Opinion ID: 519994
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Issues Concerning the Scope of the OCPSF Limitations:

Text: 81 1. This court is without jurisdiction to review NRDC's claim that the EPA's reservation of nonconventional pollutants and eight priority pollutants for future rulemaking was contrary to the CWA; such a challenge must be raised in the first instance in the district court. 82 2. The EPA reasonably concluded that the OCPSF limitations apply to research as well as manufacturing discharges. 83 Table of Contents Page Introduction: Statutory Background .......................................... 195 Standards of Review ........................................... 197 I. Procedural Challenges ............................................. 200 1. The EPA's Economic Impact Study ................ 200 2. Limits on Metal Bearing Wastestreams ........... 202 II. Best Practicable Technology (BPT) Issues .......................... 203 A. The EPA's Consideration of the Industry's Costs of Complying with the BPT Limitations .................................... 204 1. CMA's Challenge Based on the Knee-of-the-Curve Cost Effectiveness Test .. 204 2. The BCT Cost Effectiveness Test ................ 206 3. The Cost of Compliance with the BPT Limitations 207 B. The EPA's Definition of the BPT Data Base ..................... 207 1. The EPA's Determination of the Average of the Best Dischargers ............................ 207 2. The EPA's Rejection of Sequential Treatment Options ...................................... 208 C. The Summer/Winter Issue: The EPA's Decision Not to Subcategorize Based on Climatic Differences ................. 210 1. Diversity of the Data Base ..................... 211 2. Winter Removal Efficiencies .................... 213 D. BPT Subcategorization and the EPA's Use of Standard Industrial Classification (SIC) Codes .................................. 214 1. CMA's Challenge to the BPT Subcategorization ... 214 2. NRDC's Notice and Comment Challenge ............ 216 E. Issues Concerning Waste Stabilization Ponds ................... 217 1. The EPA's Determination that Pond Algae Were Conventional Pollutants and Thus Subject to BPT Regulations .............................. 217 2. The EPA's Decision Not to Create a Subcategory for Plants Utilizing Waste Stabilization Ponds ........................................ 218 3. The EPA's Consideration of the Cost of Compliance for Plants Utilizing Pond Technology ................................... 219 4. Copper Sulfate Treatment for Algae Control ..... 220 5. The Cost of the BPT Limitations ................ 221 F. PlantSpecific Challenges to the BPT Limitations and the Availability of Fundamentally DifferentFactor Variances .... 221 1. Union Carbide .................................. 222 2. BorgWarner .................................... 223 3. DuPont's Chambers Works Plant .................. 223 4. Monsanto and Ethyl ............................. 223 5. FDF Variances .................................. 225 III. Best Available Technology (BAT) Issues ............................ 226 A. The EPA's Statistical Method of Developing the BAT Limitations 227 1. The EPA's Use of Weighted Averaging in Deriving the Long Term Averages ....................... 227 2. Averaging of Variability Factors ............... 228 B. Remedy for Unavoidable Exceedances ............................ 228 C. The EPA's Analytical Methodology .............................. 230 1. Analytical Variability ......................... 230 2. Complex Wastestreams ........................... 230 3. Computation of Variability Factors When Data Were Insufficient (Borrowed Data) .......... 231 4. CMA's Challenge to the EPA's Choice of the Minimum Analytical Value to Assign to Non Detect Readings .......................... 231 5. Changes in Analytical Methods .................. 233 D. Use of Minimum Analytical Values for Enforcement Purposes ..... 233 E. The EPA's Sampling Techniques ................................. 233 F. The EPA's Toxic Limitations ................................... 234 1. Application of the Toxic Limitations to All OCPSF Dischargers ............................ 234 2. Courtaulds' Noticeand Comment Challenge ....... 235 3. The NRDC v. Train Consent Decree ............... 235 G. NRDC's Challenge to the EPA's BAT sub1 and BAT sub2 Subcategorization ........................................... 235 H. DuPont's Chambers Works Plant ................................. 236 I. BAT Limitations for Phenol .................................... 236 1. PhenolDominated Wastestreams .................. 236 2. The EPA's Cost Estimates for the Phenol Limitations .................................. 237 J. The BAT sub2 Limitations for Volatile Pollutants Based on Steam-Stripper Technology ................................... 238 1. Achievability of the Limitations ............... 238 2. Wastestream Characteristics .................... 239 3. Steam-Stripper Maintenance ..................... 239 4. Dow Chemical's Plant Specific Claims ........... 240 K. The BAT sub2 Limitations for Priority Pollutants Based on In Plant Biological Treatment ............................... 240 1. Achievability of the Limitations ............... 240 2. The EPA's Estimate of the Costs of Complying with the Limitations ......................... 241 3. Land Costs ..................................... 241 L. Compliance Deadline ........................................... 242 1. Lack of Sufficient Lead Time for Industry Members to Comply ............................ 242 2. Availability of BAT Technology ............... 