Opinion ID: 501652
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Original Design and Construction as One Stack

Text: 144 A person with only the notoriously risky little knowledge of our air pollution control laws might suppose that the pollution effects of this exclusion must be de minimis. After all, we are talking only of post-1970 stacks, and original-design post-1970 stacks should be attached to post-1970 plants, which in turn should be subject to NSPS emissions rates. If SIPs are unlikely to impose stricter controls than NSPS, then nothing would be at stake. 145 NRDC asserts, however, that as many as 56 post-1970 plants are not covered by NSPS, and it appears that of these 25 have a combined stack as part of their original design. ICF Inc., Final Analysis of the Proposed Stack Height Regulations, June 1985, Appendix D, reprinted in NRDC Brief, Addendum B. EPA appears not to contest the point, and indeed has not invoked the de minimis concept to justify its decision. Accordingly, we plunge ahead on the premise that something of moment is at issue. 146 The agency provides three arguments in support of this exemption. Each of them appears to us, for one reason or another, to misfire. While we do not by any means find that the EPA's conclusion is in violation of statutory authority, we are unable to conclude that it rests upon reasoned decisionmaking. See SEC v. Chenery Corp., 332 U.S. 194, 196, 67 S.Ct. 1575, 1577, 91 L.Ed. 1995 (1947) (We may not supply a reasoned basis for the agency's action that the agency itself has not given.); Greater Boston Television Corp. v. FCC, 444 F.2d 841, 851 (D.C.Cir.1970), cert. denied, 403 U.S. 923, 91 S.Ct. 2229, 29 L.Ed.2d 701 (1971) (the court must intervene if the agency has not genuinely engaged in reasoned decisionmaking). 147 First, EPA rests on the text of our opinion in Sierra Club and on concepts of ordinary language. It notes that original design characteristics do not increase plume rise, so that, it says, they cannot be dispersion techniques. 50 Fed.Reg. at 27,903. It cites Sierra Club 's references to dispersion techniques as alterations to the stack, changes in stack dimensions, and improvements in support of this reading of the statutory language. EPA Brief at 60, citing 719 F.2d at 462-64. 148 We think the observations of Sierra Club on the subject are highly inconclusive. The passages cited by the EPA appear to have been merely mentioning examples, not attempting an exhaustive list. Elsewhere the court used potentially more inclusive language. See 719 F.2d at 462 (noting that the statutory term would reach the use of devices ... when they are significantly motivated by an intent to gain emissions credit for greater dispersion). 149 So far as ordinary language is concerned, clearly nothing inherently prevents the term dispersion technique from encompassing a practice adopted during the facility design phase. Moreover, the statute itself does not use the term increase, with its connotation of change from the levels produced by an existing condition. That term appears only in the EPA's definition of dispersion technique. 40 C.F.R. Sec. 51.1(hh)(1)(iii) (any technique which attempts to affect the concentration of a pollutant in the ambient air by ... [i]ncreasing final exhaust gas plume rise by ... selective handling of exhaust gas streams). 150 Second, the EPA argues that treatment of original design stacks as dispersion techniques raises insuperable administrative difficulties, namely determining what stack configuration a firm would have adopted in lieu of a unified stack. Indeed, EPA could not necessarily assume that the size of the plant's units would have been the same. Cf. Sierra Club, 719 F.2d at 462 (endorsing exemption of a class of practices if the agency could demonstrate that attainment of the statutory goals is impossible). As articulated by EPA, however, these difficulties do not seem enough standing alone. NRDC has suggested one plausible solution, that of using average plume rise as of 1970 as a proxy for normal plume rise. NRDC Brief at 62 n. 121. Indeed, the agency's August 1984 draft of the current regulations would have established assumptions as to normal plume rise for source categories through a comparative analysis of stack parameters. Rebuttal Comments 61, J.A. 865. EPA's rejection of both these alternatives is unexplained, leaving the claim of undue enforcement difficulty inadequately supported. 151 Finally, the agency asserts that stacks are often merged pursuant to original facility design for legitimate economic or engineering reasons. It points out, for instance, that it is less expensive to build one large stack than three smaller stacks, and also less costly to fit one stack with pollution control equipment than to install such equipment in multiple stacks. 50 Fed.Reg. at 27,903. EPA suggests that because there are legitimate nondispersion-related reasons for merging gas streams, and mergers for the purpose of increasing plume rise are only a theoretical possibility, its decision to exempt all originally designed merged streams is justified. 152 The difficulty with this argument is that, given other data in the record, it appears not to satisfy EPA's own test of intent to obtain dispersion benefits. NRDC points to evidence indicating that power plants have long realized that merged gas streams can significantly increase plume rise, and that firms have purposefully designed plants to take advantage of this increased dispersion since the early 1960s. A.J. Clarke, The Application of Air Pollution Research to Power Station Design, Phil. Transactions (Roy.Soc.London), Nov. 13, 1969, at 265, 269-72, J.A. 862 n. 25. Thus the record, viewing it most favorably to the EPA position, appears to suggest dual purposes, each alone sufficient to explain sources' selection of the single-stack option. 153 Conceivably EPA might rest on the view that the existence of a sufficient non-dispersion motive exonerates a practice, i.e., establishes its failure to meet the Sierra Club intent test. Although the language of Sierra Club is ambiguous, and the matter was not at issue, the court appears likely to have contemplated a different view--that the presence of dispersion intent as a sufficient motive, or as a motive crucial (in combination with others) to tilt the decision in favor of a single stack, would render the device a dispersion technique. See 719 F.2d at 463 (suggesting that the EPA could not find a lack of dispersion intent for an entire class of techniques unless it could demonstrate that there is in fact no or little incentive to implement these techniques because the potential reduction in emissions limitations would not be worth the cost). But in fact the EPA appears to have rejected the narrower test. See 50 Fed.Reg. 27,902/3 (a pure 'but for' test runs the risk of creating exclusions that effectively swallow the rule itself). Thus, so far as we can grasp it, the EPA believes a source characteristic should be presumed a dispersion technique if dispersion purposes alone provide a sufficient motivation, regardless of the strength of other purposes. If so, EPA's findings of legitimate nondispersionary purposes are not enough, by its standards, to exonerate an original-construction single stack. 154 To sum up: EPA relies on (1) a notion of increase that it never tries to substantiate; (2) administrative difficulties that it asserts without negating the solutions proposed by others and itself; and (3) the existence of a sufficient alternative purpose, which (assuming it is substantiated) is not enough under its own apparent view of the law. The total is three flawed reasons. While in some cases they might form a tenuous sort of tripod, here they seem to us to fail. According to NRDC's undisputed claim this issue accounts for a large fraction of the dispersed emissions at stake. It is fair to demand more, loath as we are to prolong the agony of this process. 155 Obviously we owe the agency deference if it affords a reasoned explanation, consistent with what Congress has clearly required or (in the absence of a clear mandate) with a reasonable interpretation of the statute. Chevron U.S.A. Inc. v. NRDC, 467 U.S. 837, 842-44, 104 S.Ct. 2778, 2781-83, 81 L.Ed.2d 694 (1984). The present record, however, does not appear to bring us to that point.