Source: https://m.openjurist.org/711/f2d/431/roosevelt-campobello-international-park-commission-v-united-states-environmental-protection-agency
Timestamp: 2019-08-18 15:04:45
Document Index: 643374735

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 1365', '§ 1540', '§ 2412', '§ 1536', '§ 1341', '§ 304', '§ 1857', '§ 7604', '§ 1365', '§ 305', '§ 7607', '§ 2412', '§ 1365', '§ 1365', '§ 1365', '§ 7607', '§ 7607', '§ 2000', '§ 1365', '§ 7407', '§ 2412', '§ 1369', '§ 1369', '§ 1369', '§ 1540']

711 F2d 431 Roosevelt Campobello International Park Commission v. United States Environmental Protection Agency | OpenJurist
711 F. 2d 431 - Roosevelt Campobello International Park Commission v. United States Environmental Protection Agency
711 F2d 431 Roosevelt Campobello International Park Commission v. United States Environmental Protection Agency
711 F.2d 431
19 ERC 1340
ROOSEVELT CAMPOBELLO INTERNATIONAL PARK COMMISSION, Petitioner,
The Pittston Company, et al., Intervenors.
The Pittston Company, Intervenor.
CONSERVATION LAW FOUNDATION OF NEW ENGLAND, INC., Natural
Wildlife Federation and Natural Resources Council
of Maine, Petitioners,
CONSERVATION LAW FOUNDATION OF NEW ENGLAND, INC., et al., Petitioners,
Nos. 81-1548, 81-1549, 81-1560 and 81-1773.
This case is before us today on petition of the Conservation Law Foundation (CLF) for an award of attorneys' fees against the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in connection with our decision in Roosevelt Campobello International Park Commission v. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, 684 F.2d 1041 (1st Cir.1982). CLF claims entitlement under three statutes: the citizen suit provision of the Clean Water Act, 33 U.S.C. § 1365(d); the citizen suit provision of the Endangered Species Act, 16 U.S.C. § 1540(g)(4); and Equal Access to Justice Act, 28 U.S.C. § 2412(d)(1)(A). Defendant contests CLF's entitlement under all of these statutes. Both parties have briefed this issue, the resolution of which we now address.
In our opinion on the merits, we reviewed EPA's decision to grant a National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permit to the Pittston Company to construct and operate an oil refinery and marine terminal at Eastport, Maine. CLF challenged that decision on five grounds under the Clean Water and Endangered Species Acts, claiming, inter alia, that EPA had violated its duty under the Endangered Species Act to use the best scientific data available in making endangered species jeopardy determinations, 16 U.S.C. § 1536(a)(2),1 and its duty under the Clean Water Act to include state-certified conditions in the federal NPDES permit, 33 U.S.C. § 1341(d).
EPA's reasoning is obviously not without force. Indeed, were there nothing more to consider than the fact that the specific section of the Clean Water Act under which this action was brought does not provide for attorneys' fees, it would be overwhelming. But there is much more to consider: our own precedent in construing the Clean Air Act, a parallel statute; legislative intent as evidenced by considerations of general policy; subsequent decisions from other circuits; the central teaching of Alyeska Pipeline Co. v. Wilderness Society, 421 U.S. 240, 95 S.Ct. 1612, 44 L.Ed.2d 141 (1975); the 1977 amendments to the Clean Air Act and their implications for this case. We consider each in turn.
In Natural Resources Defense Council v. Environmental Protection Agency, 484 F.2d 1331 (1st Cir.1973) [NRDC I ], we dealt with the then almost identically worded parallel provisions of sections 304 and 307 of the Clean Air Act, Pub.L. No. 91-604, 84 Stat. 1676, §§ 304, 307, formerly codified at 42 U.S.C. §§ 1857h-2, 1857-5(b)(1), currently codified at 42 U.S.C. §§ 7604(d), 7607, on which the Clean Water Act sections in question here were modeled. Like the Clean Water Act, the Clean Air Act authorizes citizen suits in district court and petitions for review in the courts of appeals. As in the Clean Water Act, the citizen suit section of the Air Act authorizes attorney fee awards in suits "brought pursuant to" the citizen suit section. Notwithstanding this language, we held that, for attorneys' fee purposes, a petition for review could be deemed a suit "brought pursuant to" the citizen suit section.
