Opinion ID: 450679
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: the petitioners' challenge to the hrs

Text: 45 The petitioners attack the HRS on two grounds. First, they argue that it is inconsistent with CERCLA's purposes. Second, they contend that it is arbitrary, capricious and an abuse of discretion. 46
47 CERCLA clearly contemplates that the EPA's limited funds and cleanup energies will be spent on releases or potential releases of harmful substances that threaten serious harm and that the EPA will set priorities for taking action with regard to these releases. 72 Essentially, the petitioners argue that these statutory goals cannot be realized unless CERCLA is read to mean that the 400 sites listed on the first NPL must represent a definitive statement of the most hazardous sites in the country, at which EPA action may immediately be taken. Because the HRS is designed to ascertain merely if a site poses a threat to human health or to the environment that warrants further investigation, but is not sufficiently refined to make final determinations of which sites pose threats that definitely qualify for action under CERCLA, the petitioners maintain that it produces a NPL that is inconsistent with CERCLA's purposes. 48 The EPA argues that nothing in the statute requires so narrow a view of the HRS and NPL. The agency interprets CERCLA to permit it to establish a lower minimum level of certainty that a release or potential release poses a threat for purposes of listing on the NPL than for actually taking government action. The EPA considers the HRS to be a useful tool for sifting through a large number of sites in a relatively expeditious and inexpensive manner to pinpoint problem sites which deserve more comprehensive, and thus costly, analysis. In the preamble to the final rule promulgating the HRS, the agency noted, in response to comments similar to the complaints lodged by the petitioners here, that the 49 role and importance of the HRS and NPL must be kept in perspective. the [sic] NPL, which will include at least 400 releases, is merely the first step in considering a release for Fund-financed remedial response. If a release is included on the NPL but a later remedial investigation discloses the hazard to be less significant than originally thought to be, a decision may be made not to provide Fund-financed remedial response. Similarly, the NPL will be reviewed periodically and a release can be added if more extensive data indicate a more significant hazard at the release. 73 50 The agency elaborated on this view of the HRS and NPL in the preamble to the final version of the NPL: 51 The purpose of the NPL ... is primarily to serve as an informational tool for use by EPA in identifying sites that appear to present a significant risk to public health or the environment. The initial identification of a site in the NPL is intended primarily to guide EPA in determining which sites warrant further investigation designed to assess the nature and extent of the public health and environmental risks associated with the site and to determine what response action, if any, may be appropriate. Inclusion of a site on the NPL does not establish that EPA necessarily will undertake response actions. Moreover, listing does not require any action of any private party, nor does it determine the liability of any party for the cost of cleanup at the site. 52 In addition, although the HRS scores used to place sites on the NPL may be helpful to the Agency in determining priorities for cleanup and other response activities among sites on the NPL, EPA does not rely on the scores as the sole means of determining such priorities, as discussed below. Neither can the HRS itself determine the appropriate remedy for a site. The information collected to develop HRS scores to choose sites for the NPL is not sufficient in itself to determine the appropriate remedy for a particular site. After a site has been included on the NPL, EPA generally will rely on further, more detailed studies conducted at the site to determine what response, if any, is appropriate.... After conducting these additional studies EPA may conclude that it is not feasible to conduct response action at some sites on the NPL because of more pressing needs at other sites. Given the limited resources available in the Hazardous Substance Response Fund, the Agency must carefully balance the relative needs for response at the numerous sites it has studied. It is also possible that EPA will conclude after further analysis that no action is needed at the site because the site does not present a problem. 74 53 We are persuaded that the EPA's interpretation of CERCLA is a reasonable one which should be upheld. Our decision is guided by the Supreme Court's opinion from last Term, Chevron, U.S.A., Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc. 75 In Chevron, the Court explained that when a court reviews an agency's construction of the statute which it administers, ... if the statute is silent or ambiguous with respect to the specific issue, the question for the court is whether the agency's answer is based on a permissible construction of the statute. 76 If the agency's  'choice represents a reasonable accommodation of conflicting policies that were committed to [its] care by the statute, [a court] should not disturb it unless it appears from the statute or its legislative history that the accommodation is not one that Congress would have sanctioned.'  