Opinion ID: 781047
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Draft Permits

Text: 18 Although, as noted, New York's permit program was granted only interim approval in November 1996, it had the authority (by December 1996) to accept permit applications and issue Title V permits. The CAA requires that a state permitting program provide an opportunity for public comment on draft permits before they are issued. 42 U.S.C. § 7661a(b)(6). After considering public comments, the state permitting authority must give the EPA 45 days to review and to object to a permit that does not meet the requirements of Title V. 42 U.S.C. § 7661d(b)(1); 40 C.F.R. § 70.8(c). 19 If the EPA does not object to a proposed permit within the 45 days, any person may petition the EPA to object to the permit. 42 U.S.C. § 7661d(b)(2). This petition must be filed within 60 days of the expiration of the EPA's 45-day period and based on objections raised with reasonable specificity during the public comment period.... Id. The EPA must act on the petition within 60 days and shall issue an objection within such period if the petitioner demonstrates to [the EPA] that the permit is not in compliance with the requirements of this chapter, including the requirements of the applicable implementation plan. Id. 20 Three draft permits, which were released by the DEC in the summer of 1999, are at issue. These permits were issued for: (1) Albert Einstein College of Medicine at Yeshiva University (Yeshiva University); (2) Action Packaging Corporation (Action Packaging); and (3) Kings Plaza Total Energy Plant (Kings Plaza). Yeshiva University is required to obtain an operating permit for four boilers, which vent to a single stack and burn fuel oil or natural gas to provide heat and steam to the school. Action Packaging is required to obtain an operating permit because of emissions resulting from a plastic-bag manufacturing operation. After the bags are printed in solvent-based inks, they are processed through a drying oven. The exhaust from this oven is passed through a natural-gas-fired catalytic incinerator. Kings Plaza provides heating, cooling and electrical power for a shopping center and a marina and is required to obtain an operating permit for three emission units. 21 In July 1999, during the public comment period, NYPIRG identified the same deficiencies in the draft permits for these three facilities that it contends are present in New York's program as a whole. In response to these comments, the DEC made a few changes, rejected most objections, and forwarded the petitions to the EPA. The EPA's review period expired without objection. NYPIRG then petitioned the EPA in the spring of 2000 to object to each permit. 22 Although the EPA was required by statute to respond in 60 days, it waited nearly two years to respond and eventually did so only after NYPIRG filed suit. See NYPIRG v. EPA, No. 00-9394 (S.D.N.Y.). The EPA denied the Yeshiva University petition in its entirety and denied all but a few narrow issues of the Action Packaging and Kings Plaza petitions. The EPA's order declining to object to the permits acknowledged the existence of many of the problems identified by NYPIRG. For example, the EPA responded to NYPIRG's claim that the DEC violated the public participation requirement of 40 C.F.R. § 70.7(h)-by failing to give notice of the procedures by which a public hearing may be requested-by acknowledging that [p]etitioner is correct that technically this is a defect in the DEC's public notice procedure for this permit. But it declined to object because there is no allegation that NYPIRG was harmed as a result of DEC's failure to indicate the procedures that must be followed to request a hearing. The EPA takes the position that, in declining to object, it was entitled to rely upon what it terms a harmless error rule imbedded (or implicit) in the statutory scheme. NYPIRG contends that the statute does not permit the EPA to weigh whether deficiencies it has identified are harmless and, if deficiencies are identified, the sanctions prescribed by the statute become mandatory.