Opinion ID: 529912
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Chevron Step I: Is the Statute Clear?

Text: 49 We repeat the mandate of Sec. 3004(m)(1): the Administrator is required to promulgate regulations specifying those levels or methods of treatment, if any, which substantially diminish the toxicity of the waste or substantially reduce the likelihood of migration of hazardous constitutents from the waste so that short-term and long-term threats to human health and the environment are minimized. 42 U.S.C. Sec. 6924(m)(1). 50 CMA reads the statute as requiring EPA to determine the levels of concentration in waste at which the various solvents here at issue are safe and to use those screening levels as floors below which treatment would not be required. CMA supports its interpretation with the observation that the statute directs EPA to set standards only to the extent that threats to human health and the environment are minimized. We are unpersuaded, however, that Congress intended to compel EPA to rely upon screening levels in preference to the levels achievable by BDAT. 51 The statute directs EPA to set treatment standards based upon either levels or methods of treatment. Such a mandate makes clear that the choice whether to use levels (screening levels) or methods (BDAT) lies within the informed discretion of the agency, as long as the result is that short-term and long-term threats to human health and the environment are minimized. To minimize something is, to quote the Oxford English Dictionary, to reduce [it] to the smallest possible amount, extent, or degree. But Congress recognized, in the very amendments here at issue, that there are long-term uncertainties associated with land disposal, 42 U.S.C. Sec. 6924(d)(1)(A). In the face of such uncertainties, it cannot be said that a statute that requires that threats be minimized unambigously requires EPA to set levels at which it is conclusively presumed that no threat to health or the environment exists. 52 Nor are we at all persuaded by CMA's interpretation of NRDC v. EPA, 824 F.2d 1146, 1163 (D.C.Cir.1987) (en banc ), in which we held that EPA was not permitted to substitute[ ] technological feasibility for health as the primary consideration under Section 112 [of the Clean Air Act]. That provision requires the Administrator to set air pollution standards at the level which in his judgment provides an ample margin of safety to protect the public health. 42 U.S.C. Sec. 7412(b)(1)(B). EPA had set emission standards for vinyl chloride, however, based solely on the level attainable by the best available control technology, 824 F.2d at 1149, despite its finding that such levels would create health risks. It had neither stated that the risks it found were insignificant, nor explained how the risks it accepted were consistent with its statutory duty to provide an ample margin of safety. Id. This court held that EPA had erred in failing to consider whether the best available technology was sufficient to provide the statutorily mandated margin of safety. Id. at 1164-66. 53 Contrary to CMA's implication, however, the court did not hold, or even imply, the converse--that EPA could not require generators to use technologies that would reduce emissions to a point below that which would provide an ample margin of safety. Indeed, the court noted that Congress ... recognized in section 112 that the determination of what is 'safe' will always be marked by scientific uncertainty and thus exhorted the Administration to set ... standards that will provide an 'ample margin' of safety, id. at 1165; we then concluded that [o]nce 'safety' is assured, the Administrator should be free to diminish as much of the statistically determined risk as possible by setting the standard at the lowest feasible level. Id. 54 This is not to say that EPA is free, under Sec. 3004(m), to require generators to treat their waste beyond the point at which there is no threat to human health or to the environment. That Congress's concern in adopting Sec. 3004(m) was with health and the environment would necessarily make it unreasonable for EPA to promulgate treatment standards wholly without regard to whether there might be a threat to man or nature. That concern is better dealt with, however, at Chevron 's second step; for, having concluded that the statute does not unambiguously and in all circumstances foreclose EPA from adopting treatment levels based upon the levels achievable by BDAT, we must now explore whether the particular levels established by the regulations supply a reasonable resolution of the statutory ambiguity. 55