Opinion ID: 445224
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The understanding of Congress

Text: 28 A revealing paragraph in the committee report on the Senate bill suggests that the EPA administrator, once having waived a new fuel or fuel additive into commerce under section 211(f)(4), may not revoke a waiver under that same section: 29 The committee was mindful that the Administrator could choose not to act on the waiver application within the 180 days provided for such action. If the Administrator does fail to act under subsection (d) [now subsection (f) ] to either grant, conditionally grant, or deny the waiver, it does not diminish the Administrator's power to act against the fuel or fuel additive through the application of the provisions of subsection (c) of this section. 52 30 Congress, according to this passage, understood that waivers granted by default could not be revoked; rather, the Administrator must initiate appropriate proceedings pursuant to section 211(c) if he wants to control or prohibit a fuel or fuel additive waived into commerce. 31 EPA agrees with this reading of the quoted paragraph, but believes its logic is limited to waivers granted automatically after 180 days: 32 There is absolutely no indication that the committee gave any thought to what remedies EPA might pursue if it appeared that its affirmative decision that the applicant had satisfied section 211(f)(4) had been based on serious factual mistakes. In contrast, waivers granted under the 180-day provision do not involve any affirmative decision that could be called into question or reconsidered later. 53 33 EPA's reading of the Senate Report, however, would have the perverse and presumably unintended effect of according the greatest deference to the least thought-out waivers. To permit revocation only of waivers granted after due consideration would inexplicably insulate from reconsideration waivers granted by operation of law and without any thought on the agency's part. Waivers granted after the statutorily-prescribed determination that the fuel or fuel additive will not cause or contribute to a failure of any emission control device or system ... to achieve compliance ... with emission standards 54 would be open to revocation at any time, based on any evidence, subject to no substantive or procedural safeguards. We cannot believe that Congress would countenance such an ill-conceived revisory power. 34 We have held that agencies have an inherent power to correct their mistakes by reconsidering their decisions within the period available for taking an appeal. 55 That period has long expired here. We need not consider what further inherent or implicit authority might exist in the abstract, since, in the present case, Congress has provided a mechanism for correcting error by authorizing under section 211(c) control or prohibition of fuels and fuel additives mistakenly waived into commerce under section 211(f). 35 Thus, when Congress has provided a mechanism capable of rectifying mistaken actions, in this case by authorizing under section 211(c) control or prohibition of fuels and fuel additives mistakenly waived into commerce under section 211(f), it is not reasonable to infer authority to reconsider agency action. This  'common sense'  56 observation recalls the maxim frequently invoked by the Supreme Court in construing statutes: 57 expressio unius est exclusio alterius, that is, mention of one thing implies exclusion of another thing. 58 As the Supreme Court stated in National Railroad Passenger Corporation v. National Association of Railroad Passengers (Amtrak), 59  '[w]hen a statute limits a thing to be done in a particular mode, it includes the negative of any other mode.'  60 Thus, while Congress may have wanted the Administrator to correct his mistakes, it provided a mechanism sufficient to this task in section 211(c). It further understood this mechanism as the exclusive means by which he was to correct waivers mistakenly granted by default. We therefore see no need to imply authority under section 211(f) to reconsider waivers granted after due deliberation. What suffices to correct waivers mistakenly granted by default should also suffice to correct the (hopefully) far smaller proportion of waivers mistakenly granted after careful consideration.