Opinion ID: 185450
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Significant Contribution

Text: 30 Industry petitioners also allege that the TAs are arbitrary because they rely upon emission inventories that are substantially different from those that were used to make the initial contribution findings for the NOx SIP Call. Essentially, petitioners argue that because the TAs changed the underlying state emission inventories and budgets, thereby altering the relative contributions of upwind states to downwind nonattainment, the EPA was obligated to reevaluate its significant contribution findings for each of the affected states. For example, the TAs decreased the 2007 baseline emissions for West Virginia, an upwind state, and increased baseline emissions for New York, a downwind state. Due to this change, petitioners contend, the EPA could not continue to assume that West Virginia contributes to New York nonattainment without additional analysis. 31 It is black-letter administrative law that [a]bsent special circumstances, a party must initially present its comments to the agency during the rulemaking in order for the court to consider the issue. Tex Tin Corp. v. EPA, 935 F.2d 1321, 1323 (D.C. Cir. 1991) (citing Eagle-Picher Indus. v. EPA, 822 F.2d 132, 146 (D.C. Cir. 1987)). Generalized objections to agency action or objections raised at the wrong time or in the wrong docket will not do. An objection must be made with sufficient specificity reasonably to alert the agency. Id. An agency cannot be faulted for failing to address such issues that were not raised by petitioners. Petitioners waived their argument, and can cite no special circumstances to justify their waiver. 32 Petitioners are able to cite no comments that were in the relevant docket that raise the significant contribution issue. For example, petitioners note that the West Virginia Manufacturers Association argued that [i]f EPA has in fact made adjustments to the inventories, we believe that this would dramatically affect the modeled impact of the contribution of upwind states and sources to downwind ozone nonattainment. The problem is that this document was submitted to the dockets for the section 126 and FIP rulemakings, and was not part of the TA rulemaking. Petitioners do cite other documents which were part of the relevant rulemaking, but these documents do not address the significant contribution argument. This is insufficient; notice does not operate by osmosis. Having failed to raise their concern in the relevant agency docket, petitioners could perhaps have cured their waiver by seeking reconsideration before the EPA, but they did not. Thus, petitioners waived their argument that the EPA was required to revisit its significant contribution findings.