243 IV. Pretreatment Standards for Existing Sources (PSES) Issues 243 A. Pass Through Issues ......................................... 243 1. The EPA's Definition of Pass Through ......... 243 2. The EPA's Methodology in Assuming an Absence of Pass Through Based on POTW Averages ........ 247 3. The EPA's Decision Not to Find Pass Through Based on Sludge Contamination ................ 247 B. The EPA's Decision Not to Regulate Six Volatile Organic Pollutants on the Basis of Interference with POTW Worker Safety ...................................................... 248 C. Application of PSES to Small Plants ........................... 249 1. Economic Impact of PSES on Small Dischargers ... 249 2. Validity of the EPA's Cost Assessment .......... 252 3. Alternative Pretreatment Standards ............. 252 D. Application of PSES to Paint/Resin Plants ..................... 253 1. The EPA's Data Base ............................ 253 2. Achievability .................................. 254 3. The NRDC v. Train Consent Decree ............... 256 4. Subcategorization .............................. 257 E. The EPA's Decision Not to Subcategorize on the Basis of POTW Removal Credits ............................................. 257 1. Removal Credits ................................ 258 2. GCWDA and Village of Sauget POTWs .............. 261 3. The v. Crown Central Petroleum Consent Decree .. 261 V. New Source Performance Standards (NSPS) Issues .................... 261 1. The EPA's Cost Test in Establishing NSPS ....... 262 2. NRDC's Challenge that the EPA Failed to Consider Technology Beyond BPT and BAT ....... 262 VI. The Economic Impact of the Montreal Protocol on the Chlorofluorocarbon Industry ..................................... 264 VII. Scope of the Regulations .......................................... 265 1. The EPA's Reservation of Nonconventional Pollutants and Eight Priority Pollutants for Future Rulemaking ............................ 265 2. Application of the Regulations to Laboratory Discharges ................................... 266 Conclusion ................................................................ 266 Statutory Background 84 The purpose of the Clean Water Act (CWA) is to restore and maintain the chemical and biological integrity of the nation's waters. 3 It was adopted to effectuate Congress's declared national goal that the discharge of pollutants into the navigable waters be eliminated by 1985, 4 a date later extended to March 31, 1989, 5 and to prohibit the discharge of toxic pollutants in toxic amounts. 6 85 Until 1972, the federal government relied primarily on state and local action to accomplish federal pollution-abatement goals. 7 Congress became dissatisfied, however, with the division of responsibility for setting standards between federal and state water-pollution-control agencies, with the EPA's dilatory pace, and with the ponderous federal enforcement procedure. Consequently, it enacted the Federal Water Pollution Control Act (FWPCA) Amendments of 1972, 8 which imposed greater federal regulatory responsibilities and set deadlines for the completion of limitations on pollutant effluents. 86 Because the EPA had failed timely to fulfill its responsibilities under the 1972 Act, the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) filed suit in NRDC v. Train challenging the EPA's failure to promulgate the effluent standards mandated for toxic substances. The consent decree entered into by the EPA, NRDC, and various industrial intervenors in that suit established a schedule for Agency promulgation of effluent limits, new source standards, and pretreatment standards for priority toxic pollutants. 9 87 Recognizing the growing seriousness of the problems created by toxic pollution and the inadequacy of the 1972 FWPCA to deal with them, 10 Congress amended that Act by adopting the CWA in 1977. 11 As thus amended, the FWPCA contains several distinct, though interlocking, regulatory schemes. 88 First, Title II of the Act encourages the construction of publicly-owned waste-treatment works by providing federal grants-in-aid to states for the construction of such plants. 12 As a condition of receiving grants-in-aid, the Act requires states to establish area-wide management agencies with both planning and regulatory functions for waste treatment. 89 The second regulatory feature of the FWPCA, as set out in Title III, authorizes the EPA to set and to enforce federal effluent standards. This part of the 1977 statute codifies the toxics consent decree issued by the United States District Court for the District of Columbia in which it required the EPA to develop BAT effluent guidelines by July 1, 1980 for 65 toxic pollutants listed in the decree. The Act also requires the EPA to promulgate pretreatment standards for indirect dischargers based on BAT or more stringent criteria. 13 90 Third, the Act requires the states to establish water-quality criteria and to set ambient quality standards for each of their rivers, subject to EPA approval. This continues the procedures under prior law pursuant to which the states submitted their ambient water standards for federal approval, submitted their own effluent limitations designed to meet these standards, and had responsibility for enforcement of the limitations. 14 91 To monitor compliance with the pollutant effluent limitations, the Act establishes a system for issuing pollution permits called the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES). 15 Each discharger, including POTWs, must obtain a permit from the EPA. No permit may be issued unless the effluent to be discharged meets federal effluent standards. 