Opinion ID: 183689
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Applicability of Burford

Text: With these principles in mind, we turn to the question of Burford 's application to the present suit. We review de novo the essentially legal determination of whether the requirements for abstention have been met, but employ a more deferential standard in reviewing the district court's findings of fact and applications of law. Guillemard-Ginorio v. Contreras-Gómez, 585 F.3d 508, 517 (1st Cir.2009) (internal quotation marks omitted). Though the propriety of abstention from a RCRA citizen suit is a matter of first impression in this circuit, we are far from the first court to take up the issue. The majority of courts to have considered it have found abstention, whether under Burford or related doctrines such as primary jurisdiction, [13] to be improper. See DMJ Assocs., L.L.C. v. Capasso, 228 F.Supp.2d 223, 229 (E.D.N.Y.2002) (citing cases). [14] Before we reach the doctrinal considerations specific to Burford, we note that the careful structure of federal court jurisdiction under RCRA makes us distinctly reluctant to countenance abstention here. Abstention is, at its core, a prudential mechanism that allows federal courts to take note of and weigh significant and potentially conflicting interests that were notor could not have beenforeseen by Congress at the time that it granted jurisdiction for a given class of cases to the courts. When it enacted RCRA, however, Congress recognized and addressed the specific clash of interests at issue here, by carefully delineating (via the diligent prosecution bar) the situations in which a state or federal agency's enforcement efforts will foreclose review of a citizen suit in federal court. [15] To abstain in situations other than those identified in the statute thus threatens an end run around RCRA, PMC, Inc. v. Sherwin-Williams Co., 151 F.3d 610, 619 (7th Cir.1998), and would substitute our judgment for that of Congress about the correct balance between respect for state administrative processes and the need for consistent and timely enforcement of RCRA. Cf. Charlotte Gibson, Note, Citizen Suits Under the Resource Conservation & Recovery Act: Plotting Abstention on a Map of Federalism, 98 Mich. L.Rev. 269, 281 (1999) (arguing that federal courts may not create a separate standard as to what level of administrative investigation is sufficient to dismiss a citizen suit). Moreover, we are leery of abstaining where litigants may be unable to press their federal claims in a state forum. Section 6972(a)which states both that citizen suits shall be brought in the district court for the district in which the alleged violation occurred or the alleged endangerment may occur and that [t]he district court shall have jurisdiction to grant relief in such suitsarguably locates exclusive jurisdiction over RCRA citizen suits in the federal courts. The majority of courts that have examined the issue have reached that conclusion. See Blue Legs v. U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs, 867 F.2d 1094, 1098 (8th Cir.1989) (stating that federal courts have exclusive jurisdiction over RCRA citizen suits); Interfaith Cmty. Org. Inc. v. PPG Indus., Inc., 702 F.Supp.2d 295, 307 (D.N.J.2010) (same); Remington v. Mathson, No. CV 09-4547, 2010 WL 1233803, at -9 (N.D.Cal. Mar. 26, 2010) (same); K-7 Enters., L.P. v. Jester, 562 F.Supp.2d 819, 827 (E.D.Tex.2007) (same); White & Brewer Trucking, Inc. v. Donley, 952 F.Supp. 1306, 1312 (C.D.Ill. 1997) (same). But see Davis v. Sun Oil Co., 148 F.3d 606, 611-12 (6th Cir.1998) (holding that federal courts do not have exclusive jurisdiction over RCRA citizen suits). Regardless of whether the jurisdiction conferred by Congress is exclusive, the statute plainly reflects an emphasis by Congress on the availability of a federal forum for consistent and timely review of RCRA claims. Taken together with Congress's careful delineation of the limited situations in which federal courts must refrain from hearing citizen suits, it counsels federal courts to exercise great caution in considering abstention. While we are not prepared to rule out categorically the possibility of abstention in a RCRA citizen suit, we believe that the circumstances justifying abstention will be exceedingly rare. As we explain, the case before us offers no such justification for second-guessing the balance struck by Congress. In finding abstention to be improper here, we consider three factors: (1) the availability of timely and adequate state-court review, (2) the potential that federal court jurisdiction over the suit will interfere with state administrative policymaking, and (3) whether conflict with state proceedings can be avoided by careful management of the federal case.