The citizen-suit notice requirement is more troubling, for notice might conceivably be thought relevant to the fairness of awarding fees,5 but this factor is not dispositive, for the primary purpose of fee awards is not to punish the agency,6 but to promote citizen enforcement, and fairness concerns seem adequately covered already by the statute's restriction of fee awards to "appropriate" cases. In any event, CLF's participation in permit proceedings at the agency level gave EPA adequate notice of CLF's objections long before commencement of its petition for review.7 Finally, we note, as in NRDC I and the Clean Air Act, that the test of standing under both sections of the Clean Water Act is the same, despite superficial differences in language. See 33 U.S.C. § 1365(g); Montgomery Environmental Coalition v. Costle, 646 F.2d 568, 576-78 (D.C.Cir.1980) [Montgomery merits case]; Currie, Judicial Review Under Federal Pollution Laws, 62 Iowa L.Rev. 1221, 1273 (1977).
Our NRDC I decision was not persuasive to other circuit courts of appeals. In Natural Resources Defense Council v. Environmental Protection Agency, 512 F.2d 1351 (D.C.Cir.1975) [NRDC II ], the court felt from its reading of legislative history that the "petition for review" section, section 307, was wholly independent from section 304 and that the two sections contemplated "distinct groups of cases". Id. at 1354-55. Then, after Alyeska, see infra, the Fifth Circuit, though finding "[t]he logic of [our] policy argument [in NRDC I ] compelling", followed the D.C. court in relying upon legislative history to conclude that there was no relationship between sections 304 and 307. Natural Resources Defense Council v. Environmental Protection Agency, 539 F.2d 1068, 1071 (5th Cir.1976) [NRDC III ].
In between these two circuit court cases came Alyeska Pipeline, supra. In that litigation, the court of appeals had held that attorney's fees could be awarded absent any statutory basis, on the broad policy bases that plaintiffs had vindicated the statutory rights of all citizens and had helped insure the proper functioning of government, and that the awarding of fees was necessary to avoid deterring suits against well financed defendants. 421 U.S. at 245-46, 95 S.Ct. at 1615-16. The Supreme Court, after rehearsing the history behind the "American Rule" generally proscribing an award of attorneys' fees to the prevailing party, reversed, reiterating its rationale several times: "[I]t would be inappropriate for the Judiciary, without legislative guidance, to reallocate the burdens of litigation in the manner ... urged", id. at 247, 95 S.Ct. at 1616; Congress has not "extended any roving authority to the Judiciary to allow counsel fees ... whenever the courts might deem them warranted", id. at 260, 95 S.Ct. at 1623; there is no grant of authority "to award attorneys' fees whenever the courts deem the public policy furthered", id. at 263, 95 S.Ct. at 1625; courts "are not free to fashion drastic new rules" on attorneys' fees or "to pick and choose" among plaintiffs and statutes "depending upon the court's assessment" of their importance, id. at 269, 95 S.Ct. at 1627; "[I]t is not for us to invade the legislature's province". Id. at 271, 95 S.Ct. at 1628.
Spurred by NRDC II and III, Congress amended the Clean Air Act to include separate authorization of attorneys' fees in the section on petitions for review. Clean Air Act Amendments of 1977, Pub.L. No. 95-95, § 305(f), 91 Stat. 685, 777 (1977), codified at 42 U.S.C. § 7607(f).8
The legislative history of this amendment is illuminating. The House committee report first reveals that the committee, in adding express authority to award fees in petitions for review, had rejected an amendment restricting awards to cases where the party seeking fees was the "prevailing party". It did so "largely on the grounds set forth in NRDC v. EPA, 484 F.2d 1331, 1338 [sic] (1st Cir.1973)." H.R.Rep. No. 95-294, 95th Cong., 1st Sess. 337 (1977), reprinted in 1977 U.S.Code Cong. & Ad.News 1077, 1416. In other words the committee accepted the reasoning set forth by us on the assumption that fees were awardable in petitions for review. We realize this is not very direct evidence of Congressional approval, but it is, we think, a slight indication that we had not misread Congressional intent. We acknowledge that the basic reason given by the House Interstate and Foreign Commerce Committee for the amendment--"to meet the requirement for specific authorization imposed by 28 U.S.C. sec. 2412 and by the Supreme Court's ruling in Alyeska "--gives no positive support to our reading.
