Opinion ID: 588800
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 7

Heading: Method 508A

Text: 73 Before the EPA can set the enforceable limit (maximum contaminant level) for a chemical, it first must ascertain how low a concentration of that chemical reliably can be measured when testing water to determine compliance with the limit. This figure--the practical quantitation level--depends upon the methodology adopted to test for the chemical. Because some methods, though technically capable of measuring extremely low concentrations, prove too unreliable for regular enforcement use, the agency normally tests each method at different laboratories to ensure that it yields reasonably consistent results. Petitioners contend that the method the EPA chose to measure polychlorinated biphenyls found in water samples--Method 508A--was adopted without proper notice and comment, and so both the choice of that method, and the maximum contaminant level predicated on it, must be vacated and remanded to the agency. 74 In the Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, the EPA proposed a two-step approach for detecting and measuring PCBs. It planned to use Methods 505 and 508 to screen water samples, i.e., to determine whether PCBs were present. If they were, Method 508A would be employed to determine the concentration of PCBs in a particular sample. Proposed Rule, 54 Fed.Reg. at 22,099100. The EPA planned to use Method 508A largely because that method could measure much lower concentrations of the chemical than could other methods. However, the EPA acknowledged in the Notice that Method 508A was but recently developed, id. at 22,099, and that its accuracy had been verified in only one laboratory, id. at 22,104. Accordingly, the Agency requested comments on the proposed approach to measure PCBs ... and on the proposed analytical methods. Id. at 22,100. 75 Petitioners NEMA and CMA (among others) obliged the Agency, submitting detailed comments on PCBs issues. They argued that because the EPA had tested Method 508A in only one laboratory, not in interlaboratory tests, it could not rely on the method to establish the enforceable standard. The EPA then did what petitioners requested. In developing its responses to their comments, the Agency reviewed the results of Water Studies 23-25, conducted by private laboratories. In the EPA's view, the results of those studies adequately confirmed the reliability of Method 508A, and so the Agency adopted both the method and the maximum contaminant level as proposed. Final Rule, 56 Fed.Reg. at 3,551 col. 1. 76 Petitioners now complain that the EPA's use of the Water Studies, without prior notice that they would be relied on, violated its notice-and-comment obligations. See 5 U.S.C. § 553(c) (1988). They urge us to remand the matter to the Agency so that they may submit criticisms of Water Studies 23-25, and arguments about why Method 508A, even in light of the new studies, remains insufficiently reliable. Because petitioners had fair notice of, and full opportunity to comment on, the issue actually decided by the EPA, we reject their request. 4 77 The core of this issue was whether Method 508A was sufficiently reliable, and whether it or some other method would be adopted by the EPA. In relying on Water Studies 23-25, the EPA did no more than provide support for the same decision it had proposed to take. The conclusion the EPA reached was one petitioners both had and took the opportunity to criticize. Most of their criticism centered around the lack of evidence of reliability--the very evidence the Agency then amassed to support its proposed conclusion. The EPA did not perform an unheralded about-face in light of a recalculation of data unknown to petitioners, cf. Solite Corp. v. EPA, 952 F.2d 473, 499 (D.C.Cir.1992), nor did it fail to identify the ... methodology used in actually developing the standard at the outset, cf. Portland Cement Ass'n v. Ruckelshaus, 486 F.2d 375, 392 (D.C.Cir.1973), cert. denied, 417 U.S. 921, 94 S.Ct. 2628, 41 L.Ed.2d 226 (1974), or reveal information critical to its determination only after promulgation of the final rule, id. at 393. 78 We have in similar circumstances refused to make the Agency subject each and every study to notice and comment, see Community Nutrition Inst. v. Block, 749 F.2d 50, 57-58 (D.C.Cir.1984), and have even upheld an agency's change of course as a logical outgrowth of the proposed rule although the change was supported in part by a study not subject to public comment. See City of Stoughton, Wis. v. EPA, 858 F.2d 747, 753 (D.C.Cir.1988). Those decisions reflect the commonsense recognition that Congress, in providing for notice and comment under the APA, could not have intended to subject the agencies--and the public on whose behalf they regulate--to the sort of interminable back-and-forth petitioners would have us require. See id.; cf. Solite, 952 F.2d at 496, citing NRDC v. Thomas, 838 F.2d 1224, 1242 (D.C.Cir.1988),in turn citing International Harvester Co. v. Ruckelshaus, 478 F.2d 615, 632 n. 51 (D.C.Cir.1973). We will not require that today.