Opinion ID: 186114
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Challenges to Final Standards

Text: 50
51 The CAA requires — as a second step in the technology-based analysis — that EPA consider whether beyond-the-floor standards are necessary under Section 7412(d)(2) to augment the minimum standard set under Section 7412(d)(3). When considering whether to implement any such additional measures, EPA must tak[e] into consideration the cost of achieving such emission reduction, and any non-air quality health and environmental impacts and energy requirements. 42 U.S.C. § 7412(d)(2). 52 1. Sierra Club challenges EPA's rejection of ore selection as a basis for imposing a beyond-the-floor standard. It argues that EPA should require primary copper smelters to use cleaner copper ore in order to achieve the maximum degree of reduction in HAPs under Section 7412(d)(2). Pet. Br. at 32. EPA argued that it properly rejected ore-switching as a beyond-the-floor measure because (1) it is not permitted to consider ore-switching as a control strategy, and (2) substitution of cleaner ore stocks is not feasible. Resp. Br. at 28-29. 53 The CAA specifically includes substitution of materials as one of the means of reducing pollution, 42 U.S.C. § 7412(d)(2)(A), lending support to Sierra Club's view that EPA should have considered ore-switching. Legislative history, however, may be consulted to shed new light on congressional intent, notwithstanding statutory language that appears superficially clear. National Rifle Ass'n v. Reno, 216 F.3d 122, 127 (D.C.Cir.2000) (internal quotation marks omitted). EPA directs the court to the 1990 Amendments Conference Committee Report to support its contention that it is not permitted to consider ore-switching. See Resp. Br. at 28. 1 The Joint Explanatory Statement provides: 54 For categories and subcategories of sources of [HAPs] engaged in mining, extraction, beneficiation, and processing of nonferrous ores, concentrates, minerals, metals, and related in-process materials, the Administrator shall not consider the substitution of, or other changes in, metal- or mineral-bearing raw materials that are used as feedstocks or material inputs ... in setting emission standards, work practice standards, operating standards or other prohibitions or requirements or limitations under this section for such categories and subcategories. 55 Joint Explanatory Statement of the Committee of Conference, H.R.Rep. No. 101-952, at 339 (1990). 56 We need not resolve the statutory question, however, because EPA explained that the substitution of cleaner ore stocks was not, in any event, a feasible basis on which to set emission standards. Metallic impurity levels are variable and unpredictable both from mine to mine and within specific ore deposits, Proposed Rule, 63 Fed. Reg. at 19,592/2-3, thereby precluding ore-switching as a predictable and consistent control strategy. EPA also determined that there are no commercial-scale pretreatment processes available for removing or reducing the metallic HAP contained in the copper concentrate. Id. at 19,601. We conclude that EPA reasonably refused to set beyond-the-floor standards that were based on a requirement that smelters switch ore supplies. 57 2. Sierra Club also challenges EPA's refusal to set beyond-the-floor PM limits for fugitive HAP emissions at the 1986 national emission standard for HAPs (NESHAP) level for copper smelters. According to Sierra Club, EPA's refusal was arbitrary and capricious, because the 1986 NESHAP is an achievable standard under Section 7412(d)(2). See Pet. Br. at 33. 58 The 1986 NESHAP level reflects emission standards promulgated under a risk-based methodology — the methodology used prior to the 1990 Amendments' switch to technology-based standards. The CAA now requires that beyond-the-floor standards be achievable and provides a framework for analyzing achievability, including consideration of cost, energy requirements, and other factors. 42 U.S.C. § 7412(d)(2). The 1986 NESHAP standard did not go through that process. When the 1986 NESHAP standard was proposed, only one smelter was actually subject to it, and that smelter ceased operations in 1985, before the standard took effect. National Emissions Standards for Hazardous Air Pollutants: Standards for Inorganic Arsenic, 51 Fed. Reg. 27,956, 27,957 (Aug. 4, 1986) (codified at 40 C.F.R. pt. 61). 2 EPA acted reasonably in not adopting a beyond-the-floor standard promulgated under a totally different risk-based regime with very limited evidence of achievability. 