Opinion ID: 2804920
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: mississippi

Text: The State of Mississippi challenges the EPA’s use of 2008 to 2010 data to classify the counties within the Memphis, Tennessee area, an analysis that resulted in a nonattainment 32 designation for part of DeSoto County, Mississippi. Because we conclude that the EPA’s actions were rational and in accordance with the Clean Air Act, we deny Mississippi’s petition for review.
In Mississippi and elsewhere, the EPA conducted the designations for metropolitan areas through a two-step process. First, the EPA examined air-quality data from all regulatory monitors in a metropolitan area. If no monitors in the area showed a NAAQS violation, no county in the area would be designated nonattainment. In that event, there would be no second step. But if a single monitor from the area showed a NAAQS violation, the county housing the violating monitor would be designated nonattainment. See 2008 Guidance at 3– 4. In that case, the EPA would proceed to the second step for that metropolitan area. The second step took account of the fact that the Act mandates nonattainment designations not only for areas themselves exceeding the relevant NAAQS, but also for all areas that “contribute[]” to a NAAQS violation in a “nearby area,” even if the “contributing” area’s air quality—considered alone—meets the NAAQS. See 42 U.S.C. § 7407(d)(1)(A)(i); 2008 Guidance at 3–4. In the second step, the EPA assessed each county in a metropolitan area with a violating monitor on a case-by-case basis to determine if the county contributed to the identified violation. If, on the basis of a multi-factor test, the EPA determined that a county “contributed” to the NAAQS exceedance at the violating monitor in another county, the EPA also designated the contributing county as nonattainment. We have repeatedly upheld multi-factor contribution analyses as consistent with the Act’s designation process under section 107—a conclusion that Mississippi does not challenge here. 33 See, e.g., ATK Launch Sys., 669 F.3d 330; Catawba Cnty., 571 F.3d 20. See generally supra § II. In 2011 and 2012, the EPA conducted that two-step designation process for the Memphis CBSA. The Memphis CBSA consists of several counties in Tennessee (Shelby, Tipton, and Fayette), Mississippi (DeSoto, Marshall, Tate, and Tunica), and Arkansas (Crittenden). See Office of Mgmt. & Budget, OMB Bulletin No. 10-02, Update of Statistical Area Definitions and Guidance on Their Uses 40 (Dec. 1, 2009). At the first step, the EPA evaluated 2008 to 2010 certified air-quality data and detected a NAAQS violation at the monitor in Shelby County, Tennessee. Proceeding to the second step, the EPA conducted the multi-factor analysis and determined that part of DeSoto County, Mississippi, contributed to the Shelby County violation. On December 9, 2011, the EPA notified Mississippi that it planned to designate part of DeSoto County as nonattainment when it promulgated the final designations in 2012. The EPA invited Mississippi (and all other states) to provide to the agency by February 29, 2012, any additional information for consideration in the final designation process—including any early-certified 2011 data. See Memphis, TN-MS-AR Area Designations for the 2008 Ozone NAAQS 3–4 [hereinafter Memphis Area Designations]. Mississippi responded to the EPA’s multi-factor analysis with its own multi-factor analysis, disputing the EPA’s conclusion that DeSoto County contributed to any violation in Shelby County. Additionally, Mississippi and Tennessee—two of the three states in the Memphis CBSA—early-certified their 2011 data before the February 29, 2012, deadline. Arkansas—the third state in the Memphis CBSA—declined to early-certify any 2011 data. 34 On May 21, 2012, the EPA published its final designations for the Memphis CBSA. At the first step of the two-step designation process, the agency used 2008 to 2010 data and again identified a violation at the Shelby County monitor. The EPA then moved to the second step and, after considering Mississippi’s multi-factor analysis and updating its own analysis accordingly, reiterated its original conclusion that part of DeSoto County contributed to the Shelby County violation. The agency therefore designated part of DeSoto County as nonattainment. See Memphis Area Designations at 16. Mississippi claims that designation was arbitrary and capricious. We disagree.
