Source: https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/F2/803/96/381015/
Timestamp: 2020-08-06 20:19:31
Document Index: 285562176

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 1284', '§ 1313', '§ 1365', '§ 1365', '§ 1365', '§ 1313', '§ 1313', '§ 1491', '§ 702', '§ 1406', '§ 1365', '§ 1365', '§ 1284', '§ 1331', '§ 702', '§ 1346', '§ 1313', '§ 1365']

Atlantic City Municipal Utilities Authority v. Regional Administrator, Region Ii United Statesenvironmental Protection Agency.appeal of Atlantic City Municipal Utilities Authority, Appellant, 803 F.2d 96 (3d Cir. 1986) :: Justia
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Atlantic City Municipal Utilities Authority v. Regional Administrator, Region Ii United Statesenvironmental Protection Agency.appeal of Atlantic City Municipal Utilities Authority, Appellant, 803 F.2d 96 (3d Cir. 1986)
U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit - 803 F.2d 96 (3d Cir. 1986) Argued May 2, 1986. Decided Oct. 14, 1986. As Amended Oct. 20, 1986
Albert J. Slap (argued), Slap, Williams & Cuker, Philadelphia, Pa., for appellant.
Before SLOVITER and STAPLETON, Circuit Judges, and MENCER, District Judge*
As part of its application for the EPA grants, ACMUA applied to the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection ("NJDEP") for certification. Such state certification is a required precondition for the award of federal assistance. 33 U.S.C. § 1284(a) (3) (1982). This state certification can only be granted as the result of a statutorily mandated "planning process" by which the state develops and submits to the EPA annually an inventory and priority ranking of proposed waste treatment projects. 33 U.S.C. § 1313(e) (3) (H) (1982); 40 C.F.R. Sec. 35.2015(e) (1984).1 ACMUA's proposed project was certified by the NJDEP in 1980 and ranked 154th of 231 eligible projects on its 1981 "priority list".
In October of 1984, the Regional Administrator informed NJDEP and ACMUA that the project could only be funded if NJDEP certified the project for the then current 1985 fiscal year. NJDEP did not do so. ACMUA's attorney informed EPA's Regional Administrator that ACMUA would file suit after 60 days. See 33 U.S.C. § 1365(b) (1) (A) (1982). In February of 1985, ACMUA brought this action in district court under the "citizen suit" provision of the Clean Water Act. 33 U.S.C. § 1365(a) (2) (1982). This grant of jurisdiction enables the district court to hear complaints seeking to compel the performance by the EPA Regional Administrator of nondiscretionary duties. ACMUA claimed that the Regional Administrator had failed to fulfill his nondiscretionary duty to fund the project after the Board found ACMUA "entitled" to funding.2 By way of relief, ACMUA requested the 1981 federal grant assistance in current dollars.
EPA moved to dismiss for want of subject matter jurisdiction and alternatively moved for summary judgment or dismissal for failure to state a claim on which relief could be granted. ACMUA filed a cross-motion for summary judgment. The district court held that, contrary to EPA's contention, it did have subject matter jurisdiction under the "citizen suit" provision of the Clean Water Act. 616 F. Supp. at 733. The district court further held that the EPA Regional Administrator had "properly interpreted" the Clean Water Act when he required recertification by the NJDEP. Id. at 734. This appeal followed the district court's grant of summary judgment to EPA.
The sole basis of jurisdiction relied upon in ACMUA's complaint was 33 U.S.C. § 1365(a) (2), the citizen suit provision of the Clean Water Act. We recently had the opportunity to interpret and apply that provision in Fairview Township v. E.P.A., 773 F.2d 517 (3d Cir. 1985) which, like this action, arose out of a sewer authority's efforts to secure an EPA grant for sewer improvements. We will follow the "citizen suit" analysis of that case in analyzing ACMUA's claim.
The fact that the Administrator's fulfillment of his alleged statutory nondiscretionary duties might result in the disbursements of federal funds does not justify attaching the label "money damages" to the relief which appellants seek....
