Opinion ID: 413378
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Owner or Operator of a Source

Text: 77 Section 120 provides for the assessment of noncompliance penalties against any person who owns or operates a noncomplying source. EPA's regulations implementing section 120 define owner or operator to include: 78 any person who owns, leases, operates or supervises a facility, building, structure or installation which emits or has the potential to emit any air pollutant regulated by EPA under the Act. 79 40 C.F.R. Sec. 66.3(i) (1981). Industry petitioners object to the inclusion of lessees and supervisors in EPA's definition. 17 80 The term owner or operator is not defined in section 120 or in the general definitional section of the Clean Air Act, 42 U.S.C. Sec. 7602 (Supp. IV 1980). The legislative history of the 1977 Amendments to the Act is silent both as to Congress' failure to define the terms and as to their intended meaning. Owner or operator is, however, defined in two specific sections of the Act, the sections dealing with the standards of performance for new stationary sources and the standards for hazardous air pollutants. In both cases, the definition includes lessees and individuals with supervisory power. See Sec. 111(a)(5). Industry petitioners would have us infer a negative: that because owner or operator is not defined to include lessees and supervisors in section 120, Congress chose to exclude them from the definition. 81 Such an inference is inconsistent with the purpose of section 120. Congress gave broad application to the statute and stated that any exemptions should be narrowly construed. Within such a statutory scheme, we cannot read legislative silence to mean creation of a unique usage. EPA's interpretation is sensible, and we affirm it here. The ordinary meaning of operator surely includes one who runs a facility as a lessee and one who supervises its operation. Were either of these categories omitted from the definition, EPA might be unable to assess penalties against the party that benefits from noncompliance. EPA would therefore be unable to achieve two central goals of section 120: ending the profits derived from failure to comply with the Act and equalizing the position of sources that have made the expenditures necessary to bring themselves into compliance with the Act with the position of sources that have not. The inclusion of lessees and supervisors enables EPA to target section 120 penalties as the statute intended, against those who benefit from violating the Act. 82