Designation Process First, Mississippi argues that the EPA acted arbitrarily in using 2008 to 2010 data for the first step of the two-step designation process (i.e., identifying violating monitors within a CBSA) even though the EPA possessed early-certified 2011 data from Tennessee. The 2009 to 2011 data showed no NAAQS violation at the Shelby County monitor. Accordingly, Mississippi argues, no violation should have been identified at the first step of the two-step designation process. But the EPA declined to evaluate Shelby County using the early-certified 2009 to 2011 data, instead using the 2008 to 2010 data. True, the EPA must adequately explain why it declined to rely on the early-certified 2011 data. See City of Waukesha, 320 F.3d at 248. But the agency did so. At the time of the final designations, the EPA had in its possession early-certified data from Mississippi and Tennessee, but not from Arkansas. In the first step of its two-step designation process, the EPA evaluates all air-quality monitors in a metropolitan area. Without 2011 Arkansas data, 35 the EPA did not have a full set of 2011 data for the Memphis CBSA. The EPA only had data from different time horizons—2008 to 2010 data for the Arkansas portion of the Memphis CBSA, and 2009 to 2011 data for the Tennessee and Mississippi portions of that same CBSA. The agency declined to rely on this mismatched dataset. Instead, the EPA opted to rely on the most recent matched dataset in its possession: the complete set of 2008 to 2010 data. We see no reason—and Mississippi provides none—to declare irrational the EPA’s conclusion that comparing data from the same time period would be more appropriate than analyzing data from different time periods in the same evaluation process. Cognizant of the substantial deference we owe the EPA in that highly technical evaluation, see Catawba Cnty., 571 F.3d at 41, we find the EPA was entitled to rely on a matched dataset instead of a mismatched one. Even assuming the EPA’s choice to rely only on matched datasets for the Memphis CBSA was reasonable (as we conclude it to be), Mississippi argues that the EPA’s approach nonetheless was arbitrary because the agency required a matched dataset for Memphis-area designations but allegedly relied on a mismatched dataset for Chicago-area designations. “[I]nconsistent treatment,” we have found, is a “hallmark of arbitrary agency action.” Id. at 51. There was no inconsistent treatment here, however. In both Chicago and Memphis, the EPA relied only on matched datasets in the designation process. With regard to the Chicago metropolitan area, Illinois early-certified its 2011 data. Wisconsin and Indiana—portions of which also lie in the Chicago metropolitan area—did not early-certify. Illinois’s early-certified data showed a violating monitor in the Chicago area. At the first step of the Chicago-area designation 36 process, the EPA relied on Illinois’s early-certified data, noted the violation, and thus proceeded to the second step’s multi-factor contribution analysis for all Chicago-area counties. Mississippi argues that, because the EPA only possessed early-certified data from Illinois, it used a mismatched dataset for Chicago’s designations. Consequently, Mississippi claims that the EPA took different approaches to dataset selection between Memphis and Chicago. Mississippi’s argument rests on a flawed understanding of the EPA’s designation process. At the first step of the process, a single violating monitor suffices to conclude the analysis and move to the second step. Though only Illinois had early-certified its data, that data showed a violating monitor. That was enough to terminate the first step of the process and move to the second step. It thus became irrelevant whether Wisconsin or Indiana data showed any violations: the EPA would proceed to the second step of the analysis regardless, based on the Illinois violation alone. The EPA therefore had a sufficient matched dataset of 2009 to 2011 data (albeit data from only one state, Illinois) to proceed to the second step of the designation process using 2009 to 2011 data alone. By contrast, the EPA had no matched dataset of 2009 to 2011 data in the Memphis area sufficient to complete the first step of the two-step process using that data alone. While data showing a single violating monitor are enough to end the first step and proceed to the second step, data showing all monitors in compliance would be needed to avoid proceeding to the second step’s multi-factor analysis—i.e., to terminate the two-step process at the first step. As a result, when Arkansas declined to early-certify its 2011 data, the EPA could not determine if the entire Memphis CBSA showed NAAQS compliance at all monitors for the 37 2009 to 2011 period; the agency lacked a sufficient 2009 to 2011 matched dataset with which to do so. The EPA then relied on the most recent matched dataset sufficient to complete the first-step analysis (the 2008 to 2010 data), just as the EPA selected the most recent matched dataset sufficient for the first-step analysis of the Chicago area. The EPA therefore acted in a consistent manner in both areas, each time using the most recent matched datasets sufficient to complete the first step of the two-step designation process.
