Opinion ID: 621128
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The SIP Call

Text: One of Montana Sulphur's primary arguments concerns the EPA's authority to make the SIP Call in the first place, because, in its view, the existing SIP was not substantially inadequate because there were no monitored violations of NAAQS in the area, only predicted violations based on computer modeling. This issue, however, raises a number of threshold justiciability concerns. The SIP Call is not a final agency action and did not impose any specific obligations on Montana Sulphur. The SIP Call was only an act of limited consequence preliminary to other events anticipated by the [Clean Air] Act. Illinois v. EPA, 621 F.2d 259, 261 (7th Cir.1980). As the Sixth Circuit has elaborated: [T]he issuance of notice of deficiency and the request for a revised SIP is not final agency action subject to judicial review. It in no way alters the obligations of the parties in either a practical or legal sense. It is impossible to anticipate which of the many available alternative strategies the State and the EPA will pursue. . . . Until the State responds to the EPA's request for revision, and the EPA's subsequent actions become real rather than merely speculative, no legally cognizable harm has been visited. Greater Cincinnati Chamber of Commerce v. EPA, 879 F.2d 1379, 1383 (6th Cir.1989). Thus, the EPA is correct to the extent it argues that at the time of the SIP Call there was no final agency action, see Bennett v. Spear, 520 U.S. 154, 177-78, 117 S.Ct. 1154, 137 L.Ed.2d 281 (1997), the issue was not yet ripe, see Abbott Labs. v. Gardner, 387 U.S. 136, 148-49, 87 S.Ct. 1507, 18 L.Ed.2d 681 (1967), and Montana Sulphur had not suffered an actual or imminent as opposed to a conjectural or hypothetical injury that would suffice for standing, see Friends of the Earth, Inc. v. Laidlaw Envtl. Servs. (TOC), Inc., 528 U.S. 167, 180, 120 S.Ct. 693, 145 L.Ed.2d 610 (2000); see also Bova v. City of Medford, 564 F.3d 1093, 1095-96 (9th Cir.2009) (noting how ripeness and the injury prong of standing are interrelated). This does not, however, mean that the alleged problems with the SIP Call are forever beyond challenge. Montana Sulphur filed its petition for review after the EPA both made the SIP Call and issued its partial approval/partial disapproval of the SIP. There is no dispute that the SIP disapproval was a final agency action and that Montana Sulphur has standing to challenge this action. The EPA's 2002 disapproval, in turn, is necessarily predicated on the validity of the initial SIP Call and the modeling assumptions made therein, which Montana Sulphur also seeks to challenge. Compare 58 Fed.Reg. at 41,430 with 67 Fed.Reg. at 22,173, 22,183-22,189. Because Montana Sulphur's claim that the EPA exceeded its statutory authority by issuing the SIP Call in the first place would necessarily invalidate the 2002 SIP disapproval as well, its challenge to the SIP Call may be brought at this time. See Virginia v. EPA, 108 F.3d 1397, 1414 (D.C.Cir.1997), as modified, 116 F.3d 499 (D.C.Cir.1997) (striking down a SIP Call which was based on a final agency rule that exceeded the EPA's authority under the Clean Air Act); see also Greater Cincinnati, 879 F.2d at 1382 (holding claim regarding SIP Call was premature  [u]ntil the State responds to the EPA's request for revision, and the EPA's subsequent actions become real rather than merely speculative) (emphasis added).
