce permits issued under Section 402," including "permits and conditions thereof applicable because of Section 313." Brief 18. It is more reasonable, however, to interpret "requirement" in the parenthetical expression in § 505(f)(6) as referring principally to a "condition," not to a "permit." This is because of the Amendments' primary reliance on the NPDES as a means to abate and control water pollution. See supra at 426 U. S. 205. For enforcement purposes, § 402(k) deems a permit holder who is in compliance with the terms of its permit to be in compliance "with sections 301, 302, 306, 307, and 403, except any standard imposed under section 307 for a toxic pollutant injurious to human health." 33 U.S.C. § 1342(k) (1970 ed., Supp. IV). Thus, the principal means of enforcing the pollution control and abatement provisions of the Amendments is to enforce compliance with a permit. Of the six subdivisions of § 505(f) defining "effluent standard or limitation," only § 505(f)(6) refers to any of the standards or limitations as translated into the conditions of an NPDES permit. Thus, while §§ 505(f)(2)-(4) permit suits for violation of effluent standards or limitations promulgated under §§ 301, 302, 306, and 307, a suit against a permit holder will necessarily be brought under the definition in § 505(f)(6); unless the plaintiff can show violation of the permit condition, violation of the Amendments cannot be established. This is true both chanrobles.com-red
Finally, it is argued that, when a State submits a plan in conformity with § 402, the EPA must approve it and must then suspend the issuance of all EPA permits with respect to the waters covered by the plan, including permits to federal agencies. [Footnote 39] Because it is inconceivable chanrobles.com-red
that Congress would have intended federal instrumentalities to operate without permits, it is contended that Congress anticipated the state permit system to apply. chanrobles.com-red
From the outset of the EPA's administration of the NPDES and in its first regulations establishing the § 304(h)(2) guidelines for state NPDES permit programs, see 37 Fed.Reg. 28391 (1972), the EPA has taken the position that authority to suspend issuance of EPA permits extends only "to those point sources subject to such approved program." 40 CFR § 124.2(b) (1975). The implications that the state program would only embrace nonfederal dischargers on those navigable waters subject to the program, and that the EPA chanrobles.com-red
Our conclusion is that the Federal Water Pollution Control Act Amendments of 1972 do not subject federal facilities to state NPDES permit requirements with the requisite degree of clarity. Should it be the intent of Congress to have the EPA approve a state NPDES program regulating federal, as well as nonfederal, point sources and suspend issuance of NPDES permits as to chanrobles.com-red
The Court of Appeals, 511 F.2d 969-970, found the legislative history of § 313 silent on the meaning of the clause. The States' only support for their construction of the clause is the "recollection" of one of the members of the Senate Public Works Committee, expressed in September, 1974, nearly two years after the Amendments were enacted, and while this litigation was pending in the Court of Appeals, that the language was intended to authorize a federal agency to pay a fee to the State as a part of the requirement that it obtain a state discharge permit. Brief for Respondent California 24 n. 24; Brief for Respondent Washington 20 n. 15, both citing 120 Cong.Rec. 31216 (1974) (remarks of Sen. Baker).
42 U.S.C. § 1857d-1, quoted in Hancock v. Train, ante at 426 U. S. 186-187, n. 47. The court of Appeals was in error when it stated, 511 F.2d 973, that § 510 had "no counterpart" in the Clean Air Act.
The Court of Appeals read § 505(f) as explicitly distinguishing between effluent standards and limitations and other types of limitations or standards, on the one hand, and a requirement applicable by reason of § 313, on the other. 511 F.2d 972. In light of § 402(k), which, for purposes of § 505, makes compliance with a permit condition compliance with most of the sections imposing standards and limitations, § 505(f)(6) is the central provision of § 505(f), and, as outlined in the text, its salient feature is not distinguishing standards from requirements, but distinguishing standards and limitations, on the one hand, from the permit conditions embodying those standards, on the other.