59 3. Sierra Club also argues that the final regulation is arbitrary and capricious because EPA failed to respond to a commenter's contention that a beyond-the-floor standard of 23 mg/dscm should be set for copper concentrate dryers. The commenter argued that one state air permit limits dryer PM emissions to 23 mg/dscm, so the limit was evidently achievable. Arizona Center for Law in the Public Interest, A-96-22 Item No. IV-D-8, Comments on Proposed National Emissions Standards for Primary Copper Smelters 7 (July 20, 1998). EPA specifically noted the commenter's contention. EPA Background Document, at 2-9. Indeed, EPA factored the 23 mg/dscm limit in to its determination of the 50 mg/dscm limit achieved by the five best-performing sources. Id. at 2-11. EPA then went on to explain that there are no reasonable alternatives beyond the MACT floor for control of process particulate emissions from existing copper concentrate dryers. Id. Simply asserting, as the commenter did, that the state permit limit was evidently achievable did not compel any additional rejoinder from EPA. As we recently explained in rejecting another effort to fault EPA for not considering beyond-the-floor measures: 60 There ... doesn't appear to be any evidence in the record about the costs of the pollution prevention measures the Sierra Club advocates. In the absence of any type of quantification of benefits or costs, the Administrator had no basis for finding that, taking into account the cost, emissions reductions from pollution prevention programs were achievable as the statute uses the word. 61 Sierra Club, 167 F.3d at 666. Accordingly, we reject Sierra Club's challenge to the adequacy of EPA's response to this particular comment.
62 Sierra Club alleges that EPA refused to consider non-air quality health and environmental impacts, as required under Section 7412(d)(2). Sierra Club interprets this provision to require EPA to consider the impacts of deposition, persistence, toxicity and bioaccumulation of metal HAP emissions on people, wildlife and the environment. Pet. Br. at 36. In other words, non-air quality ... impacts are just like air quality impacts, except that the impact is not delivered directly through the air but instead, for example, by deposition — the eventual settling of HAPs on the ground. EPA takes a different view — that `non-air quality ... impacts' refers to any health and environmental impacts ... that may result directly or indirectly from measures that will achieve the emission reductions. Resp. Br. at 31. In other words, non-air quality... impacts are those that result from the required efforts to control the air quality impacts of the underlying manufacturing process. 63 Congress did not define non-air quality... impacts, so we will defer to EPA's construction of the ambiguous statutory language, so long as it is reasonable. Chevron U.S.A., Inc. v. NRDC, 467 U.S. 837, 842-43, 104 S.Ct. 2778, 2781-82, 81 L.Ed.2d 694 (1984). It is. The statute groups consideration of non-air quality... impacts with consideration of the cost of achieving such emission reduction and energy requirements. 42 U.S.C. § 7412(d)(2). This context strongly supports EPA's interpretation of non-air quality ... impacts to mean the by-products of the control technology — just as additional cost or energy needs are by-products of controlling air quality impacts. See Washington State Dep't of Soc. & Health Servs. v. Guardianship Estate of Keffeler, 537 U.S. 371, 384-85, 123 S.Ct. 1017, 1025-26, 154 L.Ed.2d 972 (2003). 64 Second, there is no apparent reason to suppose that Congress would have required immediate consideration of health and environmental impacts caused by, say, deposition of HAPs, while postponing consideration of the more direct health and environmental impacts caused by emission of HAPs into the air until the second stage of standard promulgation under the CAA. As discussed, the 1990 Amendments established a two-phase approach to promulgating emission standards. The first phase — at issue in this case — requires a technology-based approach. See 42 U.S.C. § 7412(d). The second phase occurs eight years later and involves a risk-based approach. See id. § 7412(f)(2)(A) (Emissions standards promulgated under this subsection shall provide an ample margin of safety to protect public health....). That risk-based analysis requires EPA to consider, inter alia, public health and adverse environmental effects, id. — precisely what Sierra Club contends EPA must consider now with respect to non-air quality impacts. Sierra Club's interpretation would collapse the technology-based/risk-based distinction at the heart of the Act, undermining the central purpose of the 1990 Amendments — to facilitate the near-term implementation of emission standards through technology-based solutions. In doing so, that interpretation would reintroduce the very problem Congress sought to exorcize — that the pursuit of the perfect (risk-based standards) had defeated timely achievement of the good (technology-based standards). EPA's reading of the statute is reasonable.