Opinion ID: 519994
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The BCT Cost-Effectiveness Test

Text: 146 CMA also argues that whether or not BPT rules are, as a general matter, subject to a knee-of-the-curve test, the EPA's BPT limitations for conventional pollutants must pass the BCT cost test which Congress enacted in 1977. 94 147 In promulgating BCT limitations, the Act directs the EPA to consider: 148 the reasonableness of the relationship between the costs of attaining a reduction in effluents and the effluent reduction benefits derived, and the comparison of the cost and level of reduction of such pollutants from the discharge from publicly owned treatment works to the cost and level of reduction of such pollutants from a class or category of industrial sources.... 95 149 CMA contends that this test governs the BPT rules because they represent an increase in regulation over the limitations established on a case-by-case basis by NPDES permits issued before 1977. In other words, CMA contends that the permit limitations established BPT for individual plants and that in enacting the BCT requirements in 1977 Congress intended that any subsequent, more stringent regulations must be evaluated according to the BCT standards. 150 The EPA responds, however, that its authority to promulgate BPT regulations is not abrogated by the fact that, pursuant to Section 402(a)(1), 96 NPDES permits were issued prior to the promulgation of industry-wide BPT regulations. The EPA notes that, since 1977, it has promulgated BPT regulations limiting conventional pollutants in the iron and steel, metal finishing, coal mining, oil and gas, battery manufacturing, plastics molding and forming, metal molding and casting, coil coating, porcelain enameling, aluminum forming, copper forming, electrical and electronic products, and nonferrous metals forming industries 97 --notwithstanding the fact that most of these facilities had previously been regulated by permits. The oil-and-gas-pollutant effluent limitations were promulgated in 1979 and reviewed by this court in 1981 without any reference to the BCT cost test. 98 151 The EPA also maintains that Congress did not intend BCT to displace BPT. The EPA notes that Congress has never repealed the BPT factors as a vital and continuing requirement of the Act 99 and has not stripped the EPA of its explicit authority, under Section 304(b) of the Act, to revise or update BPT periodically. Section 304(b) directs the EPA to publish ... regulations, providing guidelines for effluent limitations, and at least annually thereafter, revise, if appropriate, such regulations. 100 Thus, as the EPA interprets the Act, BCT standards, which place cost-effectiveness constraints on incremental technology requirements that exceed BPT technology, do not displace BPT or override the EPA's authority to promulgate BPT for conventional pollutants. 152 As additional evidence that Congress enacted BCT to supplement, rather than to replace, BPT, the EPA points to the fact that, ten years after the enactment of BCT, Congress enacted a stricter BPT provision requiring a level of control substantially greater or based on fundamentally different control technology for BPT regulations promulgated after 1981. 101 This applies to all BPT regulations for all pollutants, including conventional pollutants, without limitation. 153 As evidenced by numerous rulemakings, the EPA has consistently interpreted the Act to allow the promulgation of BPT limitations applicable to facilities operating under NPDES permits despite the enactment of BCT standards in 1977. We must accord considerable weight to an agency's construction of a statutory scheme it is entrusted to administer. 102 Finding the EPA's interpretation of the Act to be reasonable, we conclude that CMA's objections do not compel us to remand the limitations. 154