Opinion ID: 2804920
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: delaware & connecticut

Text: We begin with a challenge to the EPA’s construction of the key statutory provision in this case. Petitioners Delaware and Connecticut challenge the EPA’s refusal to designate broad, multi-state nonattainment areas to address the issue of long-range ozone transport. According to the States, the EPA’s final designations are inconsistent with its statutory mandate to designate areas as nonattainment if they “contribute[] to ambient air quality in a nearby area that does not meet [the NAAQS].” 42 U.S.C. § 7407(d) (emphasis added). We conclude, to the contrary, that the designations are consistent with the EPA’s reasonable interpretation of the ambiguous statutory term “nearby.” 16 After the EPA reopened the designation process in 2011, Delaware proposed a nonattainment area that would stretch across 16 upwind states and the District of Columbia—to states as far west as Missouri. Connecticut similarly proposed an 18-state nonattainment area, also stretching west to Missouri. Both States argued for what Delaware described as a “more workable definition of ‘nearby’ ”—one that would ask “whether a source is ‘near enough to contribute’ to nonattainment or interfere with maintenance.” Letter from Del. Dep’t of Natural Res. & Envtl. Control to EPA 5 (Oct. 28, 2011) [hereinafter Delaware Response]. The EPA, however, had taken a different approach in the 2008 Guidance, instead interpreting “nearby” as presumptively including counties in the same metropolitan area as the violating county. 2008 Guidance at 3. In the Guidance, the EPA acknowledged that certain regions have ozone transport problems, but it concluded that the Act “does not require that all contributing areas be designated nonattainment, only the nearby areas.” Id. at 4. The agency explained that “[r]egional strategies, such as those employed in the Ozone Transport Region and EPA’s NOx SIP Call are needed to address the long-range transport component of ozone nonattainment.” Id. In keeping with this understanding of the statute, the EPA declined to designate “super-regional” nonattainment areas, see Responses to Significant Comments on the State and Tribal Designation Recommendations for the 2008 Ozone NAAQS at 8–9 (Apr. 30, 2012) [hereinafter Response to Comments], and instead made more limited nonattainment designations in both Delaware and Connecticut, see Delaware Area Designations for the 2008 Ozone NAAQS 17 2; Connecticut Area Designations for the 2008 Ozone NAAQS
We evaluate the EPA’s interpretation of a Clean Air Act provision under the familiar two-step Chevron framework. See Util. Air Regulatory Grp. v. EPA, 134 S. Ct. 2427, 2439 (2014) (citing Chevron, U.S.A., Inc. v. Natural Res. Def. Council, Inc., 467 U.S. 837, 842–43 (1984)). The first question—“whether Congress has directly spoken to the precise question at issue,” Chevron, 467 U.S. at 842—has previously been resolved by this Court. In Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection v. EPA (PADEP), we held that the statutory term “nearby” in section 107(d) is ambiguous; indeed, we reached that conclusion in the course of addressing the precise argument that Delaware makes here. See 429 F.3d 1125, 1129–30 (D.C. Cir. 2005). In Catawba County, we reached the same conclusion. See 571 F.3d at 35 (noting that section 107(d) does not define “nearby,” and that it is “the kind[] of word[] that suggest[s] a congressional intent to leave unanswered questions to an agency’s discretion and expertise”). Recognizing these precedents, Delaware and Connecticut conceded at oral argument that our analysis must be governed by Chevron’s second step, Oral Arg. Recording at 3:49–3:54, which requires us to ask only whether the EPA’s interpretation is reasonable, see, e.g., PADEP, 429 F.3d at 1130. But we have addressed that question once as well, also in PADEP, where we said that “Chevron requires that we defer to the agency’s reasonable interpretation of the term, and Delaware 6 Neither State challenges the designations of those areas as nonattainment, other than to contend that the designations should have covered much broader areas. 18 has given us no reason to think that EPA’s interpretation is unreasonable.” Id. We reach the same conclusion here. First, the agency’s interpretation of “nearby”—as presumptively including counties within the same metropolitan area as the violating county—falls readily within the dictionary definition of “nearby” as “close at hand; not far off; adjacent; neighboring.” RANDOM HOUSE COLLEGE DICTIONARY 889 (rev. ed. 1980). By contrast, neither the dictionary nor common parlance would regard Missouri as “nearby” to Connecticut or Delaware, as the petitioners’ proposals would require. Second, the EPA’s construction is consistent with the approach the agency has taken in prior designations proceedings—an approach that this Court has previously upheld as reasonable. See PADEP, 429 F.3d at 1127, 1129– 30; 2008 Guidance at 3. Third, the EPA’s construction is consistent with the statutory scheme. The EPA selected the metropolitan area as the presumptive “nearby” area for its contribution analysis in part because the Congress itself chose the metropolitan area as the default boundary for ozone nonattainment areas classified as “serious,” “severe,” or “extreme.” See 42 U.S.C. § 7407(d)(4)(A)(iv); 2008 Guidance at 3 n.5. The Congress’ choice is certainly evidence that the legislature envisioned broad but relatively local nonattainment areas. 7 7 At oral argument, the EPA made clear that it does not contend that its reading is the only permissible reading of the statute. Oral Arg. Recording at 30:01–30:59; see also 2008 Designations Rule, 77 Fed. Reg. at 30,090 (discussing the agency’s “discretion” to interpret the term “nearby” in fixing the geographic scope of nonattainment areas). 