Opinion ID: 411109
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Legislative History of the Purposes Section

Text: 91 In short, based on the text of the Act, EPA's interpretation cannot be said to plainly frustrate congressional purposes. Our review of the history of the 1972 Act and the 1977 amendments also leaves us unsure what Congress would have decided to do about dam-caused pollution if it had focused on the issue. Congress might have regulated dams under Sec. 402 (as the Wildlife Federation desires), or under Sec. 208 (as EPA has done), or even under an entirely new section specifically crafted to deal with dams. 92 On the one hand, the sponsors of the Act successfully insisted on a zero-discharge-of-pollutants goal despite strong objection from both within and without. The Senate took the stronger course; Senator Muskie, the Senate sponsor and principal force behind the bill, stated, in the post-conference debate on the bill: 93 These [goals] are not merely the pious declarations that Congress so often makes in passing its laws; on the contrary, this is literally a life or death proposition for the nation. 94 118 Cong.Rec. 33,693 (1972), 1972 Leg.Hist. 164. 68 But Senator Muskie also clarified that the zero-discharge-of-pollutants goal was not a legal command: 95 [T]he 1985 deadline for achieving no discharge of pollutants is a policy objective. It is not locked in concrete. It is not enforceable. It simply establishes what the committee thinks ought to be done on the basis of present knowledge. 96 117 Cong.Rec. 38,800 (1971), 1972 Leg.Hist. 1262. 69 And he recognized that zero discharge might ultimately prove to be too expensive to be achieved. See id. at 38,822, 1972 Leg.Hist. 1308-09 (statement of Sen. Muskie): 97 There are no [cost] estimates ... that, in my judgment, have any validity.... [T]he 1985 target has not been related to costs. The bill does provide for water quality inventories ... designed to give us some hard estimates as to the cost of achieving no pollution discharge by 1985 .... Then it would be for Congress to decide whether achieving no discharge by 1985 is within the ability of the American people to absorb the cost. 98 See also S.Rep. at 11, 1972 Leg.Hist. 1429, 1972 U.S. Code Cong. & Ad.News at 3678: 99 The Committee recognizes the difficulty of implementing a no-discharge policy. The development of the midcourse correction information required by Section 305 ... will assist the Nation in any decision on the proper enforcement mechanism to be established to support the goal, if appropriate, ... or the extent of the exceptions to that goal, if any, or whether the costs associated with reaching this ultimate standard, in some instances, may far outweigh the benefits derived. 100 Significantly, the Senate's commitment to a zero-discharge policy, qualified though it was, was not fully shared by the House. What started out as a national policy in the Senate bill 70 was watered down to a goal in the House. Furthermore, the House, after extensive debate, made both the zero-discharge goal and the best available technology requirement purely hortatory--they were not to take effect unless adopted by a subsequent Congress after an expert commission reported back to Congress on the costs and benefits of stringent water pollution control. 71 While this position was rejected in conference, it suggests the House's strong reservations about the economic and technical feasibility of zero discharge. Those same reservations also led the House to set up the expert commission just referred to to study the total economic, social, and environmental effects of achieving or not achieving the [best available technology] effluent limitations and goals set forth for 1983. Clean Water Act Sec. 315(a), 33 U.S.C. Sec. 1325(a). The House Report states: 101 The Committee recognizes the problems associated with implementing a no-discharge policy.... [V]ery little hard evidence was available on which to make final irretrievable judgment on this matter. It was for this reason that the legislation includes section 315 providing for a study ... of the effects of achieving or not achieving the [1983] goals. At the conclusion of the study ..., Congress will be in a position to fully evaluate the implications of a no-discharge policy. 102 H.R.Rep. at 77, 1972 Leg.Hist. 764. 103 In short, while Congress wanted to eliminate pollution if practicable, it realized that it might have to settle for something less. 104 The legislative history of the 1977 amendments further suggests caution in indiscriminately relying on the Sec. 101(a) goals to alter the meaning of specific provisions of the Act. In 1977, Congress reconsidered and modified the general requirement that effluent limits must be based on best available technology (BAT) for all pollutant discharges. It recognized that BAT was often not cost-justified for non-toxic pollutants such as oxygen-demanding organic waste. The Senate bill authorized EPA to waive BAT for such pollutants so long as the resulting water quality would still allow propagation of a balanced, indigenous population of shellfish, fish, and wildlife, and allow[ ] recreational activities. S. 1952, 95th Cong., 2d Sess. sec. 26(a), Sec. 301(d)(5) (1977), 1977 Leg.Hist. 555, 583. The Senate Report explains that treatment for the sake of treatment should not be required: 105 Many industrial dischargers have testified that the best practicable technology effluent limitations required in 1977 have provided a high degree of water quality improvement with the result that BAT requires treatment of conventional pollutants not deemed necessary to meet the 1983 water quality goals of the act. The intent of this section is to allow modification of BAT requirements in cases where this may be true. In this way, treatment for the sake of treatment would be prevented. 106 1977 S.Rep. at 43-44, 1977 Leg.Hist. 676-77, U.S.Code Cong. & Ad.News at 4368; see also 1977 Senate Hearings, supra note 33, at 662, 1977 Leg.Hist. 1136 (statement of Sen. Muskie) (the [dissolved oxygen] problem doesn't justify BAT). As enacted, the 1977 amendments go even further than the Senate proposal, replacing BAT altogether for conventional non-toxic pollutants with the weaker requirement of best conventional pollutant control technology, and permitting waiver of BAT for nonconventional nontoxic pollutants. Clean Water Act of 1977, Secs. 42-43, 33 U.S.C. Sec. 1311(b)(2)(E), (g); see also Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc. v. United States Envtl. Protection Agency, 211 U.S.App.D.C. 179, 656 F.2d 768, 772-74 (1981) (discussing the provisions in the 1977 amendments for waiver of the secondary treatment requirement for some municipal discharges). 107 The legislative history, then, indicates that Congress' avowed purpose to minimize pollution was not nearly so unequivocal as to make unreasonable EPA's interpretation of the specific provisions of the Act relating to dams. A contrary conclusion would too lightly dismiss Congress' understanding that the zero-discharge goal was not enforceable, not based on refined cost estimates, and quite possibly beyond the ability of the American people to absorb the cost. 108 Moreover, deference to the agency should play a substantial role in our analysis of the subtle and difficult question of how much weight to accord Congress' declared goals in inferring its intent on a matter that it appears never to have considered. The question is one of the level of generality at which to attribute legislative intent. More specifically, if someone had told Congress that dams cause pollution of reservoirs and that polluted water is released downstream through the dams, would Congress have honored the general anti-pollution mandate of the Act and said of course we meant to reduce dam-caused pollution as much as possible by requiring NPDES permits? Or was its intent more narrowly focused on specific problem areas, such as industrial and municipal discharges, so that it would have said wait a minute, we were not thinking about dams, we have to consider separately how best to regulate them? 109 There is no sure answer to this question. How broadly we construe the congressional purpose will inevitably turn in part on the practical or policy consequences of the choice. 72 There is special reason to defer to the agency's policy choices. Contemporaneous construction by the agency should also receive substantial weight because the agency was in a better position in 1973 to decide how broadly to characterize Congress' intent than we are almost a decade later. In this case, EPA's views on dam-induced pollution merit deference as both contemporaneous and infused with its expert evaluation of the seriousness of the problem, the cost of cure, and the effectiveness of state regulation. We think, therefore, that the district court erred in relying on the legislative goals expressed in Sec. 101(a) to invalidate EPA's otherwise reasonable construction of the NPDES permit program as excluding dam-caused pollution.