Opinion ID: 564945
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: post-closure permits

Text: 14 The Resource Conservation and Recovery Act gave the EPA very broad authority to regulate the disposal of hazardous waste. Sections 3004 and 3005 respectively direct the agency to establish performance standards, applicable to owners and operators of facilities for the treatment, storage, or disposal [TSD] of hazardous waste, 42 U.S.C. Sec. 6924(a), and to issue regulations 15 requiring each person owning or operating an existing [TSD] facility ... to have a permit issued pursuant to this section. [After the effective date of these regulations] the treatment, storage, or disposal of any such hazardous waste ... is prohibited except in accordance with such a permit. 16 42 U.S.C. Sec. 6925(a). Pursuant to Sec. 3005, the EPA requires that all hazardous waste disposal facilities that received wastes after July 26, 1982, or that certified closure (according to Sec. 265.115) after January 26, 1983 obtain a post-closure permit. 42 C.F.R. Sec. 270.1(c). The petitioners contend that this regulation is inconsistent with the common sense meaning of [Sec. 3005] ... that a permit is required and authorized only for facilities that currently are or will be treating, storing, or disposing of (i.e., 'managing') hazardous waste. 17 We approach this issue within the framework established in Chevron U.S.A., Inc. v. NRDC, 467 U.S. 837, 104 S.Ct. 2778, 81 L.Ed.2d 694 (1984). Because neither the petitioners nor the EPA claims that the Congress specifically addressed the question of requiring a post-closure permit for a disposal facility, we proceed under Chevron step two. Accordingly, we defer to the agency's interpretation of the statute so long as it is reasonable. 18 The EPA defines a disposal facility, for purposes of both Sec. 3004 and Sec. 3005, as any facility that received hazardous waste after the effective date of the permit requirement (November 19, 1980), regardless of whether the facility is currently open or closed. The petitioners concede that a disposal facility that receives hazardous waste ... remains a 'disposal facility' subject to regulation [under Sec. 3004] after it closes. They argue, however, that Sec. 3005 is narrower in scope than Sec. 3004; as they read Sec. 3005, a permit is required only for on-going activities--the treatment, storage, or disposal of waste at such facilities--not for the facility itself post-closure. 19 The EPA maintains that it is reasonable to interpret broadly the term disposal in Sec. 3005 in light of Sec. 1004 of RCRA, which defines disposal very capaciously: 20 the discharge, deposit, injection, dumping, spilling, leaking, or placing of any solid waste or hazardous waste into or on any land or water so that such solid waste or hazardous waste or any constituent thereof may enter the environment or be emitted into the air or be discharged into any waters, including ground waters. 21 42 U.S.C. Sec. 6903(3). A TSD facility at which hazardous wastes have been disposed by placement in or on the land remains subject to both permitting (per Sec. 3005) and regulation (per Sec. 3004), the agency contends, because such hazardous wastes or constituents may continue 'leaking' or 'may enter the environment or be emitted ... or discharged ...'  into the environment. 22 The petitioners, on the other hand, make the linguistic point that [d]isposal ... is not a continuing activity but occurs anew each time waste is placed into or on land. That may be one way in which the word is used in ordinary language, but is not necessarily how it is used in the statute; the equation of disposal with leaking, which is a continuous phenomenon rather than a discrete event, is enough to blunt the sting of the petitioners' point. Theirs is at most an alternative reading of the statute, not an argument as to why the EPA's reading of the statute is unreasonable. 23 As to reasonableness, we note that the EPA also interpreted disposal to encompass the continuing presence of waste when it read Sec. 3004(a) to authorize post-closure performance standards, see 45 Fed.Reg. 33,198 (May 19, 1980). The petitioners concede that authority to the agency, yet insist that the word disposal must be read differently when it appears in Sec. 3005. We are constrained to disagree: the two sections were intended to work together (as evidenced by the cross references in Secs. 3004(a)(7) and 3005(c)(1)), and divergent interpretations would create a gap in an otherwise complete scheme. We therefore hold that the agency is within its authority in requiring a post-closure permit as the means to implement its substantive regulatory authority under Sec. 3004. 24 We need not reach the merits of the petitioners' argument that the EPA provided inadequate notice of the portion of its proposal that requires post-closure permits for disposal facilities that had operated under interim status while their permit applications were pending, but that had closed prior to EPA approval of those applications. At oral argument the petitioners forthrightly acknowledged that a remand solely in order to reopen the record for further comment would provide them no meaningful relief: the EPA fully understands their objections. Thus, having failed to obtain an order requiring the agency to reconsider its legal position, the petitioners would gain nothing from an order requiring the EPA to reopen the rulemaking record.