19 As in PADEP, the petitioners argue that the EPA’s interpretation is unreasonable because it fails to appreciate the role of ozone transport, and consequently yields designations that fail to include the true contributors to their nonattainment status. See PADEP, 429 F.3d at 1129–30. Delaware notes, for example, that 84 to 94 per cent of its ozone results from the contributions of other states, including states as far west as Missouri. See Delaware Reply Br. 4. Without emissions reductions from those states, petitioners argue, they cannot meet the 0.075 ppm standard. Thus, by failing to address the principal sources of their ozone pollution, the EPA’s interpretation eliminates any possibility that they will attain the NAAQS. 8 Although we are sympathetic to the petitioners’ concerns, our role is not to decide whether their proposed interpretation is reasonable. Instead, the sole question before us is whether the EPA interpreted the term reasonably and consistently with the statute. See PADEP, 429 F.3d at 1130 (noting that, although a broader “construction of ‘nearby’ may well be sensible, Chevron requires that we defer to the agency’s reasonable interpretation of the term”). Here, the EPA had already considered the problem the petitioners raised. Part of the rationale for using the metropolitan area as the starting point for the contribution analysis was to account for ozone transported from outside the violating county. See 2008 8 Delaware points to the isolated nonattainment zone of Sussex County as a particularly egregious example of the designations that the EPA’s interpretation produced. Delaware Br. 12. But even if over 90 per cent of Sussex County’s pollution comes from out-of-state sources, as Delaware asserts, the EPA found that no surrounding counties had the linkages necessary to justify a nonattainment designation under the agency’s five-factor analysis. See Delaware Area Designations at 37–49. 20 Guidance at 3–4. Although this approach does not fully account for longer-range, interstate transport, the EPA has addressed that problem in regulations promulgated under other provisions of the Act. See, e.g., Federal Implementation Plans: Interstate Transport of Fine Particulate Matter and Ozone and Correction of SIP Approvals, 76 Fed. Reg. 48,208 (Aug. 8, 2011) (promulgating the Cross State Air Pollution Rule, commonly referred to as the Transport Rule). 9 Although the petitioners recognize the EPA’s reliance on those other regulatory options, they maintain that they “have been less than successful” up to this point. Delaware Br. 6; see also id. at 9. We, however, must defer to the EPA’s reasonable judgment that regional strategies adopted pursuant to other statutory provisions specific to long-range ozone transport remain the appropriate means for addressing this problem. See 2008 Guidance at 4. The petitioners note that our decision in PADEP rested in part upon the fact that there, Delaware had “offered no evidence that ‘in practice’ EPA will not enlarge a nonattainment area in response to [its then] eleven-factor analysis.” 429 F.3d at 1130. Indeed, in PADEP, Delaware had failed altogether “to produce an eleven-factor analysis.” Id. But we did not mean by this to suggest that, had Delaware produced the appropriate factor analysis, the EPA would have 9 The EPA promulgated the Transport Rule under 42 U.S.C. § 7410(a)(2)(D), which requires SIPs to prohibit air pollution that will “contribute significantly to nonattainment in, or interfere with maintenance [of the NAAQS] by, any other State.” Other provisions of the Act also address interstate transport. See id. § 7506a (providing for interstate transport commissions); id. § 7511c (establishing ozone transport region consisting of 11 states and the District of Columbia, which must comply with additional control measures). 21 been required to adopt an interpretation of “nearby” that included states as far away as those within the petitioners’ proposed nonattainment areas. The points discussed above—including the dictionary definition of “nearby” and the consistency of the EPA’s interpretation with the statute and its prior practice—strongly suggest that the EPA’s narrower interpretation would still be reasonable. Nonetheless, if the petitioners had submitted a persuasive five-factor analysis establishing contributions from farther-away states, that would be relevant to our assessment of the reasonableness of the EPA’s refusal to enlarge the nonattainment area beyond its presumptive scope. In this case, however, although the petitioning States did submit technical analyses, they failed to demonstrate the requisite linkages under the EPA’s 2008 Guidance. See, e.g., Delaware Response Attach. 2 at 5–7, 11–13 (disputing relevance of factors related to urbanization, traffic, and economic growth); id. at 14–15 (with respect to meteorology factor, describing long-range transport without describing weather patterns within the proposed 16-state nonattainment area). Hence, the petitioners did not show that the agency “will not enlarge a nonattainment area in response to” the (current) five-factor analysis, PADEP, 429 F.3d at 1130. Rather, the States’ analyses were simply insufficient to overcome the agency’s definitional presumption. In sum, we conclude that the EPA’s final designations of Delaware and Connecticut counties are consistent with a reasonable interpretation of the Clean Air Act. 10 10 Delaware also argues that the EPA acted inconsistently with the statute by only designating as nonattainment nearby areas that are “contributing to a violation,” rather than those that “contribute[] to ambient air quality” in a violating area, 42 U.S.C. 22