Opinion ID: 683136
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Compliance Schedule

Text: 22 We turn next to the NRDC's contention that the compliance schedule promulgated by the EPA is contrary to the statutory injunction that NPDWRs shall take effect 18 months after the date of their promulgation. 42 U.S.C. Sec. 300g-1(b)(10). According to the petitioner, in ordinary English the phrase shall take effect means shall be fully implemented and enforced against public water systems. Therefore, we are told, the meaning of the statute is plain and the EPA's interpretation to the contrary should be struck down, Chevron, 467 U.S. at 842-43, 104 S.Ct. at 2781-82, with the result that the rule must be fully implemented within eighteen months of when it was promulgated. 23 The EPA, on the other hand, contends that the plain meaning of the statute is that the agency cannot impose the requirements of an NPDWR upon public water systems any earlier than eighteen months after promulgation. According to the agency, the Congress included the 18-month provision in the Act not in order to force the agency to adopt a hasty implementation schedule but in order to constrain[ ] the Agency's authority under the Administrative Procedure Act, 5 U.S.C. Sec. 553(d), to make rules effective 30 days after their publication in the Federal Register. 56 Fed.Reg. at 26,494-95. 24 We start, as usual, with the terms of the statute. The spare mandate--that NPDWRs shall take effect eighteen months after the date of their promulgation--is in our view considerably less clear on its face than the NRDC suggests. As we only recently noted, depending upon the context, take effect can mean either take legal effect (as the EPA here suggests), or produce results (as the NRDC suggests). See Boehner v. Anderson, 30 F.3d 156, 161-62 (D.C.Cir.1994); Natural Resources Defense Council v. Browner, 22 F.3d 1125, 1137-40 (D.C.Cir.1994). Because we must examine the effective date provision in its statutory context in order to determine which meaning the Congress intended, we cannot say that either the NRDC's or the EPA's reading is the uniquely plain meaning of the provision. 25 Turning to that context, we see first that the effective date provision refers only to drinking water regulations, not to their implementation and enforcement. The Act defines an NPDWR as a regulation that (1) applies to public water systems; (2) identifies a contaminant that could adversely affect human health; (3) specifies either an MCL or a treatment technique to control the contaminant; and (4) contains criteria and procedures, such as operating and maintenance standards, to assure a reasonably safe drinking water supply. 42 U.S.C. Sec. 300f(1). An NPDWR does not, however, set an implementation schedule or enforcement procedures for the MCL or treatment technique it specifies. On the contrary, the Act requires the States, which have primary enforcement responsibility, to promulgate regulations to implement and enforce the NPDWRs. See 42 U.S.C. Secs. 300g-2, 300g-3. Clearly, therefore, the Congress contemplated that the date upon which a drinking water regulation takes effect under 42 U.S.C. Sec. 300g-1(b)(10) would not necessarily be the date upon which the regulation will be implemented or enforced. See, e.g., Boehner v. Anderson, 30 F.3d 156 (D.C.Cir.1994) (law may have delayed effect). 26 Second, the 18-month provision applies equally to all drinking water regulations, whether they promulgate a treatment technique or an MCL. Although it may be reasonable to assume that an MCL can be implemented and enforced 18 months after promulgation, we doubt that the Congress expected that each state could in 18 months approve the various treatment plans submitted by all the public water systems in the state; promulgate and implement enforcement regulations; grant exemptions and variances for public water systems that cannot comply with the NPDWR; and establish a reporting mechanism, which must be designed on a site-by-site basis in order to minimize exposure to the contaminant in drinking water without adversely affecting the public water system's compliance with other MCLs or treatment techniques. See 42 U.S.C. Secs. 300g-2, 300g-4, 300g-5, 40 C.F.R. Secs. 142.4-142.19; see also 56 Fed.Reg. at 26,487 (describing factors to take into account in designing treatment technique), 26,494-95 (describing actions by public water systems and States necessary to implement treatment technique). Compressing these activities into 18 months could compromise effective treatment for lead; it is surely not unreasonable, therefore, for the EPA to interpret the 18-month provision so as to prefer the Act's overall goal of safe drinking water over a hasty implementation and enforcement schedule. Accordingly, we conclude that the EPA's interpretation of the 18-month provision is reasonable.