We then turned "to the other possible reason for lack of district court jurisdiction over the citizen suit, namely the absence of any nondiscretionary duty." 773 F.2d at 517. We found that the forty-five day requirement applied only to those cases in which the EPA had delegated to the state agency the task of certifying "all delegable pre-award requirements." We held "that because [the state agency in Northern York's case] had not been delegated all of the EPA's delegable tasks, the Administrator was not under a nondiscretionary duty to approve or disapprove Northern York's ... application within forty-five days, and that, as a result, [the forty-five day provision of the statute could not] ... be the basis for appellants' citizens' suit against the Administrator." 773 F.2d 517 (3d Cir. 1985).3
We note that EPA's interpretation of the statute has since become the law due to the promulgation of regulations that deal explicitly with this issue. On May 12, 1982--while Northern York's application was before the Administrator for review--the Administrator published interim final regulations for the enforcement of Sec. 1299. 47 Fed.Reg. 20,462-63 (1982) (to be codified at 40 C.F.R. Sec. 35.2042(2)). The regulations provided that " [w]hen EPA receives a certification covering all applicable Federal requirements, the Regional Administrator shall approve or disapprove the grant within 45 days of receipt." Id. (emphasis added). In their current form, the regulations state explicitly that the Administrator's duty to review an application within forty-five days applies only " [w]hen EPA receives a certification covering all delegable pre-award requirements...." 40 C.F.R. Sec. 35.2041(2) (i) (1985) (emphasis added).
Northern York has failed to present any convincing explanation as to why EPA's eminently reasonable interpretation of Sec. 1299 should be rejected. We see no reason not to accord the Administrator's construction the deference that is usually owed to the interpretation of statutes by the agencies entrusted with their enforcement. [citations omitted].
ACMUA here alleges that the EPA Regional Administrator, upon the denial of his motion to reconsider in 1984, had a nondiscretionary duty to accept ACMUA's inclusion on New Jersey's 1981 priority list in satisfaction of the requirements of 33 U.S.C. § 1313(e) (3) (H). We disagree. Like the district court, we conclude that the Regional Administrator was entitled to insist upon a current certification. We find the district court's explanation for this conclusion persuasive and, therefore, adopt it as our own:
Assuming that ACMUA in fact met all of the eligibility requirements for a grant in 1981, as it alleges in its complaint,4 there would be some equitable appeal to its arguments that the law should regard as having been done in that year what should, in retrospect, have been done at that time and that ACMUA should be put in the same position it would have been in had it received a grant in 1981. Nevertheless, as recognized by the appeal and review procedure of the regulations, the regulatory process is not a perfect one; errors and delays are inevitable. As a result, two important factors must be counterposed against ACMUA's appeal to equity: (1) the difficulty of administering a system under which the Administrator would be required to utilize a priority list effective when the application "should have been approved," rather than the current list, and (2) the public interest in having limited resources utilized in the most effective and efficient manner possible. If, when the time for final resource commitment actually comes, it appears that a particular project fails to serve that public interest, it should not be undertaken simply because it appeared worthy of priority at an earlier date.
(c) Project priority list. The State's annual project priority list is an ordered listing of projects for which the State expects Federal financial assistance....
40 C.F.R. Sec. 35.2015(c) (1982).
40 C.F.R. Sec. 35.2015(e) (4) (1982) (emphasis supplied).
40 C.F.R. Sec. 35.2015(e) (3) (1984) (emphasis supplied).
"We see no reason not to accord the Administrator's construction [of 33 U.S.C. § 1313(e) (3) (H) ] the deference that is usually owed to the interpretation of statutes by the agencies entrusted with their enforcement." Fairview, supra, at p. 526.