All this leaves us with a classically close question. Under 28 U.S.C. § 2412(a) and Alyeska we must not rove at will but must base any fee award on a specific statute. We have no statute that expressly covers our case. But we have a statutory combination identical to one in a parallel statute, which, ten years ago, we construed to embrace this kind of case. At that time we made our own independent and uncorroborated analysis of legislative intent. Our efforts were not deemed persuasive by other courts. Reacting to this skepticism, Congress has not only ratified our interpretation of the Clean Air Act by a conforming amendment, but one of the two legislative bodies has proclaimed that our interpretation coincided with the legislative intent ab initio. Although subsequent legislative history is less authoritative than contemporaneous explanation, subsequent Congressional declaration of an act's intent is entitled to great weight in statutory construction. See Seatrain Shipbuilding Corp. v. Shell Oil Co., 444 U.S. 572, 596, 100 S.Ct. 800, 813, 63 L.Ed.2d 36 (1980) ("[W]hile the views of subsequent Congresses cannot override the unmistakable intent of the enacting one, ... such views are entitled to significant weight, ... and particularly so when the precise intent of the enacting Congress is obscure ....") (citations omitted); cf. Red Lion Broadcasting Co. v. Federal Communications Commission, 395 U.S. 367, 380-81 & n. 8, 89 S.Ct. 1794, 1801-02 & n. 8, 23 L.Ed.2d 371 (1969). But cf. Consumer Product Safety Commission v. GTE Sylvania, 447 U.S. 102, 118 n. 13, 100 S.Ct. 2051, 2061 n. 13, 64 L.Ed.2d 766 (1980).
In Northcross v. Memphis Board of Education, 412 U.S. 427, 428, 93 S.Ct. 2201, 2202, 37 L.Ed.2d 48 (1973), the Supreme Court held that similarity of language was a "strong indication" that two attorneys' fee statutes "should be interpreted pari passu." Here, in addition to similar statutory language, the 1972 Senate report on the Clean Water Act explicitly states that the citizen suit provision of 33 U.S.C. § 1365 was "modeled on the provision enacted in the Clean Air Act." S.Rep. No. 92-414, 92d Cong., 2d Sess., reprinted in 1972 U.S.Code Cong. & Ad.News 3668, 3745. Given this legislative gloss, the common concern of both statutes with pollution, and the common purpose of each act's authorization of attorneys' fees to promote citizen enforcement, we are persuaded that Congress specifically intended the two provisions on attorneys' fees to have the same scope and to be interpreted in the same way. Cf. Natural Resources Defense Council v. Train, 510 F.2d 692, 699-702 (D.C.Cir.1975). Our conclusion, moreover, is reinforced by the assumption that Congress would not make a distinction with so little rational basis. For all of these reasons we therefore follow our own Clean Air precedent and apply it to the Clean Water Act.
This is not quite the end of the issue. The question remains whether the fees authorized in connection with petitions for review cover all issues or, as certain language in our NRDC I decision suggests, are confined to the same kinds of issues as could have been brought under the citizen suit section, 33 U.S.C. § 1365(a), i.e., issues involving "a failure by the Administrator to perform any act or duty under this chapter which is not discretionary."10 33 U.S.C. § 1365(a)(2).
In NRDC I, we noted that the "essence" of NRDC's petition for review was its claim that the Administrator had breached certain nondiscretionary duties. 484 F.2d at 1335. Nothing in our decision, however, actually limited NRDC's recovery to issues raisable in a citizen suit, and our earlier opinion on the merits indicates that, whatever its "essence", NRDC's petition also raised issues of "sound discretion" outside the scope of the citizen suit section. See NRDC v. EPA, 478 F.2d 875, 884 (1st Cir.1973) [NRDC I merits case].
We need not rely solely on NRDC I, however, for the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1977 suggest an answer. The amendments provide that "[i]n any judicial proceeding under this section [i.e., in any petition for review], the court may award costs of litigation (including reasonable attorney and expert witness fees) whenever it determines that such an award is appropriate." 42 U.S.C. § 7607(f). Nothing in this language limits attorneys' fees to issues raisable in a citizen suit, or for that matter to violations of the Clean Air Act, and the amendments elsewhere state (42 U.S.C. § 7607(d)(9)(A)) that agency action may be reversed when "arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion", or, broadly, "otherwise not in accordance with law".
