Opinion ID: 529709
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Treatment Firms' Competitor Claims

Text: 35 We have already held that the treatment firms are not among Congress's intended beneficiaries. HWTC claims, however, that as the chosen instrument for achieving Congress's goal in RCRA, those firms are nonetheless suitable challengers because their interests are so likely to coincide with the interests of those who are beneficiaries of the statute. This claim flies in the face of common sense. 36 HWTC represents, with respect to its competitor claims, treatment firms. The ultimate interest of those firms is in making money, of course. Their immediate interest is in more stringent treatment standards, on the theory that such standards will result in their selling more treatment services, which will, in turn, generate more earnings. But there is not the slightest reason to think that treatment firms' interest in getting more revenue by increasing the demand for their particular treatment services will serve RCRA's purpose of protecting health and the environment. Every merchant wants to maximize its earnings, and any merchant will, to the extent practicable, steer its customers to those of its goods or services that generate the greatest profit margins. Thus, we would expect the treatment firms, like any other merchant, to pursue regulation that encourages the alternatives with the greatest profit potential at the expense of others (say, recycling or incineration) that might be less profitable. 37 This is not, moreover, the only way in which the firms' interests might differ from those Congress intended to protect. Faced with a similar challenge in HWTC II, we described as perfectly plausible the scenario that stricter EPA regulation of a particular substance would have the boomerang effect of increasing illegal dumping and thus would result in net harm to the environment. 861 F.2d at 283. Similarly, stricter treatment standards for California List wastes might lead to the substitution of manufacturing methods that generate other, more dangerous but less strictly regulated wastes. Cf. HWTC II, 861 F.2d at 284. (A regulatory extension sought by the competitor interests in the Council might benefit recyclers' profits (e.g., by forcing the use of more advanced recycling techniques) but harm the environment (because, for example, its costs might lead to substitution of more environmentally harmful fuels).). 38 Nor does the treatment firms' interest in even more demanding treatment requirements miraculously end at the point where the levels of hazardous constituents are entirely safe. The watchword of those firms must be, in short, that treatment is good and more treatment is better--whether the effect on health and the environment is good, bad, or indifferent. HWTC's claim to standing here is precisely analogous to a defense contractor's claim to standing under an appropriations law in order to challenge the Defense Department's decision to purchase one type of weapon rather than another. The interest of such a firm in profits is not limited by the public's need for its type of weapon, and notwithstanding the sometimes contrary impression one encounters, the annual defense appropriation is not passed in order to benefit defense contractors, benefit them though it may. 39 Because we have no way of knowing (short of deciding the merits of HWTC's claim) the extent to which HWTC's interest in more rigorous treatment standards will be likely to further rather than to frustrate Congress's interest in protecting human health and the environment, and because judicial intervention may defeat statutory goals if it proceeds at the behest of interests that coincide only accidentally with those goals, HWTC II, 861 F.2d at 283, HWTC is without standing under Hunt. 40 As is apparent, in the foregoing analysis, we have asked not whether a particular case raises a suitable challenge, but whether the interests of the particular party make it suitable to raise that challenge. Perhaps because this distinction was not consequential in the cases it has decided, the Supreme Court has sometimes spoken of the suitably of the challenge, sometimes of that of the challenge it brings. In both Clarke and Data Processing, for example, the Court treated the two approaches as if they were identical, variously describing the zone test in Clarke as an inquiry into whether the would-be plaintiffs [are] 'arguably within the zone of interests ...'  and as an attempt to discern whether  'the interest sought to be protected by the complainant [is] arguably within the zone of interests....'  479 U.S. at 397, 396, 107 S.Ct. at 756, 755-56 (both quoting Data Processing ). See also Data Processing, 397 U.S. at 153, 157, 90 S.Ct. at 830, 831-32. 41 Although the Supreme Court has yet to rule on the question, we have no doubt that it is the interests that the challenger seeks to protect and not the challenge with which we must be concerned. As we have explained, the foundation underlying the zone of interests test is the notion that those plaintiffs whose suits are more likely to frustrate than to further statutory objectives should not be permitted to sue. Clarke, 479 U.S. at 397 n. 12, 107 S.Ct. at 756 n. 12 (emphasis added). The standing requirement asks who may bring a particular challenge, not what particular challenges may be brought. The same claim may be viable in the hands of one challenger and not in those of another that, for example, has interests that make it less than a reliable private attorney general to litigate the issue of the public interest in the ... case. Id. (quoting Data Processing, 397 U.S. at 154, 90 S.Ct. at 830). Thus, we have no doubt that injured environmental groups or landowners would have standing to pursue the very claims raised here. Significantly, however, they have not done so. 42 Moreover, were standing to depend upon the claim and not the claimant, the court would be required, in order to resolve that issue, to explore whether the challenge would further the goal of the statute. We would, in short, have to decide either the ultimate merit of the challenge (whether petitioner's interpretation of the statute reflects congressional intent)--or at least a closely related question (whether petitioner's interpretation of the statute would further Congress's purpose)--in order to decide the threshold standing question. As we proceed here, however, we avoid the necessity to decide the merits before we determine whether we should decide the merits. If the two issues were coextensive, the doctrine of prudential standing would be of no independent significance. 43