Opinion ID: 166638
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The correct standard of comparability

Text: 35 Most courts that have addressed this issue have been fairly deferential to the state law and tend to find comparability. See, e.g., Lockett, 319 F.3d at 684; Ark. Wildlife Fed'n, 29 F.3d at 381; Scituate, 949 F.2d at 555. One key consideration, often cited by these courts, is the policy of the federal government to recognize, preserve, and protect the primary responsibility and rights of States to prevent, reduce, and eliminate pollution. . . . 33 U.S.C. § 1251(b). Furthermore, the Supreme Court has noted in dicta that [t]he bar on citizen suits when governmental enforcement action is under way suggests that the citizen suit is meant to supplement rather than to supplant governmental action. Gwaltney of Smithfield Ltd. v. Chesapeake Bay Found., Inc., 484 U.S. 49, 60, 108 S.Ct. 376, 98 L.Ed.2d 306 (1987) (emphasis added). Finally, the plain meaning of the word comparable in the statute does not suggest a rigid standard. See Webster's Third New International Dictionary 461 (1986) (defining comparable as capable of being compared;. . . having enough like characteristics or qualities to make comparison appropriate). 36 Taken together, these principles suggest that the Clean Water Act calls for something less than a rigorous comparability standard. We agree with the district court that the Eleventh Circuit's rough comparability approach is the most appropriate to the case at bar. Under that approach, we focus on the three categories of provisions contained in 33 U.S.C. § 1319(g): penalty assessment, public participation, and judicial review. McAbee, 318 F.3d at 1254. Each category of federal provisions must have a roughly comparable provision under state law in order for the bar against citizen suits to apply. Id. at 1256. A court operating under the rough comparability standard engages in an independent analysis for each category of state-law provisions; if one is found to be lacking, then the citizen suit cannot be precluded. See id. 37 The rough comparability approach stands in contrast to the more forgiving overall comparability standard used by the First and Eighth Circuits. See Scituate, 949 F.2d at 556 (noting that correct legal standard for comparability is whether corrective action already taken and diligently pursued by the [state] government seeks to remedy the same violations as duplicative civilian action.); Ark. Wildlife Fed'n, 29 F.3d at 381 ([T]he comparability requirement may be satisfied so long as the state law . . . has the same overall enforcement goals as the federal CWA. . . .). The overall comparability approach also places special emphasis on the comparability of the state's penalty-assessment and public-participation provisions. Scituate, 949 F.2d at 555; Ark. Wildlife Fed'n, 29 F.3d at 381. We believe that rough comparability is most consistent with the statutory text of § 1319(g). Title 33, U.S.C. § 1319(g)(6)(A)(ii) requires that a state must take action under a statute comparable to this subsection in order to preclude a citizen suit. 38 Unlike many other paragraphs in § 1319(g), paragraph (6) makes no references to particular paragraphs within the subsection. Instead, paragraph (6) refers to the subsection as a whole, which includes not only penalty-assessment provisions but also public-participation and judicial-review provisions. This is strong textual evidence that Congress intended courts to consider all three classes of provisions when deciding whether state law is comparable to § 1319(g) of the CWA. 39 McAbee, 318 F.3d at 1254 (internal citations omitted). Furthermore, an overall balancing test forces judges to weigh incommensurable values — for example, the positive value of penalty-assessment provisions against the negative value of starkly dissimilar public-participation provisions. Id. at 1255 (footnote omitted). Rough comparability, which requires an independent analysis of each class of provisions, reduces uncertainty not only for courts but also for potential litigants, administrative agencies, and state legislatures. See id. 40 Therefore, we hold that for state law to be comparable, under 33 U.S.C. 1319(g)(6)(A)(ii), each category of state-law provisions — penalty assessment, public participation, and judicial review — must be roughly comparable to the corresponding class of federal provisions. 41