Opinion ID: 186132
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Sierra Club Challenges

Text: Sierra Club challenges the 2000 Rule on three grounds. We address each ground in turn.
for Existing Small Units First, Sierra Club challenges EPA’s decision to base existing small unit MACT floors on the emission limits contained in state permits. As in the 1995 Rule, in the 2000 Rule EPA based the MACT floor on the limits set for state-permitted MWC units in the particular subcategory. For each pollutant, EPA calculated the MACT floor by averaging the most stringent 12% of state permit limits in each class.15 For pollutants for which there were too few permitted units, EPA assigned a ‘‘default’’ emission level, namely, the estimated emission level of a totally uncontrolled unit. Sierra Club contends there is nothing in the record to demonstrate that state permit limits or the uncontrolled default levels reflect ‘‘the average emissions limitation achieved by the best performing 12 percent of units in the category,’’ the floor required by § 129(a)(2), 42 U.S.C. § 7429(a)(2). We agree with Sierra Club and conclude that the MACT floors for existing small units must therefore be remanded. 15EPA extracted the permit limits from its 1995 rulemaking database. EPA Permit Basis Mem. at 2 (J.A. 1757). 28 In Sierra Club v. EPA, 167 F.3d 658 (D.C. Cir. 1999), the court rejected EPA’s similar use of state permit limits to set the MACT floor for medical waste incinerators (MWIs). The court recognized that CAA § 129 may permissibly be construed ‘‘to permit the use of regulatory data’’ but only ‘‘if they allow EPA to make a reasonable estimate of the performance of the top 12 percent of units.’’ 167 F.3d at 662. The court rejected the use of such data in that case because ‘‘[a]lthough EPA said that it believed the combination of regulatory and uncontrolled data gave an accurate picture of the relevant MWIs’ performance, it never adequately said why it believed this.’’ Id. at 663. EPA fares no better here. It offered the following justification for deciding to use state permit limits: The EPA used a permit approach to determine the MACT floors in the 1995 emission guidelines (40 CFR part 60, subpart Cb) and believes that using the permit approach is appropriate for this rulemaking. Permit limits and regulatory limits provide a reasonable estimate of the actual performance of the best performing units under the worst reasonably foreseeable circumstances, making this approach consistent with the court opinion in the Sierra Club case. Permits include a margin for compliance and must be achievable. EPA Response to Comments at 75 (J.A. 2222). As in Sierra Club, EPA here stated only that it ‘‘believes’’ state permit limits reasonably reflect the actual performance of the best performing units without explaining why this is so. There is also evidence here that the MWCs, like the MWIs in Sierra Club, ‘‘might be substantially overachieving the permit limits,’’ that is, ‘‘the regulatory limits are in fact much higher than the emissions that units achieve in practice,’’ 167 F.3d at 663. See Sierra Club’s Br. at 22 (asserting, with record evidence, that EPA’s testing data show MWCs in general (and small MWCs in particular) ‘‘routinely overachieve their permit limits’’). Given the absence of evidence that the permit levels reflect the emission levels of the bestperforming 12 percent of existing MWCs and the affirmative 29 evidence that they do not, we cannot uphold the MACT floors for existing units under the CAA. In support of using state permit levels, EPA points to its determinations that emission levels are inherently variable, EPA Response to Comments (1995 Rule) (J.A. 1570), and that basing MACT floors on the Agency’s test data would not accurately reflect this variability, id. at J.A. 1633 (noting ‘‘it is not unusual for one or more of the annual tests to produce emissions that fall within the best 12–percent data, while the remaining annual test data fall outside this range’’). Even assuming actual testing data should not be used for setting MACT floors, EPA must still justify selecting state permit and uncontrolled default levels as alternative bases for the floors.
