Opinion ID: 490088
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Docket Requirements

Text: 23 Petitioners allege that EPA based the state standard limitation on considerations never revealed during the comment period. These considerations, so petitioners contend, were finally brought to light only in the internal staff memorandum added to the public docket after the final rule was promulgated. The two-page memorandum from EPA's Economic Analysis Division offered some rough calculations of the impact of [allowing California gasoline sellers to bank lead credits up to the federal standard] on the costs and benefits of the rule. It concluded that the costs associated with increased lead banking by California gasoline sellers would make it difficult to justify abandoning the state standard limitation. Petitioners argue that their lack of access to this analysis during the notice and comment period prejudiced their ability to participate in the rulemaking process. 24 Petitioners are clearly correct that failure to docket data and analysis relied upon in formulating a final rule violates Sec. 307(d)(6)(C) of the Clean Air Act, which states that [t]he promulgated rule may not be based (in part or whole) on any information or data which has not been placed in the docket as of the date of promulgation. 42 U.S.C. Sec. 7607(d)(6)(C) (1982). EPA argues that it did not base its final rule on the late-docketed memorandum because the memo simply performed calculations with figures already present in the record. We are not persuaded by this argument. EPA itself referred to the memo as the basis for the state standard limitation in its cover letter to petitioners' counsel accompanying the memo. Moreover, the justifications offered for the state standard limitation in the final rule tracked the memo almost exactly, including the figures arrived at for costs and benefits ($20 million in benefits would be foregone if the limitation were abandoned as compared to a cost to California sellers of $5 million if the limitation were retained). 25 Nonetheless, the Clean Air Act makes clear that we are not to reverse every agency decision in which petitioners correctly identify a procedural error. Section 307(d)(8) established that reversal is justified only if the errors identified were so serious and related to matters of such central relevance to the rule that there is a substantial likelihood that the rule would have been significantly changed if such errors had not been made. 42 U.S.C. Sec. 7607(d)(8) (1982). Although the memo arguably contained information of central relevance to the final rule for the same reasons that it could be said to form the basis for that rule, petitioners fail to show the substantial likelihood required by the Act that the rule would have been changed. 26 Petitioners claim that if they had received the memo during the comment period, they could have brought to EPA's attention many purported mistakes in its cost/benefit calculations. This argument misses the central proposition behind the agency's stance, a proposition advanced in the proposed rule, at the hearing, in the final rule, and in the memo itself: EPA wanted to assure that the banking scheme would not increase the amount of lead that would be used in 1985-87 in the absence of banking. It made clear at the hearing that it considered California's more stringent lead regulation as part of the background lead usage that the banking plan should not increase. Richard Wilson of EPA, in response to criticism from California sellers at the hearing, drove home EPA's position: 27 [B]y providing banking rights ... for California producers between 0.18 [sic] and 1.1, doesn't that increase the total allowable lead from what its present levels are? I understand why that's beneficial to California, maybe to the industry in general, but it has that adverse effect. 28 Tr. 33, J.A. 401. This point is irrefutable, and it is the first justification offered in the final rule for retaining the state standard limitation. See 50 Fed.Reg. at 13,115 (This restriction is intended to assure that the banking mechanism per se does not result in increased lead usage.). We do not see how adjustments in the agency's cost/benefit analysis of the potential lead increase could change the fact that an increase would occur in the absence of the limitation. EPA expressly rejected the possibility of such an increase from the outset, long before the memo was written. See 50 Fed.Reg. 718 (Jan. 4, 1985). 5 We therefore conclude that the docketing error correctly identified by petitioners was harmless.