Designation Process Mississippi also challenges the EPA’s application of the second step of the designation process. The EPA acted arbitrarily, the state argues, in applying the multi-factor test and concluding that DeSoto County contributed to the Shelby County violation. We find no reason to disturb the EPA’s analysis. First, Mississippi challenges the EPA’s differing articulations of the multi-factor test. As pronounced in the 2008 Guidance, the EPA originally conceived of that test as consisting of nine factors. In making the final designations, the EPA applied a five-factor test. See supra § I.B–C, The state argues that the EPA’s “consolidat[ion]” of the test from nine to five factors was arbitrary and capricious. State & County Br. 15. We disagree. At the outset, we do not necessarily agree that the EPA was required to adhere to the 2008 Guidance. The 2008 Guidance did not purport to be a legislative rule, and it explicitly provided that it was “not binding on states, tribes, the public or the EPA.” 2008 Guidance at 4; cf. Catawba Cnty., 571 F.3d at 33–34 (materially similar guidance for PM2.5 38 NAAQS designations did not “create or modify legally binding rights”). But even if we assume that the 2008 Guidance was binding, the EPA did not deviate from it in the final designations. The “consolidation” of the factors was just that—a consolidation. It effected no deletion. During the final designation process, the agency simply grouped several of the 2008 Guidance factors into a single factor, the consideration of which necessarily entailed consideration of the multiple 2008 Guidance factors now residing within it. We find no examples of a final designation that failed to consider a factor identified in the 2008 Guidance. With “no bright line for any of the factors,” and with each factor “weighted considering the unique circumstances of each nonattainment area,” Response to Comments at 61, the consolidation worked no substantive change and thus affords no basis for setting aside the EPA’s analysis. Second, Mississippi challenges the EPA’s specific application of the multi-factor test to DeSoto County. We accord the EPA “extreme deference” in applying that test, and will overturn the EPA’s designations only if the agency applied the test “so erroneously in a particular case that it could not have reasonably concluded that a county was contributing to nearby violations.” Catawba Cnty., 571 F.3d at 40–41. This is not such a case. The agency provided data showing that DeSoto County’s NOx and SO2 (ozone precursors) emissions were the second-highest in the Memphis CBSA. Memphis Area Designations at 8. The county also had the second highest number of workers commuting to counties with violating monitors, the second highest number of vehicle miles traveled in the CBSA, and the highest percentage population growth over the last decade. Those factors led the EPA to conclude that DeSoto County was integrated with Shelby 39 County in a way that indicated ozone contribution. Id. at 9– 10. Additionally, meteorological analysis at the Shelby County monitor showed weather patterns characterized in part by winds blowing in from DeSoto County. Id. at 12. On those bases, the EPA reasonably concluded that DeSoto County contributed to the Shelby County violation. Mississippi principally argues that significant “commerce activity” occurring outside of DeSoto County (including interstate highway traffic, rail and barge transportation, diesel fuel sales, and air traffic) means that other counties contribute to the Shelby County violation more than DeSoto County does—and that, because some of those counties avoided nonattainment designations, DeSoto County should, too. Miss. Dep’t of Envtl. Quality, Air Div., 2008 Ozone Standard Designation Recommendation for DeSoto County, Mississippi 8–12 (Feb. 2012). But the EPA considered that argument and determined in a well-reasoned analysis that the data from Mississippi was only one consideration in the designation process. See Response to Comments at 97; see also Memphis Area Designations 1–31. The EPA concluded that DeSoto County did contribute to Shelby County’s violation in light of the many other factors the agency considered. Memphis Area Designations at 16. Looking at the same data, Mississippi would simply reach a different conclusion. We, however, do not sit to second-guess the EPA’s conclusions in an area identified by the Congress as within the agency’s technical expertise. We only ask if the EPA “considered all relevant factors and articulated a rational connection between the facts found and the choice made.” ATK Launch Sys., 669 F.3d at 336 (internal quotation marks omitted). We conclude that it did. 40 With that conclusion, and having considered Mississippi’s other challenges and determined that they lack merit, we deny the state’s petition for review. See Catawba Cnty., 571 F.3d at 52.