for New Small Units The CAA requires that the MACT floor for new small units be set at the ‘‘emissions control that is achieved in practice by the best controlled similar unit.’’ 42 U.S.C. § 7429(a)(2). To satisfy this requirement, EPA must ‘‘demonstrate with substantial evidence — not mere assertions’’ that the chosen floors ‘‘represent ‘a reasonable estimate of the performance of the [best-performing] units.’ ’’ Cement Kiln Recycling Coalition v. EPA, 255 F.3d 855, 866 (D.C. Cir. 2001) (quoting Sierra Club v. EPA, 167 F.3d 658, 662 (D.C. Cir. 1999)) (alteration in original). To set the floors for new small MWC units, EPA (1) reviewed available MWC emissions test data associated with all types of combustors and all types of emission control technologies currently used to control emissions of specific pollutants, (2) identified the best controlled unit and reviewed the performance of its associated control technology and (3) set the floor for each pollutant at the level of emissions that units equipped with that technology can continuously achieve in practice (based on 24–hour averaging periods or, if continuous emission monitoring was unavailable, on annual stack tests). See 59 Fed. Reg. at 48,214–16. Sierra Club asserts EPA has not demonstrated that that technology alone, without regard to other technologies or to 30 non-technology factors, achieves ‘‘the emissions control that is achieved in practice by the best controlled similar unit,’’ as CAA § 129(a)(2) requires. We agree that EPA has not shown that the technology-based approach will achieve a reasonable estimate of the emission level achieved by the best performing MWC unit and, accordingly, remand to the Agency to establish MACT floors for new units that do. Because we remand for new MACT floors, we need not consider Sierra Club’s alternate contention that the Agency should have considered how factors other than the chosen technology affect emissions. In setting the MACT floor, the EPA reasoned that ‘‘[b]e- cause MACT must be achievable and there is inherent variation in emissions among MWC units, TTT the floor emission levels are set at levels that are demonstrated to be achievable by the population of MWC units with the best technology.’’ EPA Response to Comments at 31 (J.A. 2178). This is precisely the rationale we rejected in Cement Kiln. As we explained in Cement Kiln, ‘‘[w]hile standards achievable by all sources using the MACT control might also ultimately reflect what the statutorily relevant sources achieve in practice, EPA may not deviate from [the statute’s] requirement that floors reflect what the best performers actually achieve by claiming that floors must be achievable by all sources using MACT technology.’’ Cement Kiln, 255 F.3d at 861 (citing Chevron U.S.A. Inc. v. Natural Res. Def. Council, Inc., 467 U.S. 837, 842–43 (1984)). EPA has once again improperly invoked achievability (incorrectly relying on the emission variability of all MWCs that use the technology rather than on the variability of the best performing unit) to gloss over the actual achievement requirement.
Finally, Sierra Club raises three objections to EPA’s beyond-the-floor standards. First, Sierra Club asserts that in deciding whether to set beyond-the-floor standards for certain pollutants — namely Hazardous Air Pollutant (HAP) metals (mercury, lead and cadmium) and dioxins — EPA 31 failed to consider ‘‘nonair quality health and environmental impacts,’’ such as the impacts of deposition, persistence and bioaccumulation, as required under 42 U.S.C. § 7429(a)(2). Second, Sierra Club contends EPA failed to require precombustion separation of pollutants from the waste as required by CAA § 129(a)(3), which provides that standards ‘‘shall be based on methods and technologies for removal or destruction of pollutants before, during, or after combustion.’’ 42 U.S.C. § 7429(a)(3). And third, Sierra Club challenges EPA’s decision to set ‘‘no-control’’ floors and beyond-the-floor standards for nitrogen oxide emissions from new and existing Class II MWC units. These no-control standards, according to Sierra Club, violate 42 U.S.C. § 7429(a)(4) and (a)(2), as well as our holding in National Lime Ass’n v. EPA, 233 F.3d 625 (D.C. Cir. 2000). In light of our remand of all of the MACT floors, we need not address these objections at this time. As Sierra Club’s counsel acknowledged at oral argument, the Agency’s beyond-the-floor determinations cannot be evaluated if, as we have concluded, the MACT floors themselves were improperly set.