16 92 As Professor Frank P. Grad has noted in his Treatise on Environmental Law, these four regulatory schemes ... are limited ... by a variety of general provisions dealing with enforcement, citizen suit, judicial review, and the like. 17 93 Congress again amended portions of the Act in 1987 to extend the compliance dates prescribed in the 1977 Act from July 1, 1984, to March 31, 1989; to permit modification of effluent limitations for certain specified nonconventional pollutants; to permit modification of secondary treatment requirements, to alter the guidelines applicable to facilities that are fundamentally different; and to effect other changes. Our references in this opinion to the Act refer to its provisions as finally amended in 1987. 94 The Act requires direct dischargers to comply with technology-based pollutant-effluent limitations that, in time, will become more stringent. 18 First, it orders all direct dischargers of conventional pollutants to comply with effluent limitations achievable by application of the best practicable control technology presently available (BPT) by July 1, 1977. Second, it orders all direct dischargers of conventional pollutants to comply by March 31, 1989 with effluent limitations based on a more exacting standard, the best conventional pollution control technology  (BCT). It mandates in addition that, by the same date, direct dischargers of toxic pollutants must comply with the even more rigorous effluent limitations based on the best available technology economically achievable (BAT). 19 95 The EPA must determine the BPT, BCT, and BAT requirements and announce them in regulations establishing effluent limitations guidelines for various classes and categories of dischargers. In establishing each set of standards Congress required the EPA to consider a number of factors including costs, although the cost factor is accorded less weight for facilities not yet constructed and for discharges more harmful to the environment. 96 New plants constructed after the promulgation of the OCPSF Guidelines that discharge directly into navigable waters are subject to separate standards referred to as new source performance standards (NSPS). The new source performance standards are based on the best available demonstrated control technology  (BADCT) as identified by the EPA. 20 97 Indirect dischargers rely on POTWs to treat their wastewaters, and the Act requires the EPA to set effluent limitations for POTWs engaged in the treatment of municipal sewage or industrial wastewater. 21 Although the POTW requirements are determined by separate regulations, they must be based on BAT to ensure that all final dischargers of toxic pollutants meet the same standards. The treatment usually accorded by POTWs, however, may not remove all pollutants discharged into their facilities by industrial users and their operation of these facilities may be damaged by some industrial discharges. Therefore, to regulate the discharge into POTWs of those pollutants determined not to be susceptible to treatment by POTWs or likely to interfere with the operation of POTWs, 22 the Act requires the EPA to establish pretreatment standards for existing sources  (PSES). These standards must also be based on BAT. 23 98 The OCPSF limitations are technology-based and apply to plants grouped into categories based on their industrial characteristics. The EPA, with the concurrence of the state affected, may establish special provisions for a facility that is fundamentally different with respect to one or more of the factors relevant in developing the regulations other than cost. These provisions, which are known as fundamentally different factor (FDF) variances, are intended to adjust the general limitations and provide different ones for a plant whose individual characteristics prevent it from performing within the limits set for its industrial category. 24 An FDF variance application may be based on supporting data submitted to the EPA during the rulemaking process or on information that the applicant did not have a reasonable opportunity to submit at that time. 25 99 The regulatory process is not static. Various provisions of the Act require the EPA to review the guidelines periodically and to revise them when appropriate. 26 100 For the past eleven years the EPA has conducted studies and rulemaking proceedings for the purpose of establishing OCPSF pollutant-effluent limitations. The EPA has identified model technologies that in its view satisfy the development criteria for BPT, BAT, NSPS, and PSES. Based on these model technologies, the EPA has determined treatment performances and has established effluent limitations for conventional and toxic pollutants within the range of the performances achieved by the model technologies. The OCPSF limitations provide maximum daily and maximum monthly average limits for the discharge of designated pollutants from each point source, that is, each discharge pipe. 27 Standards of Review 101 The Administrative Procedure Act (APA) fixes the standard for appellate review of agency actions. Agency actions may be set aside only if the agency action, findings, and conclusions [are] found to be ... arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion, or otherwise not in accordance with law; or in excess of statutory jurisdiction, authority, or limitations, or short of statutory right; or without observance of procedure required by law. 28 In making its determinations, the court shall review the whole record or those parts of it cited by a party, and due account shall be taken of the rule of prejudicial error. 