Opinion ID: 678490
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Bevill/Characteristic Waste Provision

Text: 40 The Bevill petitioners acknowledge that the EPA had provided notice and secured comment before the initial issuance of the Bevill/characteristic waste provision in 1989. They assert, nevertheless, that intervening events required a fresh opportunity for comment. The EPA responds, in its brief, that it was not required to reopen notice and comment proceedings because the comments received in response to its April 17, 1989, notice of proposed rulemaking remain fresh and relevant enough to satisfy the requirements of the APA. The agency maintains, further, that because it had fully explained its reasons for promulgating this provision at the time of its original issuance, there was no need for it to reiterate them in the interim final rule. 41 We agree with petitioners that the EPA's repromulgation of the Bevill/characteristic waste provision was procedurally flawed. In Action on Smoking and Health v. CAB, 699 F.2d 1209 (D.C.Cir.1983), we vacated a Civil Aeronautics Board regulation that rescinded three earlier rules because the agency had failed to provide an adequate statement of its action's basis and purpose, as required by the APA. Id. at 1217-19. When the CAB repromulgated the regulation without satisfying APA rulemaking requirements, we again vacated the rule. Action on Smoking and Health v. CAB, 713 F.2d 795 (D.C.Cir.1983) (ASH ). In doing so, we reminded the agency that [t]o 'vacate,' ... means to 'annul; to cancel or rescind; to declare, to make, or to render, void; to defeat; ... to set aside,'  id. at 797, and that if it wished to rescind the three earlier rules, it would have to do so through a new rulemaking. Id. at 798. In Solite, we vacated the original Bevill mixture rule. Accordingly, to repromulgate the rule, the EPA must comply with the applicable provisions of the APA. 42 This does not necessarily require the EPA to start from scratch and initiate new notice and comment proceedings. Id. at 800. The APA's good cause exception may be invoked on a finding that notice and public procedure thereon are ... unnecessary. 5 U.S.C. Sec. 553(b)(3)(B) (1988). If the original record is still fresh, a new round of notice and comment might be unnecessary. Such a finding, however, must be made by the agency and supported in the record; it is not self-evident. Although the Administrative Procedure Act does not establish a 'useful life' for a notice and comment record, clearly the life of such a record is not infinite. ASH, 713 F.2d at 800. New information relevant to the agency's decisionmaking might well have come to light after the original notice and comment proceedings and before the repromulgation of the rule. Because the EPA neither initiated a new rulemaking nor invoked the APA's good cause exception in the record, we again vacate the Bevill/characteristic waste provision of the Bevill mixture rule and do not reach petitioners' substantive objections to the provision.