Opinion ID: 446849
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The Three-Year Implementation Period

Text: 34 Arizona's implementation plan gives the copper smelters three years from the date of EPA approval to achieve full compliance with its emission limitations. Kamp challenges that provision. He argues that because Arizona has been designated a nonattainment area for SO2 under Sec. 107(d) of the Act, 42 U.S.C. Sec. 7407(d), see 40 C.F.R. Sec. 81.303 (1983), Arizona's plan should be considered a nonattainment implementation plan under Part D of the Clean Air Act, 42 U.S.C. Secs. 7501-7508. If the plan is so treated, then its three-year implementation period would be unlawful, for Part D implementation plans are required to have December 31, 1982, as their attainment date. See 42 U.S.C. Sec. 7502(a)(1). 35 EPA argues that we should not reach the merits of Kamp's argument because making a past date like December 31, 1982, the attainment date for Arizona's plan would be a futile gesture. EPA maintains that regardless of what we order, the smelters cannot achieve compliance with the plan's emission limitations prior to the end of the three-year implementation period. 36 We are willing to accept EPA's assumption about the inability of the smelters to achieve immediate compliance with the required emission limitations. Despite that fact, something important does turn on the attainment date issue: whether in the interim it is likely that the smelters will have to use dispersion techniques to attain compliance with the NAAQSs. If the attainment date is a past date, the smelters will be immediately subject to enforcement actions under Sec. 113 of the Clean Air Act, 42 U.S.C. Sec. 7413. To avoid being assessed a penalty for their noncompliance, the smelters must obtain a nonferrous smelter order under Sec. 119 of the Act, 42 U.S.C. Sec. 7419. A prerequisite to such an order is that the smelter adopt a combination of emission limitations and dispersion techniques sufficient to bring it into immediate compliance with the NAAQSs, see 42 U.S.C. Sec. 7419(d)(1). Thus, unlike the three-year period in Arizona's plan, a past attainment date would give the smelters a substantial incentive to use dispersion techniques to achieve immediate compliance with the NAAQSs. 37 When we reach the merits, however, we reject Kamp's argument. Part D of the Clean Air Act specifies the alterations to its implementation plan that a nonattainment area must adopt before new major sources of air pollution may be constructed within the nonattainment area. See 42 U.S.C. Secs. 7410(a)(2)(I), 7502. The implementation plan involved in this case has nothing to do with the concerns of Part D: its objective is to bring existing sources of SO2 pollution into compliance with the NAAQSs, not to allow for the construction of new major sources of emissions. Therefore, we will not evaluate Arizona's plan as if it were a Part D plan. 5 38 Since Arizona's plan is not a Part D plan, we look to Sec. 110(a)(2)(A) of the Act, 42 U.S.C. Sec. 7410(a)(2)(A), to determine whether the three-year implementation period is lawful. See Northern Ohio Lung Association v. EPA, 572 F.2d 1143, 1148-49 (6th Cir.1978). Under Sec. 110(a)(2)(A), the attainment date set by Arizona's plan is lawful. The section requires that the implementation plan adopt a date which provides for the attainment of [the] primary standard[s] as expeditiously as practicable but ... in no case later than three years from the date of approval.... Here the Arizona plan's attainment date is exactly three years from the date of approval, and no argument is made that an earlier attainment date would be practicable. 6 39