In Fairview, we expressly noted that jurisdiction under the theory there endorsed would not extend to a claim for money. We suggested that this conclusion, at least with respect to a monetary claim in excess of $10,000, would follow from the provisions of the Tucker Act. 28 U.S.C. § 1491 et seq. (1982). The same conclusion would follow with respect to any monetary claim by virtue of the fact that the APA does not waive sovereign immunity in monetary claims cases. 5 U.S.C. § 702 (1982).5 Northern York's alternative claim in Fairview, over which we exercised jurisdiction, was that the Regional Administrator had applied arbitrary and capricious guidelines when he ultimately denied Northern York's application after the forty-five day period had passed. This claim did not constitute a monetary claim because Northern York asked only that the EPA's disapproval be set aside and that the EPA reprocess its application in accordance with the legally applicable criteria. We also noted that Northern York's application still had to face the requirement of an environmental impact statement and "other nondelegable determinations." 773 F.2d at 529. For these reasons, we concluded that "victory for the plaintiff in the suit would [not] be tantamount to a release of funds" and that plaintiff's claim could "hardly be considered a money claim." 773 F.2d at 516, 517.
C. Assess punitive damages against those EPA employees who are responsible for not following the requirements of the law and the express directions of the Board of Assistance Appeals;D. Award plaintiff its costs of this litigation, including reasonable attorneys' and expert witness fees.6
... Though we are prepared to be generous in construing a complaint, so that jurisdiction is not lost due to faulty pleading, as an appellate court we cannot go beyond the fact of the complaint as well as the record, to impute allegations that contradict the complaint....
At oral argument, ACMUA asked that we transfer its case to the United States Claims Court, pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1406 (1982), in the event we determined that it asserted a monetary claim not grounded in tort. While we believe such transfers should be liberally granted, we do not see how a transfer could serve any useful purpose in this case and, therefore, decline to consider whether a transfer would otherwise be appropriate. ACMUA's entire case depends on the validity of the proposition that the Regional Administrator wrongfully refused in 1984 to accept New Jersey's 1981 prioritization.7 We have determined, in the course of resolving the jurisdictional issues presented by this case, that this refusal was not wrongful. While the district court and this court have been found to lack subject matter jurisdiction over this case, courts have jurisdiction in every case to determine their own jurisdiction. It follows that ACMUA is bound by our determination that the Regional Administrator properly insisted on a current certification. The principles which would foreclose it from relitigating that issue in the Claims Court were recently reviewed in Equitable Trust Co. v. Commodity Futures Commission, 669 F.2d 269, 272 (5th Cir. 1982):
[As] the Supreme Court has pointed out, "the principles of res judicata apply to questions of jurisdiction as well as to other issues." American Surety Co. v. Baldwin, 287 U.S. 156, 166, 53 S. Ct. 98, 101, 77 L. Ed. 231 (1932). The abating effect of a jurisdictional dismissal has been variously described, but whether termed "direct estoppel," Restatement, Judgments Sec. 49, Comment B (1942), or "issue preclusion," Restatement (2d), Judgments Sec. 68 (tentative draft no. 4, 1977), the law is clear: a dismissal for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction, while "not binding as to all matters which could have been raised," is, however, conclusive as to matters actually adjudged. Acree v. Airline Pilots Association, 390 F.2d 199, 203 (5th Cir.), cert. denied, 393 U.S. 852, 89 S. Ct. 88, 21 L. Ed. 2d 122 (1968); Restatement (2d), Judgments Sec. 68, supra....
The majority holds that the district court had no subject matter jurisdiction over the claim of Atlantic City Municipal Utilities Authority (ACMUA) under the citizen suit provision of the Federal Water Pollution Control Act (FWPCA), 33 U.S.C. § 1365(a) (2). I would hold that the court had subject matter jurisdiction under the citizen suit provision. Although the majority's analysis makes it likely that ACMUA would, in any event, lose on the merits in whatever court was eventually found to have jurisdiction, my differences with the majority are far from academic. At issue is the jurisdiction of the district courts over suits brought under a statute serving the important public purpose of controlling and abating water pollution. While it may not matter to ACMUA whether it is eaten by a lion or a tiger, the analysis used by the majority in rejecting its claim may make survival of future claims for judicial review of EPA inaction more difficult.
Under the citizen suit provision of the FWPCA, 33 U.S.C. § 1365(a), the district courts have jurisdiction to order the Administrator to perform any act or duty "which is not discretionary."1 The basis for the majority's holding that the district court had no subject matter jurisdiction is its conclusion that "here as in Fairview ... the alleged nondiscretionary duty which plaintiff seeks to enforce does not exist." Maj. Op. at 100. The majority never thereafter explains why the act or duty in question, i.e. to receive current state certification before releasing funds for an application previously approved, should be characterized as discretionary.