In support of its request, CLF cites four cases awarding fees for administrative-level work under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-5(k).11 New York Gaslight Club v. Carey, 447 U.S. 54, 100 S.Ct. 2024, 64 L.Ed.2d 723 (1980); Fischer v. Adams, 572 F.2d 406, 409 (1st Cir.1978); Parker v. Califano, 561 F.2d 320 (D.C.Cir.1977); Johnson v. United States, 554 F.2d 632 (4th Cir.1977). The language of Title VII, however, is crucially different from that of the Clean Water Act. Whereas the Clean Water Act only authorizes fee awards in "action[s]" brought pursuant to 33 U.S.C. § 1365(a), Title VII authorizes fees in "any action or proceeding ".12 In addition, the Clean Water Act refers to attorneys' fees as part of the recoverable "costs of litigation "; Title VII makes no comparable reference.
Legislative history on the parallel provisions of the Clean Air Act supports our reading, for when Congress amended the Clean Air Act in 1977 to overrule NRDC II and III, it expressly limited fee awards in petitions for review to "judicial proceedings". See 42 U.S.C. § 7407(f) (emphasis added); Sierra Club v. Gorsuch, 672 F.2d 33, 42 (D.C.Cir.1982), cert. granted, --- U.S. ----, 103 S.Ct. 254, 74 L.Ed.2d 198 (1982). We therefore hold that CLF may only recover fees for work in connection with its petition in this court, and not for work before the EPA.14
Our Clean Water Act holding also disposes of CLF's claim under the Equal Access to Justice Act (EAJA), since the EAJA applies only in cases where fees are not "otherwise specifically provided by statute". 28 U.S.C. § 2412(d)(1)(A). Although we are persuaded that the EAJA provides an alternative basis for fees on CLF's Clean Water Act claim, the EAJA presents a great many difficult questions which have already divided the courts.18 Since resolution of those questions is not necessary at this time, we leave them to another day.
"[r]eview of the Administrator's action (A) in promulgating any standard of performance under section 1316 of this title, (B) in making any determination pursuant to section 1316(b)(1)(C) of the title, (C) in promulgating any effluent standard, prohibition, or pretreatment standard under section 1317 of this title, (D) in making any determination as to a State permit program submitted under section 1342(b) of this title, (E) in approving or promulgating any effluent limitation or other limitation under section 1311, 1312, or 1316 of this title, and (F) in issuing or denying any permit under section 1342 of this title." 33 U.S.C. § 1369(b)(1).
See Natural Resources Defense Council v. Environmental Protection Agency, 484 F.2d 1331, 1338 (1st Cir.1973) (purpose of fee and cost awards "is not mainly punitive")
Without deciding the extent to which notice must be given for jurisdictional purposes as a prerequisite to the maintenance of a citizen suit under section 1365, we note that courts have taken a generally functional approach to notice, holding the requirement satisfied despite technical deficiencies where the agency had time to investigate and act on the matter in issue, free of judicial compulsion. See, e.g., Pymatuning Water Shed Citizens for a Hygienic Environment v. Eaton, 644 F.2d 995 (3d Cir.1981); Susquehanna Valley Alliance v. Three Mile Island Nuclear Reactor, 619 F.2d 231, 243 (3d Cir.1980) (two days' notice); Friends of the Earth v. Carey, 535 F.2d 165, 175 (2d Cir.1976) (functional approach to required recipients of notice under Clean Air Act's parallel provision); Natural Resources Defense Council v. Callaway, 524 F.2d 79, 83-84 & n. 4 (2d Cir.1975), cited with approval in Massachusetts v. U.S. Veterans Administration, 541 F.2d 119, 121 (1st Cir.1976); South Carolina Wildlife Federation v. Alexander, 457 F.Supp. 118 (D.S.C.1978)