Under the modern formulation of the Burford doctrine, a court weighing abstention must first determine whether timely and adequate state-court review is available. NOPSI, 491 U.S. at 361, 109 S.Ct. 2506. In making this assessment here, the district court found that the record abounds with evidence of adequate judicial review, citing the two lawsuits filed by Chico in the commonwealth courts as well as the availability under Puerto Rico law of judicial review for final agency decisions. See P.R. Laws Ann. tit. 3, §§ 2171-77. As a formal matter, the district court is correct that Puerto Rico law provides for review of administrative decisions, and the record provides no basis to doubt the adequacy of that review. We have significant concerns, however, about the timeliness of the review offered by commonwealth courts in the present case. The availability of judicial review for final orders by commonwealth agencies, id. § 2171, can hardly qualify as timely and adequate if, as here, the agency may take decades to issue a reviewable final order. Perhaps Chico could seek mandamus relief in a commonwealth court to force more prompt action by the EQB. Because Chico dismissed its mandamus petition upon settling with the EQB, though, the record does not reflect whether mandamus relief is available and effective, nor was the issue briefed by the parties. The experience of Chico's other commonwealth lawsuit, which was stayed in deference to the EQB, gives us little comfort that Chico could in fact obtain timely and adequate review of the EQB's actions in the commonwealth courts. [16]
Even if we were to find adequate review available in the commonwealth courts, we nonetheless would consider this case to be an improper candidate for Burford abstention. As we have said, the animating concern under Burford is the threat that federal courts will usurp the role of state administrative agencies in deciding issues of state law and policy that are committed in the first instance to expert administrative resolution. Patch, 167 F.3d at 24. In light of the intertwined state and federal interests implicated by RCRA, that concern does not obtain here. The Supreme Court's articulation of the Burford doctrine in NOPSI provides a convenient analytical framework for evaluating this interplay of interests. Accordingly, we first examine whether there are `difficult questions of state law bearing on policy problems of substantial public import whose importance transcends the result in the case ... at bar.' NOPSI, 491 U.S. at 361, 109 S.Ct. 2506 (quoting Colo. River, 424 U.S. at 814, 96 S.Ct. 1236). The substantive laws at issue in Chico's citizen suit are indeed commonwealth regulations, but they rest heavily on a framework of federal law. To a large extent, RCRA dictates the content and standards of Puerto Rico's UST program, leaving the Commonwealth only the discretion to enact regulations that are no less stringent than those developed by the EPA. See 42 U.S.C. § 6991c. The questions of law at issue in this suit are therefore only marginally questions of commonwealth law, with a strong federal cast. Moreover, they are of no particular difficulty. Federal courts regularly interpret EPA regulations substantively identical to those here, [17] see, e.g., Albany Bank & Trust Co. v. Exxon Mobil Corp., 310 F.3d 969, 974 (7th Cir. 2002), and have an affirmative interest in ensuring that corresponding state regulations are interpreted in a consistent manner. Nor are we concerned, turning to the second category of cases identified by NOPSI to warrant abstention, that the exercise of federal review of the enforcement of state regulations in this case or similar cases `would be disruptive of state efforts to establish a coherent policy with respect to a matter of substantial public concern.' NOPSI, 491 U.S. at 361, 109 S.Ct. 2506 (quoting Colo. River, 424 U.S. at 814, 96 S.Ct. 1236). In enacting RCRA, Congress made an express determination that a coherent national policy was necessary to address the serious, jurisdiction-spanning problems of solid and hazardous waste, thereby inherently privileging the consistency of federal regulation over local control. See 42 U.S.C. § 6901(a)(4). By design, RCRA interferes with a state's efforts to establish its own policy with respect to hazardous waste, both in subjecting state regulations to federal review and in mandating that they adhere to a federal framework. It would fly in the face of Congress's unmistakable attention to the coherency of national policy for a federal court to defer to a local agency. As one of our sister circuits has observed in similar circumstances, such ill-advised deference might well result in review by fifty different state agencies with fifty different charters, which would all but ensure non-uniformity in interpretation and enforcement. Cnty. of Suffolk v. Long Island Lighting Co., 907 F.2d 1295, 1310 (2d Cir. 1990).
There is one additional reason why abstention is inappropriate in this case. As we have cautioned before, a federal court may abstain only where conflict with state administrative processes cannot be avoided through careful conduct of the federal case: The abstention issue posed here is whether the litigation necessarily implies an involvement in the administration of the internal affairs of the [state regulatory body] so unseemly for a federal court as to encroach on principles of comity and federalism. As we see the issue, the word necessarily is of critical importance.... This means to us that a federal judge, while being ... sensitive to important state interests and ... wary of intruding in internal state affairs ..., will also endeavor to see if the legitimate objectives of the litigation can be pursued without treading on those state interests and internal affairs. If they cannot be so pursued, abstention should be invoked; but if the case can so be managed that fears of unseemly intrusion can be dispelled, abstention should be refused. Planned Parenthood League of Mass. v. Bellotti, 868 F.2d 459, 464 (1st Cir.1989). Intrusion on state affairs is by no means inevitable here. This is not a case where review is, in effect, sought for a final state administrative decision in federal rather than state court, effectively creat[ing] a dual review structure for adjudicating a state's specific regulatory actions. Vaquería Tres Monjitas, 587 F.3d at 474; see also Sugarloaf Citizens Ass'n v. Montgomery Cnty., Md., 33 F.3d 52 (4th Cir.1994) (unpublished table decision) (applying Burford abstention to RCRA citizen suit where it was merely ... a collateral attack on state agency's permitting decisions). Instead, Chico's suit seeks an order enjoining further releases of contaminants at the filling station and requiring defendant Sol to take remedial action, as well as the imposition of civil penalties. None of these steps requires that the court directly review actions taken by the Puerto Rico EQB, which, in any event, has issued no final order. Indeed, the fact that the EQB has taken so little action over the past seventeen years suggests that conflict with the EQB's proceedings is unlikely. We might be more concerned if we were faced with an aggressive and comprehensive state enforcement proceeding on the verge of a final order, but that simply is not the case here. Regardless, should the threat of conflict arise, we see no reason why federal court relief could not be structured so as to avoid interference with the EQB proceeding. See Coll. Park Holdings, LLC v. Racetrac Petroleum, Inc., 239 F.Supp.2d 1322, 1328 (N.D.Ga.2002) (noting that documentation of agency's institutional attitudes and remediation expectations produced in the course of an administrative proceeding would permit the federal court to fashion appropriate non-conflicting relief); cf. Francisco Sánchez, 572 F.3d at 13 (concluding that threat of duplicative or conflicting remedies in parallel RCRA enforcement suits could not justify short circuit[ing] the federal suit on jurisdictional grounds at an early stage).