29 102 The many issues raised on appeal concern three aspects of the EPA's actions, each governed by different standards: (1) its rulemaking procedures; (2) its interpretation of the Clean Water Act; and (3) the validity of its regulations and its actions to enforce the Act. 103 The standards of review for each of these types of issues have been stated and restated in a host of cases, not always consistently. The most frequently stated verbal formulae are these: 104 Review of the validity of the challenged procedure is a question of law governed principally by the APA, under which our review is plenary. In determining validity, the Administrator's decision is entitled to a presumption of regularity. 30 A party petitioning for review of an agency's regulations bears the burden of overcoming this presumption. 31 105 When we turn to the EPA's interpretation of the statute, our review is again plenary, for we may not accept its interpretation if contrary to Congress's intentions as revealed by the Act's language, structure, and legislative history. 32 In statutory interpretation, the judiciary is  'the final authority and we must reject administrative constructions which are contrary to clear congressional intent.'  33 Nevertheless, we accord some deference to the Agency's interpretation of the statute whose enforcement is entrusted to it if Congressional intention is not pellucid. 34 If, therefore, the statute is susceptible to more than one interpretation, we must accept that of the EPA if it is reasonable. 35 We need not find that it is the only permissible interpretation, but merely that the EPA's understanding of this very 'complex statute' is a sufficiently rational one to preclude a court from substituting its judgment for that of the EPA. 36 According deference to an agency, however, does not imply rubber stamping its decision. 37 106 In interpreting the Act, we do not lack precedent. The Supreme Court has twice considered issues involving its construction, 38 and eight circuit courts have done so in at least twenty-seven cases. 39 107 After interpreting the statute according to these principles, we must next determine whether the EPA's findings or the regulations based on them are arbitrary or capricious. In doing so we must conduct a searching and careful review of the facts to determine whether the decision was based on a consideration of the relevant factors and whether there has been a clear error of judgment. 40 As a reviewing court, however, we must not substitute [our] judgment for that of the agency, 41 but must start with the assumption that the agency's action is valid. 42 The court's proper function is only to determine whether the agency has considered the relevant factors and articulated a rational correlation between the facts found and the choice made. 43 108 An agency rule is arbitrary if the agency has relied on factors which Congress has not intended it to consider, entirely failed to consider an important aspect of the problem, offered an explanation for its decision that runs counter to the evidence before the agency, or is so implausible that it could not be ascribed to a difference in view or the product of agency expertise. 44 109 Because technological and scientific issues such as those presented in [reviewing effluent limitations] are by their very nature difficult to resolve by traditional principles of judicial decisionmaking, 45 the court  'must look at the [agency's] decision not as the chemist, biologist or statistician that [it is] qualified neither by training nor experience to be, but as a reviewing court exercising ... certain minimal standards of rationality.'  46 110 Even with regard to complex technical or scientific decisions, however, a reviewing court may not simply defer to an agency's expertise, but must steep itself in technical matters sufficiently to determine whether the agency has exercised reasoned discretion. 47 Because judicial review must be based on something more than trust and faith in EPA's experience, 48 a court may not respond to claims of technical expertise by rubber stamping an agency decision as correct. 49 111 These formulae, however, ultimately may prove to be deceptive guides. The Supreme Court's decisions seem to embody two different approaches that are, analytically in conflict 'with the result that a court of appeals must choose the one it deems more appropriate for the case at hand.'  50 In determining the degree of deference appropriate to an agency's decision, the factors to be considered include the fact-law dichotomy, despite the difficulty of drawing a precise line between fact and law; 51 whether the question to be decided is one concerning which the courts have a special competence, such as constitutional law, or one that turns on technical expertise of the kind the agency staff possesses; 52 whether the issue turns on the agency's interpretation of its own authorizing statute, which entitles it at least to guarded deference; 53 and the validity of the reasoning upon which the agency relies to justify its actions. 54 112 Either the application of these formulae or the balancing of factors praised by scholars leaves the reviewing court with a wide margin for decision. Any approach permits different possible decisions on the various issues. Our duty requires us to resolve them with the good judgment that the latitude afforded the court demands. In performing this duty, we recognize our own limitations in assessing policy decisions. 55