The Regional Administrator's subsequent decision to deny ACMUA funding was based on his interpretation of the statutory provision that requires that funds be given only for "works [that] have been certified by the appropriate State water pollution control agency as entitled to priority over such other works in the State in accordance with any applicable State plan" 33 U.S.C. § 1284(a) (3). The interpretation of statutory language is a matter of law subject to review in the courts, and is not the type of discretionary duty that is precluded from judicial review under the citizen suit provision. As the district court stated, "the FWPCA either requires current certification or it does not." 616 F. Supp. at 733. I could not characterize as frivolous ACMUA's contention that the "certification" requirement of the statute could be satisfied by its earlier certification. I would therefore conclude that there was citizen suit jurisdiction under the FWPCA.
In this case, ACMUA seeks a release of funds. If ACMUA is viewed as asserting a monetary claim exceeding $10,000, it would be necessary for this court to decide whether judicial review under the citizen suit provision (or even under the joint provisions of federal question jurisdiction, 28 U.S.C. § 1331, and the Administrative Procedure Act, 5 U.S.C. § 702) belongs to the district courts or to the Claims Court under the exclusive jurisdiction provisions of the Tucker Act, 28 U.S.C. §§ 1346 & 1491. That determination would depend on whether jurisdiction over this type of claim has been withdrawn from the Claims Court by Congress through its enactment of the citizens suit provision of the FWPCA. In a discursive footnote in Fairview, there were references to various cases holding that notwithstanding the Tucker Act, suit could be brought in the district court under a narrow grant of jurisdiction providing for review of the actions of one specific agency. See Fairview, 773 F.2d at 527 n. 18. The majority pretermits consideration of those difficult questions by its decision on the merits in the context of its jurisdictional holding. Analysis of these issues in a dissent would be a dissertation in futility, and I will therefore reserve comment for the day when it would be pertinent to the court's holding.
33 U.S.C. § 1313(e) (3) (H) provides:
(e) Continuing planning process
(3) The Administrator shall approve any continuing planning process submitted to him under this section which will result in plans for all navigable waters within such State, which include, but are not limited to, the following:
While the Act itself thus does not specify that this prioritizing be done by a state on an annual basis, the regulations have required annual lists since at least 1978. 40 C.F.R. Sec. 35.915(c) (1980).
ACMUA's complaint also claimed that EPA officials acted in bad faith. It ultimately acknowledged before the district court, however, that the Regional Administrator's denial of the grant was based solely on his view that current state certification was required. 616 F. Supp. at 727
In Fairview, we expressly declined to "reach the question whether the U.S. Claims Court would have exclusive jurisdiction over this dispute if appellants had been able to maintain a viable citizens' suit under the jurisdictional grant of 33 U.S.C. § 1365." 773 F.2d at 527, n. 18. Similarly, we decline to reach that issue in this case
As hereafter indicated, ACMUA's brief before us asserts only that "in all likelihood," processing in 1981 "would have led to approval" had the Administrator not erred
An action in a court of the United States seeking relief other than money damages and stating a claim that an agency or an officer or employee thereof acted or failed to act in an official capacity or under color of legal authority shall not be dismissed nor relief therein be denied on the ground that it is against the United States or that the United States is an indispensable party....
While ACMUA's complaint included the standard request that the court "award other such legal and equitable relief as ... [it] deems fit and proper," ACMUA suggested no specific equitable relief during the proceedings in the district court
ACMUA's brief before this Court contains a section arguing that the EPA is "estopped" to insist upon a current certification. This theory was neither pleaded [5a-11a] nor argued by ACMUA in its district court brief in opposition to the defendants' motions. [57a-74a] Accordingly, it is not properly before us
... (2) against the Administrator where there is alleged a failure of the Administrator to perform any act or duty under this chapter which is not discretionary with the Administrator.
The district courts shall have jurisdiction, without regard to the amount in controversy or the citizenship of the parties ... to order the Administrator to perform such act or duty, as the case may be,....