Opinion ID: 546189
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: ldr regulations

Text: 32 [W]hen a state's exercise of its police power is challenged under the Supremacy Clause, 'we start with the assumption that the historic police powers of the States were not to be superseded by the Federal Act unless that was the clear and manifest purpose of Congress.'  Ray v. Atlantic Richfield Co., 435 U.S. 151, 157, 98 S.Ct. 988, 994, 55 L.Ed.2d 179 (1978). No such congressional purpose exists to preempt the entire field of interstate waste management, either by express statutory command, or by implicit legislative design. City of Philadelphia, 437 U.S. at 621 n. 4, 98 S.Ct. at 2534 n. 4 (citations omitted). RCRA expressly says that [n]othing in this chapter shall be construed to prohibit any State ... from imposing any requirements ... which are more stringent than [RCRA]. 42 U.S.C. Sec. 6929. This language prevents a conclusion that Congress preempted all state regulation of hazardous waste management. See ENSCO, Inc. v. Dumas, 807 F.2d 743, 744-45 (8th Cir.1986); see also 42 U.S.C. Sec. 6902(a)(7) (objectives of RCRA--protecting health and environment and conserving valuable material and energy resources--are accomplished in part by establishing a viable federal-state partnership); H.R.Rep. No. 1491, 94th Cong., 2d Sess. 33, reprinted in U.S.Code Cong. & Admin.News 6238, 6271 (1976) (federal preemption of this problem is undesirable, inefficient, and damaging to local initiative). 33 But in the 1984 amendments to RCRA, Congress did preempt Alabama's specific action of implementing a state land disposal ban that omits the variances ordered by EPA. In the RCRA amendments, Congress granted the EPA Administrator authority to establish an effective date for the land disposal ban different from the effective date which would have otherwise applied under the RCRA amendments. 42 U.S.C. Sec. 6924(h)(2). Congress wrote that such alternative effective date must be established on the basis of the earliest date on which adequate alternative treatment, recovery, or disposal capacity which protects human health and the environment will be available. Id. 34 Congress granted EPA alone the power to grant variances from the effective date for certain types of wastes because the lawmakers intended for the assessment of available pretreatment capacity to be made on a nationwide basis: The available capacity determination is to be done on a national basis. Otherwise, different regions of the country would be receiving varying degrees of protection and could be used as a dumping grounds for the rest of the country. S.Rep. No. 284, 98th Cong., 1st Sess. 19 (1983). When promulgating its regulations concerning the variances, EPA clearly stated the respective roles of EPA and the states: The Administrator of EPA is solely responsible for granting variances to the effective dates [of the land disposal ban] because capacity determinations must be made on a nationwide basis. 53 Fed.Reg. 31,137, at 31,203 (Aug. 17, 1988). Alabama's LDR regulations attempt to regionalize pretreatment requirements, action which Congress expressly disapproved. See S.Rep. 284, 98th Cong., 1st Sess. 19 (1983). These regulations may not be lawfully enforced.