Opinion ID: 186782
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Department's Alleged Failure to Preempt the Los Angeles County Fire Code.

Text: 27 Petitioners argue that the Department has failed to regulate as broadly as they believe the Act requires and that, because of that failure, burdensome state and local requirements that would have been preempted by the Act continue to apply to their members. Petitioners' Supp. Br. at 4. Petitioners base this theory of standing entirely on the alleged injury of one member. Hasa Inc., a California-based company, produces liquid sodium hypochlorite, a chemical used in sanitizing swimming pools and spas, and is a member of petitioner The Chlorine Institute. Decl. of Mark Wilson ¶ 2. Hasa regularly receives railroad tank cars containing compressed chlorine gas. Id. ¶ 3. Each time a new car is needed, it is brought onto a railroad track adjacent to Hasa's production plant, and Hasa withdraws gas from the car as required to produce its product. Id. The Los Angeles County Fire Department issued a Violation Notice to Hasa on July 2, 2003 requiring the construction of a large ventilated building over the railroad track siding adjacent to the Hasa plant production area (hereafter called the `Barn'). Id. ¶ 4. Hasa has since retained architects and engineers to produce plans for constructing the Barn, which have been submitted to the Fire Department for approval. Id. ¶ 5. 3 Building the Barn will be very expensive and, Hasa alleges, will unreasonably burden the movement of the railroad tank cars on the adjacent railroad tracks . . . as well as unreasonably burden the offloading of the gaseous chlorine by Hasa. Id. ¶ 7. 28 Petitioners direct the Court to several provisions of the Los Angeles County Fire Code (Fire Code) that they argue would be preempted if the Department adopted their broader version of the Final Rule. Petitioners only allege, however, that two provisions of the Fire Code are being applied to Hasa and we thus only examine whether petitioners have demonstrated an injury in fact with respect to those two provisions. 29 A declaration submitted by petitioners attests that Hasa is being required to construct the Barn pursuant to Title 32, Los Angeles County Fire Code §§ 8003.3.1.3.5.2 and 8004.2.3.7.1. Decl. of Sasha N. Browner ¶ 7. Section 8004.2.3.7.1 provides that [t]ank vehicles or railroad tank cars engaged in the use or dispensing of toxic or highly toxic gases shall be within a ventilated separate gas storage room or placed within an exhausted enclosure. L.A. COUNTY, CAL., FIRE CODE § 8004.2.3.7.1 (2001). Section 8003.3.1.3.5.2 requires such rooms to have a treatment system that is capable of diluting, absorbing, containing, neutralizing, burning, or otherwise processing the entire contents of the largest single tank of gas stored or used. Id. § 8003.3.1.3.5.2. Thus, petitioners claim Hasa is facing an injury in fact that is both concrete and particularized as well as actual and imminent because Hasa will have to build the Barn pursuant to the Fire Code. Petitioners' Supp. Br. at 6. 30 Petitioners assert that, in requiring Hasa to build the Barn, [t]he unloading requirements in Los Angeles County go far beyond anything contained in [the Department's] regulations. Petitioners' Supp. Br. at 5 (citing 49 C.F.R. § 174.67(a)(1) ( [u]nloading operations must be performed by hazmat employees properly instructed in unloading hazardous materials)) (emphasis added). Petitioners' brief asserts only that Los Angeles County's unloading requirements affect Hasa, and it thus appears Hasa has been injured, at most, by the Department's definition of the statutory term unloading. See 49 U.S.C. § 5102(13). Thus, even if that alleged injury were otherwise sufficient to demonstrate Hasa's standing, it would not provide a basis for challenging the Department's efforts to define pre-transportation function, loading, and storage. See 49 C.F.R. § 171.8. 31 But it is not otherwise sufficient to establish Hasa's standing. Although petitioners have demonstrated that Hasa has an injury in fact ( i.e., it will have to build and use a ventilation system that it would otherwise not build or use), petitioners have not demonstrated that Hasa's injury is fairly traceable to the challenged action of the defendant, and not the result of the independent action of some third party not before the court, nor that it is likely, as opposed to merely speculative, that the injury will be redressed by a favorable decision. Defenders of Wildlife, 504 U.S. at 560-61, 112 S.Ct. 2130 (alterations and quotation marks omitted). Petitioners have not demonstrated that the Department is fairly responsible for Hasa's injury and that if the Court sets aside the Department's Final Rule, it is likely that a future rule promulgated by the Department would stop Los Angeles County from requiring Hasa to build the Barn. Petitioners' failure to do so results from their failure to demonstrate that the local regulations affecting Hasa would likely be subject to the Act's preemption provisions, set forth in 49 U.S.C. § 5125. 32 Section 5125 of the Act contains several preemption provisions that, if applicable, might set aside a state or local law. Subsection (a)(1) provides that state or local regulation is preempted if . . . complying with a requirement of the State [or] political subdivision . . . and a . . . regulation prescribed under this chapter . . . is not possible.  Id. (emphasis added). Subsection (a)(1) also provides for preemption where the requirement of the State [or] political subdivision . . ., as applied or enforced, is an obstacle to accomplishing and carrying out . . . a regulation prescribed under this chapter. Id. (emphasis added). Subsection (b) calls for seemingly broader preemption with respect to state or local efforts to regulate specific, enumerated subjects. When subsection (b) applies, state or local laws that are not substantively the same, id. § 5125(b)(1), as federal hazardous material law will be preempted. 4 33 Petitioners' theory regarding which provision of § 5125 would preempt the Los Angeles County Fire Code from being applied to Hasa is nonexistent. Petitioners state, in one sentence, that [a]s a result of [the Department's] action and in light of the attached declarations, there can be no doubt that Hasa is facing substantial local regulatory requirements that, but for the ceding of the jurisdiction by [the Department] in the final . . . rule, would have been subject to the HMTA's preemption provision. 49 U.S.C. § 5125. Petitioners' Supp. Br. at 6. That sentence, and another similar conclusory sentence, see id. at 4, are petitioners' only reference to the Act's detailed preemption provisions. Petitioners never explain how any of the preemption provisions in § 5125 make it likely, see Defenders of Wildlife, 504 U.S. at 561, 112 S.Ct. 2130, that Hasa would not have to construct the Barn if the Court were to set aside the Department's Final Rule. 34 Petitioners have not shown, for example, that a future rule promulgated by the Department would likely preempt, under subsection (a)(1) of § 5125, the Los Angeles County ordinances being applied to Hasa. Petitioners have not explained why it would be not possible, 49 U.S.C. § 5125(a)(1), to comply with both Los Angeles's requirement that Hasa build the Barn and the Hazardous Materials Regulations. Nor have petitioners developed a theory regarding why building the Barn would be an obstacle to . . . carrying out the HMR. Id. § 5125(a)(2). Petitioners similarly have not demonstrated that subsection (b) would preempt Los Angeles's ordinance, as none of the enumerated subjects to which subsection (b) apply involve unloading, see id. § 5125(b)(1) (reprinted in note 4), the subject being regulated by Los Angeles County. 35 In any event, the Act provides that the Secretary may waive preemption upon deciding that a state or local requirement (1) provides the public at least as much protection as federal regulation and (2) is not an unreasonable burden on commerce. Id. § 5125(e). The Secretary's ability to waive preemption constitutes yet another obstacle for petitioners to overcome in demonstrating that preemption is likely. But petitioners have made no argument or showing regarding the likelihood of a waiver. Absent such a showing, petitioners' broad assertion that these two provisions of the Los Angeles County Fire Code would be preempted appears even more speculative. Defenders of Wildlife, 504 U.S. at 561, 112 S.Ct. 2130. 36