Opinion ID: 312185
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: legislative hearings

Text: 23 At oral argument, the EPA asserted that redress through the state administrative process was the proper course for Duquesne and St. Joe to pursue. The companies applied for variances permitting deviation from the plan's requirements. Petitions seeking variances have, according to counsel, been filed with the appropriate state authority and are wending their way through the state administrative process. Presumably, the final state administrative determination will be subject to judicial review, pursuant to the Pennsylvania Administrative Agency Law, 71 P.S. Sec. 1710.41. Such recourse to the state procedure for correction of alleged imperfections in the Pennsylvania Implementation Plan is the path advocated by the EPA, but an undoubtedly time-consuming course of action. However, it does appear to serve the bi-level design of section 110 of the Clean Air Act. 24 Getty Oil Co. v. Ruckelshaus 33 illustrates one of the problems created by the bi-level arrangement of the Clean Air Act. 34 Delaware, in accordance with section 110, had promulgated an implementation plan. One item in the plan provided that the fuel to be furnished by Getty to an associated power station was to be of a low sulphur content. In August, 1971, the Administrator approved and adopted the portion of the Delaware Plan in question. Getty did not file any petition in the appropriate Circuit Court within the thirty days prescribed by section 307. Getty did, however, launch state administrative and judicial challenges against the plan, questioning the action of the state agency whose responsibility the promulgation of the plan had been. The variance Getty sought from the administrative agency was denied. Getty then instituted an action in the Delaware state court. That court granted Getty's request for injunctive relief and stayed enforcement by the state of the objectionable provisions of the Delaware Plan. The Federal EPA, however, not bound by the state court injunction, commenced enforcement proceedings, and Getty then sought injunctive relief in the federal court. Both the district court and this Court denied Getty's claim for relief. 35 Thus Getty found itself in a difficult position. It was liable to federal sanctions, imposed because Getty was violating a state regulation adopted by the Federal Government, but in effect, repudiated by the state. The present case presents the Court with the specter of a recurrence of the Getty paradox. Here the plan has been adopted by, and is enforceable by, the EPA during the time state proceedings that might alter the plan are underway. A proper decision of this case requires a resolution of this predicament. However, such resolution will be considered in the concluding section of this opinion.
25 Duquesne and St. Joe argue that the action of the Administrator is rule-making as defined by section one of the APA 36 and, as such, requires at least a legislative-type hearing pursuant to section 4. 37 Recently, the Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit was called upon to review a similar contention. 38 That court, considering the existence of state hearings, the alacrity stipulated by Congress, the purposeful omission of language requiring a hearing at the federal level after the state adopts its plan, and the presumably duplicative testimony that would be elicited by a federal hearing, concluded that Congress had in effect found that: 26    a hearing at the Administrator's level was both 'impractical' and 'unnecessary.' That finding met the requirements of section 553(b) (B), 5 U.S.C., exempting certain rule-making proceedings from any requirement of a hearing, if, as the petitioners argue, that Act is applicable to the Administrator's action. 39 27 We find this reasoning persuasive. 28 Although we have held that the Administrator is not bound to comply with the requirements of the APA, that does not conclude the consideration of the necessity for some sort of hearing at the federal level. This Court stated, in Getty Oil, that the Constitution requires an opportunity at a meaningful time and in a meaningful manner for a hearing appropriate to the nature of the case. 40 A review of the proceedings conducted by the Pennsylvania Environmental Quality Board does not convince us that a truly meaningful hearing was afforded Duquesne and St. Joe. Moreover, the Pennsylvania proceedings occurred over sixteen months ago, before the general concern about the energy crisis and before certain problems with sulphur oxide control equipment had been fully documented. Therefore, it appears that an order remanding the matter to the EPA, with instructions to conduct a limited legislative-type hearing, might be appropriate. 41 Again we defer further discussion of such matter until the latter portion of this opinion. 29