Opinion ID: 4020089
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 7

Heading: health-based emissions limitation for hcl

Text: In the Major Boiler Rule, the EPA chose not to exercise its discretion to create more lenient emission standards for hydrogen chloride (HCl) based on health. The Industry Petitioners challenge this decision as arbitrary and capricious because, they claim, the Agency considered impermissible factors in reaching the decision and departed from its previous position without adequate justification. We disagree and hold the EPA reasonably chose not to establish a health-based emissions limitation for HCl. The EPA generally must establish emission standards for all listed pollutants emitted from a source category based on what the best performing similar sources have achieved, i.e., the MACT floor. The Agency, however, may consider adopting alternative health-based emission standards—which are more lenient—for pollutants with an established health threshold. See 42 U.S.C. § 7412(d)(4). The statutory language permitting these alternative standards is discretionary, providing that “[w]ith respect to pollutants for which a health threshold has been established, the Administrator may consider such threshold level, with an ample margin of safety, when establishing emission standards under this subsection.” Id. (emphasis added). But, even if the EPA considers, in its discretion, a health-based emission standard, the statutory text nowhere requires that the EPA adopt a more lenient standard than the MACT floor. This provision thus allows, but does not require, the EPA to adopt a standard more lenient than the MACT floor, subject to two critical restrictions: the Agency must determine (1) that there is an established health threshold, and (2) that the established threshold would provide “an ample margin of safety.” 68 Using this authority, the EPA considered and adopted health-based emission standards for HCl in an earlier rulemaking for major boilers. See 2004 Boilers Rule, 69 Fed. Reg. at 55,240-41. At the time, the Agency based its decision on three key findings: a health threshold was established for HCl, adverse health effects were unlikely at emissions below that level, and low HCl emissions from major source boilers made HCl a “particularly well-suited” candidate for more lenient standards. Id. at 55,241. The EPA also said, however, that it was not embracing a general policy for HCl, but would instead “undertake in each individual rule to determine whether it is appropriate to exercise [the Agency’s] discretion” to adopt such standards. Id. We later vacated that rule without considering the merits of the EPA’s HCl decision. See NRDC I, 489 F.3d 1250. The EPA again chose to consider a health-based standard for HCl in the current rulemaking, but this time declined to set such a standard. 2010 Major Boilers Rule, 75 Fed. Reg. at 32,030. The EPA explained that it continued to interpret its authority under section 7412(d)(4) to require that it find a health threshold exists, with an ample margin of safety, before using its discretion to depart from an established MACT floor. Id. The Agency reasoned further that, even if it made a finding that a health threshold exists, the discretionary nature of the authority allowed it to weigh additional factors when choosing whether to adopt the more lenient health-based standard. Id. Those factors included: the potential for cumulative adverse health effects due to concurrent exposure to other HAPs or emissions from other nearby sources; potential impacts of increased emissions on ecosystems; and reductions in emissions of other pollutants, also known as “co-benefits,” achieved through enforcement of the HCl MACT floor. Id. at 32,030-31. 69 Applying this interpretation, the EPA suggested in its proposed rule that a health-based standard for HCl might not be appropriate because these additional health and environmental considerations cautioned against a more lenient emission standard. Id. at 32,031. The Agency acknowledged, in particular, that its decision in the 2004 rule was based on data that considered only the chronic respiratory effects of HCl exposure. Id. While affirming the validity of those findings, the EPA explained that those chronic impact studies did not consider the additional variables it had now identified, nor did it consider the potential acute or carcinogenic effects that might be caused by HCl exposure. Id. And, because of these potential (though unproven) risks, the Agency resolved that it currently lacked sufficient information to establish an HCl emission standard that would protect health with an ample margin of safety. Id. It thus requested additional data from stakeholders and the regulated community to help address its concerns, including information regarding the potential cumulative effects of HCl emissions from boilers and other nearby sources. Id. After receiving numerous comments on the issue, the EPA declined to set a health-based standard in the final rule for two primary reasons: (1) the comments had not provided sufficient data on potential cumulative health and environmental effects caused by HCl emissions from boilers and other nearby sources; and (2) the comments affirmed the potential co-benefits that limiting HCl emissions might have in lowering emissions of other HAP and non-HAP pollutants. 2011 Major Boilers Rule, 76 Fed. Reg. at 15,643-44. According to the EPA, its consideration of these co-benefits was not a regulation of other pollutants; rather, it was simply choosing not to ignore the purpose of the CAA—to reduce the negative health and environmental effects of HAP 70 emissions—when exercising its discretionary authority under the Act. Id. at 15,644. The Industry Petitioners contend that the EPA’s consideration of the broad potential health and environmental impacts of HCl rendered the Agency’s decision arbitrary and capricious. In particular, they argue that the Agency based its decision on two impermissible factors that were not supported by the record: (1) the potential cumulative effects of emissions from boilers and other nearby sources, and (2) the co-benefits of setting a more stringent MACT floor standard for HCl. We disagree on both counts. The statutory text and purpose of section 7412(d)(4) amply support the Agency’s decision to consider potential cumulative