Opinion ID: 411109
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The Primacy of Sec. 402 in the Legislative Scheme

Text: 62 The Wildlife Federation also argues that the definitions of pollutant and addition should be read broadly because the NPDES permit program is Congress' preferred method of water pollution control and would have been applied to all sources of pollution had Congress thought that it was technologically feasible to do so. 59 There is indeed some basis in the legislative history for the position that Congress viewed the NPDES program as its most effective weapon against pollution. Prior to 1972, federal water pollution law had required the states, under EPA oversight, to develop water quality standards and then limit industrial and municipal discharges so as to meet those standards. This system proved inadequate. It was costly, slow, and complicated to determine the effluent limits needed to maintain water quality. Many states did not set effluent limits and enforcement was all but nonexistent. 60 The 1972 Act made technology-based effluent limits, rather than water quality standards, the basis of pollution prevention and elimination because they were the best available mechanism to control water pollution. S.Rep. at 8, 1972 Leg.Hist. 1426, 1972 U.S. Cong. & Ad.News at 3675. 61 63 Nonetheless, it does not appear that Congress wanted to apply the NPDES system wherever feasible. Had it wanted to do so, it could easily have chosen suitable language, e.g., all pollution released through a point source. Instead, as we have seen, the NPDES system was limited to addition of pollutants from a point source. 64 The legislative history of the 1977 amendments further bolsters the view that the division of pollution control efforts between discharge permits under Sec. 402 and areawide waste management plans under Sec. 208 was not just a device for separating out pollution sources amenable to NPDES technological controls. Rather, Congress viewed state pollution control programs under Sec. 208 as in part an experiment in the effectiveness of state regulation. See S.Rep. No. 370, 95th Cong., 1st Sess. 8-9, 1977 Leg.Hist. 635, 642-43 (1977 S.Rep.) 1977 U.S. Code Cong. & Ad.News, 4326, 4334-35: 65 In 1972, the Congress made a clear and precise distinction between point sources, which would be subject to direct Federal regulation, and nonpoint sources, control of which was specifically reserved to State and local governments through the section 208 process. 66 .... 67 Between requiring regulatory authority for nonpoint sources, or continuing the section 208 experiment, the committee chose the latter course, judging that these matters were appropriately left to the level of government closest to the sources of the problem. 68 The Senate Report also expresses a positive intent to leave certain pollution problems to the states, at least for the time being: 69 Section 208 ... may not be adequate. It may be that the States will be reluctant to develop [adequate] control measures ... and it may be that some time in the future a Federal presence can be justified and afforded. 70 But for the moment, it is both necessary and appropriate to make a distinction as to the kinds of activities that are to be regulated by the Federal Government and the kinds of activities which are to be subject to some measure of local control. 71 Id. at 10, 1977 Leg.Hist. 644, 1977 U.S.Code Cong. & Ad.News at 4336. Consistent with this view of its intent to give the states a chance to show that they could do the job, we note that Congress chose to exempt irrigation return flows from the NPDES program even though they were amenable to point source control. Clean Water Act of 1977, Sec. 33(c), 33 U.S.C. Sec. 1342(l); see Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc. v. Costle, 186 U.S.D.C.App. 147, 568 F.2d 1369, 1372-73 (1977) (discussing prior NPDES permit requirements for irrigation return flows). 72 In short, the admittedly important place of the NPDES permit program in the Clean Water Act does not convince us that EPA's interpretation of its scope, as far as dam-caused pollution is concerned, is unreasonable. 62 73