Opinion ID: 722370
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: nppd

Text: 82 The acid rain emissions trading system clearly depends on some definition of what, in the end, is to be limited. Congress chose to limit the annual production of tons of SO sub2 . Recall from our introduction that in referring to the initial allocations to be made by the EPA, Congress commonly expressed them as the unit's baseline--i.e., the average amount of fossil fuel it consumed in a specified period--multiplied by the lesser of the unit's actual emission rate for 1985 (or another calendar year) or of its allowable 1985 emissions rate, i.e., the legal limit applicable to the unit. See, e.g., 42 U.S.C. §§ 7651d(b)(3), (b)(4), (c)(2), (c)(3). Because emissions limitations had taken different forms depending on such factors as when the plant was built, it was necessary, to make sure that the EPA was not adding up apples and oranges, to state a rule for conversion into a single, fungible unit. In defining allowable 1985 emissions rate Congress in § 402(18) of the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990 provided for such conversion: 83 Where the emissions limitation for a unit is not expressed in pounds of emissions per million Btu, or the averaging period of that emissions limitation is not expressed on an annual basis, the Administrator shall calculate the annual equivalent of that emissions limitation in pounds per million Btu to establish the allowable 1985 emissions rate. 84 § 402(18), 42 U.S.C. § 7651a(18) (emphasis added). The unit of lbs SO sub2 /mmBtu derives from EPA's regulations promulgated under the 1970 Amendments to the Clean Air Act, in which Congress directed EPA to set performance standards limiting emissions from newly built or modified sources of air pollution. Clean Air Act § 111, 42 U.S.C. § 1857c-6 (1970). EPA responded with a regulation covering large generators whose construction began between 1971 and 1978, setting the limit at 1.2 lbs SO sub2 /mmBtu for coal-burning generators. 85 The most obvious cases calling for conversion are limits not expressed in pounds per million Btu at all, e.g., expressed as pounds per ton of coal on a weekly basis. But as the or linking that case in § 402(18) with the next one suggests, the sentence appears also to address limits expressed as pounds per million Btu but not expressed on an annual basis. 86 Why so? The answer is that, because of variability in pollution output of a plant over a period of time, a limit must, to be complete, include (implicitly or explicitly) some kind of averaging period. To take a familiar example, a speed limit of 55 MPH means one thing if it is violated by exceeding the limit at one instant (the way such limits are in fact applied), quite another if it were violated only by a motorist who exceeded 55 MPH averaged over an hour. In the latter form, the long-distance commuter could go at 75 where the roads would handle it, and use the crawling pace of center-city traffic to bring his average down to the permitted maximum. Similarly, a plant that must average 1.0 lbs/mmBtu annually is a good deal less constricted than one that must satisfy that standard at every instant in time. Indeed, under the EPA's calculations, which are not contested, a limit of 1.0 lbs/mmBtu measured instantaneously turns into 0.89 lbs/mmBtu averaged annually. The petitioners in this aspect of the case have plants subject to emissions limitations that are simply expressed in pounds per million Btu; but, as they conceded at oral argument, those limitations were to be applied on an instantaneous basis. 8 Nonetheless, they object to the EPA's application of its 0.89 conversion factor. 87 Before addressing petitioners' linguistic arguments, we note briefly a colloquy at oral argument. One of the panel asked counsel why in the world Congress would not require conversion for limitations expressed in lbs/mmBtu but not on an annual basis, and counsel could offer no theory. We agree with the view implicit in his candid silence. A trading scheme requires fungible units, as petitioners' brief points out: [The] variations in the expression of emissions limitations meant that a single, standard form of expression for the 1985 allowable emissions limitation had to be established, and limitations expressed in other forms had to be converted to the standard form--and there is no reason why the temporal component of the limitation should go unstandardized. Accordingly, in examining the linguistic arguments we start from the unusual perspective that, for petitioners' arguments to prevail, they must be powerful enough to justify a reading that is conceded to make no sense. 88 To see petitioners' argument most clearly, we repeat the provision, emphasizing the words that petitioners regard as pivotal: 89 Where the emissions limitation for a unit is not expressed in pounds of emissions per million Btu, or the averaging period of that emissions limitation is not expressed on an annual basis, the Administrator shall calculate the annual equivalent of that emissions limitation in pounds per million Btu to establish the allowable 1985 emissions rate. 90 § 402(18), 42 U.S.C. § 7651a(18) (emphasis added). The argument runs that that emissions limitation must refer back to the words ahead of the or, under the so-called last antecedent doctrine of statutory construction. Under this view, Congress--despite the or--addressed only the problem of pre-existing limitations that were not expressed in pounds per million Btu at all. The second clause, addressing the case where the averaging period of that emissions limitation is not expressed on an annual basis, supposedly means that where a limit is not expressed in lbs/mmBtu and has an averaging period of less than a year, the limit is not only converted to lbs/mmBtu but also annualized. (According to the argument, this annualization would not be required at all were it not for this second clause, even though other language expressly directs the Administrator to calculate the annual equivalent....) 91 The government responds that the last antecedent rule is not absolute, and, indeed, so we have observed. United States v. Pritchett, 470 F.2d 455, 458-59 (D.C.Cir.1972) ([The] Rule of the Last Antecedent is not an inflexible rule, and is not applied where the context indicates otherwise.) (footnote omitted) (but finding no such indication in that case). Moreover, the government offers a sensible explanation of the phrase that emissions limitation, namely, that it is a reference back to the phrase the emissions limitation for a unit in the opening words of the sentence. The explanation is perhaps a little awkward, in the sense that the second trigger for calculating emissions in terms of lbs SO sub2 /mmBtu averaged over a year uses a referent to a phrase embodied in the statement of the first trigger. But this minor awkwardness seems a peccadillo compared to the effect of petitioners' reading, which is to give a windfall to plants whose limitations were expressed as lbs/mmBtu but without a one-year averaging period (and to virtually deny the second phrase any independent force). 92 Petitioners have another string to their bow. The second clause, even under the government's reading, is confined to lbs/mmBtu limitations not expressed on an annual basis. Petitioners argue that their limitations were not expressed on any temporal basis at all, so that they are completely outside the scope of § 402(18)'s provision for annualization. 93 In its use of the 0.89 adjustment factor, the government evidently reasoned--and petitioners do not dispute--that there are no material differences between limits applicable on a strictly instantaneous basis and ones averaged over a period equal to or less than one day. See National Allowance Data Base, Version 2.11, Technical Support Document F-2. The government also says--and again petitioners do not dispute--that limits stated without averaging periods are, as a practical matter under modern measuring technology, measurable over a period of a day or less. Thus, EPA's uncontested assumptions are in full accord with what it did here--treat petitioners as if their limits had expressly provided for averaging over a period of a day or less. See note 1 above. Of course, if the understanding implicit in their limitations had been that they could average over a longer period, they would have had a good case for use of a more favorable conversion factor. But they assert no such implicit understanding. Accordingly, their claim is meritless. 94