Opinion ID: 599244
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Availability, Relative Price, and Performance

Text: 60 The NRC argues that the EPA's failure to include information about price, performance and availability in the final guidelines violates section 6002 and the APA. Section 6002(e) requires that the guidelines ... shall provide information as to the availability, relative price, and performance of products containing recovered materials. 42 U.S.C. § 6962(e). Despite this statutory mandate, and comments requesting that such information be provided, the EPA's final guidelines contain no information about price and, in the judgment of the NRC, insufficient information about performance and availability of these materials. 61 The NRC previously challenged the omission of such information in the Paper Guidelines case. There we held that while the EPA is in technical non-compliance with the statute because it did not make available information about price and availability, it could cure that deficiency by inserting in its guideline a reference to where and how interested parties may secure such data. 884 F.2d 1431, 1438 (D.C.Cir.1989). In so ruling, we credited the EPA's claim that the availability and price of recycled paper and paper products were subject to such sharp and frequent fluctuations that specific information about them 'would not remain accurate long enough ... to be useful in a guideline.'  Id. at 1438 (quoting 53 Fed.Reg. at 23,559). 62 The EPA maintains that price and availability information for the products here at issue is also highly variable. See 54 Fed.Reg. at 7353-54; 53 Fed.Reg. at 46,570; 53 Fed.Reg. at 24,712-13. The EPA argues that the oil, tire and insulation guidelines, unlike the guidelines in Paper Guidelines, are not in technical non-compliance with RCRA because the EPA published a Notice of Availability for the three guidelines, see 56 Fed.Reg. 43,702-04 (1991), and made available to interested parties lists of manufacturers of the three product categories. The NRC responds that the Notice of Availability does not satisfy the statute or this Court's ruling in the Paper Guidelines case because the lists the EPA provides do not include data about price, availability or performance, as required by RCRA. 63 We conclude that the EPA's Notice satisfies the statutory requirements concerning the provision of information about price, performance and availability set forth by this Court in Paper Guidelines. The EPA's conclusion that price and availability information for these products is highly variable and depends upon a number of factors that constantly change is neither arbitrary nor capricious. Neither is the EPA's conclusion that such lists, at least in order to be useful, would require constant updating. See 53 Fed.Reg. at 46,570. The three guidelines do contain information regarding performance for tires, lubricating oil and insulation. See 53 Fed.Reg. at 24,713 (oil guideline); 53 Fed.Reg. at 46,570 (tire guideline); 54 Fed.Reg. at 7,354 (insulation guideline). Although the EPA does not include in its lists price and availability data, it satisfies its obligation to provide such information by informing interested persons where they may secure price and availability data. See 884 F.2d at 1438. 64