Opinion ID: 744479
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The alleged inconsistency with statutory criteria and EPA guidelines.

Text: 32 First, appellants argue that the EPA based its final listing decisions on toxicity criteria inconsistent with the criteria specified in EPCRA § 313. They point out that Congress set a high evidentiary standard for listing. In the subsection relevant to appellants' specific objection, the statute specifies that the EPA may add a chemical to the TRI based on chronic health effects only where there is sufficient evidence to establish that the chemical is known to cause or can reasonably be anticipated to cause ... serious or irreversible ... chronic health effects in humans. 42 U.S.C. § 11023(d)(2)(B)(ii)(IV). In urging that the EPA did not comply with these criteria, appellant CMA acknowledges the EPA's claim in its final rule that its senior scientists conducted a thorough hazard evaluation in determining by the weight of the evidence whether each chemical met the listed criteria. However, appellants go on to remind us that [s]tating that a factor was considered ... is not a substitute for considering it. Getty v. Federal Sav. & Loan Ins. Corp., 805 F.2d 1050, 1055 (D.C.Cir.1986). They argue that we should not accept at face value the EPA's claim to have conducted the evaluation, but should make a searching and careful inquiry to determine if the agency did in fact consider the necessary factors. Id. (quoting Citizens to Preserve Overton Park, Inc. v. Volpe, 401 U.S. 402, 416, 91 S.Ct. 814, 823-24, 28 L.Ed.2d 136 (1971)). Appellants contend that our review of the record in the present case will reveal no support for the proposition that the EPA actually did conduct the hazard evaluation or weight-of-the-evidence assessment. They argue that this case is analogous to AFL-CIO v. OSHA, 965 F.2d 962 (11th Cir.1992), in which the Eleventh Circuit considered an Occupational Safety and Health Administration rulemaking that established permissible exposure limits (PELs) for 428 chemicals. In that case the Eleventh Circuit vacated all the PELs because OSHA inadequately articulated its reasons for their promulgation, merely cit[ing] a few studies and then establish[ing] a PEL without explaining why these studies mandated the agency's choice. Id. at 976. 33 CMA joins its argument that the EPA failed to comply with statutory standards with a contention that the Administrator also arbitrarily and capriciously failed to comply with the Guidelines. While this is conceptually separate from the statutory argument, CMA almost makes the two arguments one by contending that the Administrator telescoped the two-step Guideline analysis into the first step and made its decision to list a chemical based solely on what CMA calls the overly broad toxicity criteria applied in the first step of the Guidelines without either determining whether the toxicity of the chemical met the more demanding standards of the statute, or conducting the hazard analysis required in step two of the Guidelines. Whether this is viewed as a failure to comply with the statute, or an arbitrary and capricious disregard of its own procedures, or both, if CMA is correct, then the district court erred in granting summary judgment in favor of the Administrator, and we must reverse. However, we hold that CMA is not correct. 34 In reaching this conclusion, we are guided by one of the cases relied upon by CMA. In Citizens to Preserve Overton Park, the Supreme Court held that a reviewing court is not to substitute its judgment for that of the agency. 401 U.S. at 416, 91 S.Ct. at 824. Instead, we only determine whether the decision was arbitrary and capricious, or otherwise contrary to law. In so doing, we examine whether the decision was based on the relevant factors and was not a clear error of judgment. Id. In conducting this review, we show considerable deference, especially where the agency's decision rests on an evaluation of complex scientific data within the agency's technical expertise. See, e.g., New York v. Reilly, 969 F.2d 1147, 1152 (D.C.Cir.1992). As we have said, we review scientific judgments of the agency not as the chemist, biologist, or statistician that we are qualified neither by training nor experience to be, but as a reviewing court exercising our narrowly defined duty of holding agencies to certain minimal standards of rationality. Ethyl Corp. v. EPA, 541 F.2d 1, 36 (D.C.Cir.), cert. denied, 426 U.S. 941, 96 S.Ct. 2662, 49 L.Ed.2d 394 (1976). This review of the factual determinations and policy decisions of an agency is governed by the APA, which directs us to set aside an agency's decision only if it is arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion, or otherwise not in accordance with law. 5 U.S.C. § 706(2)(A). 