77 54 Applying these principles here, we see that the EPA has been entrusted with the administration of CERCLA. Nothing in the language of the statute explicitly speaks to the question whether the standards for listing a site on the NPL and for taking response action must be identical. Furthermore, CERCLA's legislative history firmly supports the agency's position. The Senate Report recognized that the NPL would have to be based on information immediately available to the EPA, 78 and went on to observe that 55 [t]he priority lists serve primarily informational purposes, identifying for the States and the public those facilities and sites or other releases which appear to warrant remedial action. Inclusion of a facility or site on the list does not in itself reflect a judgment of the activities of its owner or operator, it does not require those persons to undertake any action, nor does it assign liability to any person. Subsequent government action in the form of remedial actions or enforcement action will be necessary in order to do so, and these actions will be attended by all appropriate procedural safeguards. 79 56 Clearly, the EPA's decision to reconcile the need for certainty before action with the need for inexpensive, expeditious procedures to identify potentially hazardous sites by establishing different threshold criteria for action and for listing is reasonable and fully in accord with congressional intent. We uphold it here. 57
58 The petitioners also question the rationality of the HRS on several grounds, primarily in regard to its ability to evaluate mining waste sites. The petitioners contend that the HRS was designed with the paradigm of a chemical waste site in mind, and that it consequently incorporates certain assumptions which, although pertinent to chemical dump sites, have no relevance to mining waste sites. In particular, they allege that: (1) the basis for scoring observed releases is unreasonable, basically because that score reflects only the fact of release and not the severity of the release; (2) the basis for scoring waste characteristics is unreasonable because it fails to consider the relatively low concentration of harmful substances present in high-volume mining wastes; (3) the basis for scoring the target population threatened by a release is unreasonable because it is rooted in a formula for estimating the population within a certain radius of the release and does not utilize actual population figures; and (4) the HRS should take into account ongoing or completed remedial measures. 59 The EPA responds to the petitioners' argument in detail. In essence, the agency contends that the HRS is a useful and reasonable tool that accomplishes its objective--the rough estimation of which sites, containing either chemical or mining wastes, deserve further attention. 60 The standard of review applicable here is that set forth in section 10(e)(2)(A) of the Administrative Procedure Act, whether the EPA's action was arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion, or otherwise not in accordance with law. 80 Under the arbitrary and capricious standard we look to see if the agency has examined relevant data and has articulated a rational explanation for its action. 81 After considering the arguments and thoroughly reviewing the record, we find that neither the HRS itself, nor its use to evaluate mining waste sites, violates the foregoing standard. 61 An agency may utilize a predictive model so long as it explains the assumptions and methodology it used in preparing the model. 82 If the model is challenged, the agency must provide a full analytical defense. 83 But, as this court recently held in Small Refiner Lead Phase-Down Task Force v. EPA, while a reviewing court 62 will also look for evidence that the agency is conscious of the limits of the model ... [u]ltimately, however, we must defer to the agency's decision on how to balance the cost and complexity of a more elaborate model against the oversimplification of a simpler model. We can reverse only if the model is so oversimplified that the agency's conclusions from it are unreasonable. 84 63 In the preambles to the final versions of the HRS 85 and the NPL, 86 the EPA offered thorough and reasoned explanations of the assumptions and methodology it relied upon in creating the HRS. Throughout these preambles, the agency clearly indicated its awareness of the limitations of the model, 87 including those regarding its application to mining waste sites. 88 This awareness is further manifested in the EPA's decision to use the HRS only to make a preliminary division between sites that justify further consideration and those that do not, rather than to employ it to decide which sites warrant response action under CERCLA. Moreover, the EPA adequately addressed the substance of each of the petitioners' complaints in its response to comments. 89 We find that the agency's explanations are reasonable and see no reason to rehearse them here. IV CONCLUSION 64 The petitioners' challenge to the HRS is an untimely claim that was ripe for review during the statutory period, and thus would normally be time-barred. Because, however, in this opinion we clarify for the first time certain aspects of the relationship between statutory review provisions and the ripeness doctrine, we offer an alternative holding on the merits of the petitioners' claim. Given the relatively limited, informational purposes of the HRS and the NPL, we find the HRS itself, and its use in evaluating mining waste sites, to be reasonable and consistent with the purposes of the statute. The petitioners' request for relief is 65 Denied.