Opinion ID: 4020089
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 8

Heading: emissions averaging of multiple ciswi units

Text: IN ONE FACILITY Certain industry entities urged the EPA to allow facilities with more than one CISWI unit to demonstrate MACT compliance by showing that the average HAP emissions across all units at that location fell under the relevant cap. They pointed to the EPA’s allowance of emissions averaging in the Major Boilers Rule but the Agency defended its disparate treatment because, in its view, “[t]he applicability of CISWI is such that each unit is an affected facility.” See 2011 Proposed CISWI Rule on Reconsideration, 76 Fed. Reg. at 80,463. It subsequently elaborated that it did “not believe [it has] the legal authority to allow emissions averaging in CISWI or under section [7429] generally because each individual unit is an affected facility.” CISWI Rule— Responses to Comments, at 195-96. The Industry Petitioners challenge the disallowance of facility-wide averaging for CISWIs, arguing that “unit” cannot mean “facility” because section 7429(g)(1) defines “solid waste incineration unit” as “a distinct operating unit of any facility” and therefore the EPA’s rule fails Chevron step 1. They also argue the EPA’s conflation of “unit” and “facility” is unreasonable, and thus violates Chevron step 2, because the EPA has allowed emissions averaging in a different section 7429 rule and in a number of section 7412 rules. Although the Industry Petitioners’ point is well taken— the plain terms of the CAA foreclose the EPA’s conflation of a CISWI “unit” and “affected facility,” see 42 U.S.C. § 7429(g)(1) (“facility” is comprised of “units”)—we agree that the EPA has no statutory authority to allow emissions 75 averaging under section 7429.18 Section 7429 requires the EPA to regulate emissions from all “solid waste incineration units,” 42 U.S.C. § 7429(a)(2); see also id. § 7429(a)(4), and the CAA defines a “solid waste incinerator unit” as “a distinct operating unit” of a “facility,” id. § 7429(g)(1) (emphasis added). In other words, because the CAA mandates that the EPA regulate each “distinct” CISWI unit in a “facility,” the EPA cannot allow emissions averaging of all CISWI units in a facility. See id. For this reason, the Industry Petitioners’ Chevron challenge fails, notwithstanding the EPA’s minimal explanation set forth in its proposed CISWI Rule. It is axiomatic that an agency must “articulate[] an adequate explanation for its action,” Int’l Fabricare Inst. v. EPA, 972 F.2d 384, 389 (D.C. Cir. 1992) (emphasis added); see also State Farm, 463 U.S. at 48, but the EPA’s failure to do so here cannot create statutory authority that does not exist. And because the EPA has no authority under section 7429 to allow emissions averaging of multiple CISWI units in one facility, the Petitioners’ Chevron argument does not carry the day.19 18 The EPA does have statutory authority under section 7412 to allow facility-wide emissions averaging in the Major Boilers Rule. See 42 U.S.C. § 7412(a)(1) (“major source[s]” defined as “any stationary source or group of stationary sources located within a contiguous area and under common control” (emphasis added)); see also id. § 7411(a)(3) (“stationary source” defined as “any building, structure, facility, or installation which emits or may emit any air pollutant”). 19 The EPA concedes that it once allowed, in a different rule, emissions averaging for units subject to section 7429 but has since concluded that it does not have the statutory authority to do so. Although the Industry Petitioners argue that the Agency arbitrarily 76