risks associated with emissions from boilers and other nearby sources. Although other CAA provisions require the EPA to set emission standards based on the emissions from a particular source, section 7412(d)(4)’s plain language is not focused on emissions from any particular source. Compare 42 U.S.C. § 7412(d)(3) (instructing the EPA to set emission standards for sources at the level achieved in practice by the best controlled similar source), with id. § 7412(d)(4) (containing no mention of emissions from a particular source). The EPA’s consideration of the cumulative impacts from these emissions is also relevant to the Agency’s statutory mandate to ensure that a health threshold would protect health with an “ample margin of safety.” As such, the Agency had discretion to consider the potential risks associated with the cumulative emissions of boilers and other nearby sources under this provision. The EPA was likewise free to consider potential cobenefits that might be achieved from enforcing the HCl 71 MACT floor. Section 7412(d)(4)’s text does not foreclose the Agency from considering co-benefits and doing so is consistent with the CAA’s purpose—to reduce the health and environmental impacts of hazardous air pollutants. The Agency was under no obligation to ignore the CAA’s purpose in making a final decision on whether to exercise a discretionary authority. The Industry Petitioners attempt to refute this straightforward conclusion by pointing to “restrictions” in another provision, section 7412(d)(2). No. 11-1108 Indus. Pet’rs’ Br. 55-56. This provision requires the EPA to consider costs, non-air quality health and environmental impacts, and energy requirements in setting maximum achievable emission standards. Petitioners contend that these same “restrictions” must be read into section 7412(d)(4). But, even if we assume Petitioners are correct that these factors restrict the Agency’s ability to consider other factors under section 7412(d)(2), that provision furthers the statute’s command to set the strictest possible emission standards above what has already been achieved (i.e., the MACT floors). Section 7412(d)(4), by contrast, is a permissive authority for the EPA to abandon already achieved emission standards. We do not read limits on the EPA’s authority to set more stringent standards into a provision laying out the EPA’s authority to set more lenient standards. If anything, the difference between the provisions cuts the other way. Section 7412(d)(4) does not specify the factors that Petitioners argue for, while section 7412(d)(2) does. This difference shows that Congress knew how to provide such limits where it found them necessary. We thus find no basis to conclude that the EPA could not consider potential cumulative effects or co-benefits in rejecting a more lenient health-based HCl standard. 72 Finally, the Industry Petitioners claim that the EPA’s decision was arbitrary because the Agency failed to support its reversal from the 2004 rule, in which it set health-based emission standards for HCl. Because the EPA changed its position, the Petitioners contend that the Agency had to present factual support for its decision to disregard the facts and circumstances that underlay its prior adoption of a healthbased HCl standard. See FCC v. Fox Television Stations, Inc., 556 U.S. 502, 516 (2009). The Agency failed to do this, Petitioners say, because it relied on a data gap regarding the potential cumulative effects of HCl exposure. But this argument fares no better than Petitioners’ first. At the outset, Petitioners misstate the EPA’s burden to justify its change in policy. Although an agency does not generally need to provide a more substantial explanation or reason for a policy change than for any other action, it must do so where “its new policy rests upon factual findings that contradict those which underlay its prior policy.” Id. at 515. In that circumstance, “it is not that further justification is demanded by the mere fact of policy change; but that a reasoned explanation is needed for disregarding facts and circumstances that underlay or were engendered by the prior policy.” Id. at 515-16. The EPA, therefore, was not required to refute the factual underpinnings of its prior policy with new factual data. The Agency only needed to provide a reasoned explanation for discounting the importance of the facts that it had previously relied upon. Id. The EPA did so here by explaining that its prior decision focused too narrowly on the chronic respiratory effects of HCl emissions without considering the broader implications of such emissions on health and environmental conditions. See 2010 Proposed Major Boilers Rule, 75 Fed. Reg. at 32,03073 31. In so doing, the EPA neither contradicted nor abandoned the factual findings it made in its earlier rulemaking. It instead acknowledged that those findings were more limited than what it now considered necessary to justify the exercise of its discretion to set a health-based standard. Id. For example, the Agency noted that: (1) little research had been done on HCl’s carcinogenicity or on the toxicity of mixtures of HCl and other respiratory irritants emitted from boilers; and (2) the Agency had no data about peak short-term emissions of HCl from major boilers that might create risks of acute exposure. Id. These enumerated concerns were sufficient to support the Agency’s decision not to adopt a health-based standard. Section 7412(d)(4) does not require that the EPA present affirmative factual data to reject a health-based standard. The provision requires just the opposite: in order to impose a health-based standard, the Agency must find that a health threshold can be set that provides an ample margin of safety. The EPA here determined that it could not do so, in part because it lacked relevant data like that discussed above. 2011 Major Boilers Rule, 76 Fed. Reg. at 15,643-44. In other words, the EPA could not determine that any health threshold would provide an ample margin of safety to protect health. Without such a finding, the EPA could not invoke its discretionary authority under the statute. Id. There was thus nothing impermissible in the EPA’s reliance on a lack of data in rejecting a more lenient health-based standard. The EPA’s decision not to adopt health-based emission standards for HCl was not arbitrary and capricious. 74