Opinion ID: 386070
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: coshocton county

Text: 5 Petitioner asserts that the SO 2 dispersion model used by EPA in making its Coshocton County attainment designations was the same one used by the agency in setting emissions limits for individual pollution sources in Coshocton in 1977. In 1978, this Court ordered reconsideration of those limits by the agency; at that time we expressly held that one element 1 of the model used by the agency lacked a rational basis in the administrative record. See Cincinnati Gas & Elec. Co. v. EPA, 578 F.2d 660, 662-65 (6th Cir.), cert. denied, 439 U.S. 1114, 99 S.Ct. 1017, 59 L.Ed.2d 72 (1978). In the CG&E case we set aside EPA's emission limits for petitioner's plants and remanded to the agency for reconsideration of certain computer air-quality modeling practices. See CG&E, supra, at 578 F.2d 665. 6 The present record gives no indication that the reconsideration mandated by this Court has ever been undertaken. EPA has based its nonattainment designation for Coshocton County on the same modeling which this Court had already found to be unsupported by the EPA's own records. The agency offered this prospective cure for this faulty rulemaking in its brief: 7 On February 7, 1979, the Administrator published a notice which sets forth an additional technical basis for the use of the Class A (computer modeling) assumption. 44 Fed.Reg. 7793. The notice solicited public comment and the agency at present is evaluating comments received in response. Petitioners will have an opportunity to challenge the new record before this Court after the agency publishes its response to those comments. If the Administrator determines that the assumption should be changed, a new modeling analysis will be conducted and, if necessary, the designation will be changed. 8 It is rather late in the development of administrative law to argue that an agency may offer post hoc bases for a prior decision. See, e. g., Federal Power Comm. v. Texaco, Inc., 417 U.S. 380, 397, 94 S.Ct. 2315, 2326, 41 L.Ed.2d 141 (1974); NLRB v. Metropolitan Life, 380 U.S. 438, 442-44, 85 S.Ct. 1061, 1063-64, 13 L.Ed.2d 951 (1965); Burlington Truck Lines, Inc. v. United States, 371 U.S. 156, 168-69, 83 S.Ct. 239, 245-46, 9 L.Ed.2d 207 (1962). The judicial rule barring post hoc rationales for agency action applies to informal rulemaking as well as to agency adjudications. Tabor v. Joint Board for Enrollment of Actuaries, 566 F.2d 705, 710 (D.C.Cir.1977). 9 EPA's failure to give a timely rationale for its Coshocton County designation cannot be cured by any participation by C&SOE in a separate, future rulemaking procedure. Past agency caprice may not be remedied by a promise of future agency fairness. We therefore grant C&SOE's petition regarding EPA's Franklin Township nonattainment designation, and remand the case to the agency for development of the instant record, especially as it deals with EPA's use of the Class A assumption in its computer modeling of Coshocton County's air quality.