Although Montana Sulphur has standing to challenge the underlying SIP Call as part of its challenge to the final agency disapproval in 2002, we conclude that the EPA did not exceed its authority under the Clean Air Act by issuing the SIP Call. The EPA lacks authority to issue a SIP Call unless the SIP is substantially inadequate. 42 U.S.C. § 7410(a)(2)(H), (k)(5). The thrust of Montana Sulphur's argument is that the SIP Call was improper because the Montana SIP was not substantially inadequate to attain or maintain the SO2 NAAQS, and did satisfy all of the statutory criteria of 42 U.S.C. § 7410(a)(2). Montana Sulphur contends that the EPA could not properly rely on predicted violations of NAAQS that were modeled in the Billings/Laurel area, because the EPA did not provide any reason to believe that there was an actual, monitored SO2 violation in any location in the Billings area. Specifically, Montana Sulphur argues that the EPA's reliance on dispersion modeling provides an unrealistic picture of reality because it assumes that every single facility is always emitting as much pollution as it can possibly emit during every hour of the modeling run and under worst case weather conditions. Contrary to Montana Sulphur's contentions, the EPA did not ignore actual SO2 monitoring data when it issued the SIP Call. Rather, the EPA expressly addressed these results and explained their shortcomings. In its Technical Support Document (TSD), which explained the rationale for the call, the EPA explained that it was not practical, given the number and complexity of sulfur dioxide sources, to install a sufficient number of monitors to provide the spatial coverage provided by air quality dispersion models. In fact, much of the data collected prior to the call (throughout the 1970s and '80s) came from a monitoring network of just three to four sites in the Billings and Laurel area. The EPA further explained that the existing monitors were not located in areas of maximum concentration, and that areas with the most severe exceedances according to the studies have never been monitoredor were once monitored but no longer. The EPA further addressed Montana Sulphur's complaint when it partially disapproved the SIP in 2002: Monitoring is not more accurate than computer modeling, except for determining ambient concentrations under real-time conditions at a discrete location. Monitoring is limited in time as well as space. Monitoring can only measure pollutant concentrations as they occur; it cannot predict future concentrations when emission levels and meteorological conditions may differ from present conditions. Computer modeling, on the other hand, can analyze all possible conditions to predict concentrations that may not have occurred yet but could occur in the future. 67 Fed.Reg. at 22,185. See Northern Plains Res. Council v. EPA, 645 F.2d 1349, 1362-63 (9th Cir.1981) (reliance on model without validation arbitrary only if EPA ignored reliable data that so undermined the EPA model projections . . . that reliance on the model was irrational); Republic Steel Corp. v. Costle, 621 F.2d 797, 805 (6th Cir.1980) (approving use of modeling to predict future violations and incorporating worst-case assumptions regarding weather and full-capacity operations of pollutant sources). As the EPA also points out, the Clean Air Act expressly recognizes modeling as an appropriate regulatory tool. 42 U.S.C. § 7410(a)(2)(K)(i) requires SIPs to provide for the performance of such air quality modeling as the Administrator may prescribe for the purpose of predicting the effect on ambient air quality of any emissions of any air pollutant for which the Administrator has established a national ambient air quality standard. Montana Sulphur argues that the 1990 amendments to the Clean Air Act indicate a Congressional intent to eliminate the use of modeling. Section 7501(2) formerly defined a nonattainment area as an area which is shown by monitored data or which is calculated by air quality modeling (or other methods determined by the Administrator to be reliable) to exceed any [NAAQS]. In 1990, Congress deleted both the references to monitored data and air quality modeling, replacing them with a cross-reference to air quality designations in § 7407(d). Montana Sulphur would have a better argument if Congress had deleted the reference to modeling and left the reference to monitored data intact, but that is not what happened. In any event, the legislative history underlying the 1990 amendment clarifies that the EPA may rely on any sound data that is available, and that where appropriate and necessary, the Agency may rely on modeling or on statistical extrapolation. S.Rep. No. 101-228, at 15 (1989), 1990 U.S.C.C.A.N. 3385, 3401. Although the available evidence did not point unambiguously in any one direction, the EPA had plausible reasons for concern in 1993 about attainment given the proximity between Laurel (a nonattainment area) and Billings, the limitations of the existing monitoring methods, the indications from the modeling studies available, and the gravity of the health issues that SO2 NAAQS seek to prevent. The EPA therefore did not act arbitrarily or capriciously by relying on predictive modeling to make the SIP Call in 1993. 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