In Montgomery Environmental Coalition v. Costle, 646 F.2d 595, 597 (D.C.Cir.1981) [Montgomery fees case], followed without comment in Natural Resources Defense Council v. Environmental Protection Agency, 703 F.2d 700 at 705 n. 10 (3d Cir.1983), the D.C. Circuit held that fees were unavailable under the Clean Water Act in petitions for review brought under 33 U.S.C. § 1369. The court simply noted the Clean Air attorneys' fee amendment and observed that "[n]o comparable change" had been made in the Clean Water Act. While this position is a reasonable one, our reading of the detailed legislative history convinces us that that was not what Congress intended. Congress amended the Clean Air Act specifically to overrule the D.C. and Fifth Circuit decisions in NRDC II and III. Since the parallel provisions of the Clean Water Act had not yet been construed, there was no need to amend them, and no fair inference can be drawn that Congress intended by its inaction on the Water Act to preclude fees in petitions for review brought under 33 U.S.C. § 1369. If anything, Congress might well have assumed that, in light of its disapproval of NRDC II and III, the reasoning of those cases would not be extended to the Clean Water Act. In addition, it seems unreasonable to us to expect that every time Congress clarifies its intent on one act, it will search the statute books for every parallel enactment and amend those acts as well. Like judicial resources, Congressional resources are scarce and may understandably be conserved for situations in which action is strictly necessary
See, e.g., Johnson v. United States, Civ. No. H-74-1343 (D.Md.1976), aff'd, 554 F.2d 632 (4th Cir.1977) ("proceeding" is broader than "action" and includes administrative as well as judicial proceedings). The judicial nature of section 1365(d)'s reference to "any action" is underscored by section 1365(a)'s related reference to "civil suit[s] "
Although we have referred here to the Clean Water Act, our conclusion is equally applicable to the almost identically worded attorneys' fee provision of the Endangered Species Act, 16 U.S.C. § 1540(g)(4)
Success is, of course, not the only criterion, and even prevailing parties have been denied fees where the suit "does not advance the statutory purpose either in intent or in result". Carpenter v. Andrus, 499 F.Supp. 976, 979 (D.Del.1980). Such, however, is not the case here
See, e.g., Hensley v. Eckerhart, --- U.S. ----, ----, 103 S.Ct. 1933, 1941-1943, 76 L.Ed.2d 40 (1983); Nadeau v. Helgemoe, 581 F.2d 275, 279 (1st Cir.1978). Although both the Clean Water Act and the civil rights fees act refer to "reasonable" attorneys' fees, reasonableness may mean different things under each statute, for the two acts otherwise employ different criteria of entitlement. Under section 1988, fees may only be awarded to "the prevailing party", whereas fees may be awarded under the Clean Water Act to "any" party so long as an award is "appropriate". Similar "appropriateness" language in other acts has been interpreted to permit fee awards to nonprevailing parties, and to prevailing parties for work on nonprevailing claims. See, e.g., Sierra Club v. Gorsuch, 672 F.2d 33 (D.C.Cir.1982), cert. granted, --- U.S. ----, 103 S.Ct. 254, 74 L.Ed.2d 198; Environmental Defense Fund v. EPA, 672 F.2d 42 (D.C.Cir.1982); H.R.Rep. No. 95-294, 95th Cong., 1st Sess. 337, reprinted in 1977 U.S.Code Cong. & Ad.News 1077, 1416. See also NRDC I, supra, 484 F.2d at 1338
EPA's first objection seems meritless. See NRDC v. EPA, 703 F.2d 700 at 704-706 (3d Cir.1983). Without passing on the merits, we note, however, that the other issues have no obvious resolution. On the question of nonprevailing issues, see, e.g., Hensley v. Eckerhart, --- U.S. ----, ---- & n. 12, 103 S.Ct. 1933, 1940-41 & n. 12, 76 L.Ed.2d 40 (1983) (no fees for work on nonprevailing claims unrelated to prevailing issues; recognizing, however, that "there is no certain method of determining when claims are 'related' or 'unrelated' "). On the question of substantial justification and the definition of "position of the United States", compare NRDC v. EPA, supra, at 706-712 (Gibson, J.) and at 714-717 (Thompson, J.) and authorities cited thereat (position of the United States means not only government litigation arguments, but also agency action which led to litigation) with id. at 717-720 (Hunter, J., dissenting) and authorities cited thereat (only litigation positions need be substantially justified). With respect to antecedent work in cases pending on the effective date of the EAJA, see, e.g., S & H Riggers & Erectors v. OSHRC, 672 F.2d 426 (5th Cir.1982); Donovan v. Dillingham, 668 F.2d 1196 (11th Cir.1982); see also Tyler Business Services, Inc. v. NLRB, 695 F.2d 73 (4th Cir.1982); Photo Data, Inc. v. Sawyer, 533 F.Supp. 348 (D.D.C.1982). Finally, CLF urges with some force that its petition was at least in part and in substance a permit modification action, for which fees are allowed, and not a licensing proceeding, for which fees are not allowed under the EAJA.