35 Moreover, insofar as the agency's determination amounts to or involves its interpretation of EPCRA, a statute entrusted to its administration, we review that interpretation under the deferential standard of Chevron U.S.A. Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc., 467 U.S. 837, 104 S.Ct. 2778, 81 L.Ed.2d 694 (1984). Under that standard, in order to hold erroneous the EPA's application of EPCRA in assessing the hazard risk, we would have to conclude that its interpretation either ran athwart a clear mandate of Congress, or was an unreasonable one. On the present record, we agree with the district court that appellants have established neither unlawfulness, arbitrariness, capriciousness, nor a misinterpretation of the statute. 36 CMA's combined statutory/Guidelines argument begins with the proposition that the EPA departed from the high evidentiary standard set by Congress for listing and instead relied on the less demanding toxicity criteria at the first step of the Guidelines. Those criteria are broader than the statute's, and therefore, allowing them to govern is inconsistent with the statute. This argument would be a colorable one if the EPA had done just what appellants set forth and then listed chemicals based on the results of that activity, but that is not in fact what occurred. Instead, the broader toxicity screen was but the first step. It allowed the agency to make the above-described division of the chemicals into three parts. Only as to the chemicals found insufficient for listing did the agency stop with the toxicity screen. Granted, the agency's original misleading nomenclature may have made it seem that it had found the evidence as to the other categories of chemicals to be sufficient or that the evidence may be sufficient, but that was merely nomenclature. 37 Indeed, as noted above, the EPA in the preamble to the proposed rule announced the renaming of the screening categories to the more descriptive terms high, medium, and low priority. As to those chemicals which survived the first screening, whether classified as of high or medium priority, or according to the earlier, misleading nomenclature, the EPA went on to conduct further proceedings designed to achieve compliance with the more rigorous demands of the statute. This further process is summarized in documents included in the administrative record. See 59 Fed.Reg. 1788, 1789-90. Although the exact applications of step-two analysis varied with the nature of the data available on specific chemicals, typically the EPA's contractor reviewed the data as to those chemicals surviving the first screen, and senior scientists of the EPA reviewed the contractor's report and the existing data in what was called a HERD review (for Health and Environment Review Division of EPA's Office of Pollution Prevention and Toxics). Only where a case-by-case review of each chemical in one of the two categories revealed that there was sufficient evidence to establish that the candidate chemical met the statutory criteria for addition to EPCRA § 313, id. at 1790, did the Administrator add the chemical to the TRI. 38 The AFL-CIO v. OSHA decision upon which appellants rely does not suggest a contrary result. As always, of course, the question of sufficiency of an agency's stated reasons under the arbitrary and capricious review of the APA is fact-specific and record-specific. That OSHA had not given sufficient reasons under a different statute applying a different (substantial evidence) standard of review on a different factual record would not compel a similar result on our part even if that case were a binding precedential decision from our own circuit, which, of course, it is not. More specifically, from the Eleventh Circuit's decision, it appears that OSHA's failure to give reasons in that case was systemic and purposeful. Here, as we have already noted, the EPA undertook an on-the-record review of the data as to each candidate chemical. While we might describe the record of some of the chemical-by-chemical reviews as brief or sketchy, that would not necessarily be pejorative. That a standard, such as the statutory standard in this case, is strict, does not require that the evidence to meet it be voluminous, and especially does not require that it be voluminously recorded. CMA's generic challenge to the sufficiency of the listing process fails. Insofar as appellants contend that the record is insufficient with respect to specific chemicals, we will address those contentions in our chemical-by-chemical analysis infra. 39