Opinion ID: 494108
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: APA Duty to Avoid Unreasonable Delay

Text: 49 Sierra Club asserts a right to timely decisionmaking under the APA. Claiming that EPA has unreasonably delayed promulgating a final rule, Sierra Club petitions us to compel the agency to conclude the rulemaking it began in October 1984 in order to determine whether fugitive emissions from strip mines are to be included in deciding what are major emitting facilities for the PSD program. In opposing this request, EPA contends that it is under no duty to avoid unreasonable delay because section 307(d)(1)(I) of the Act 89 excludes PSD rulemakings (Part C of the Act) from the coverage of the APA. EPA points out that Congress, after it displaced the APA at large, then expressly reincorporated many of the APA standards, section 307(d)(9)(A)-(D), but did not reimpose the prohibition against unreasonable delay found in section 706(1) of the APA. 90 According to EPA Congress suspended this generally applicable prohibition in favor of providing specific deadlines for particular actions required by the Act. Because Congress did not impose any such deadline on the PSD rulemaking before us, EPA would have us infer that it is not subject to any duty of timeliness here. 50 Although superficially quite plausible, upon closer inspection, we find EPA's argument unpersuasive. In accordance with this court's holding in Alabama Power Co. v. Costle, even though the October 1984 rulemaking relates to PSD regulation under Part C, it in fact directly involves whether strip mines should be listed as sources of fugitive emissions for the purposes of the Act's generic definitions of major stationary source and major emitting facility in section 302(j) of the Act. 91 Section 307(d)(1) does not exclude rulemakings under section 302(j) from the coverage of the APA. Furthermore, the generic definitions in section 302(j) apply to both the PSD program (Part C of the Act) and to the nonattainment program (Part D of the Act), 92 as EPA conceded in the October 1984 rulemaking proposals and in its brief before us. 93 Section 307(d)(1) does not exclude Part D rulemakings from coverage of the APA. If the October 1984 rulemaking were exempted from the coverage of the APA merely because it implements the PSD program, therefore, the exemption for Part C rulemakings would affect a rulemaking that also implements the nonattainment program, which would be contrary to the intent of Congress. 51 Although the practical effect of the rulemaking proposal may be limited to that of subjecting strip mines to PSD regulation, the proposal itself directly involves whether they should be listed under section 302(j). Because neither section 302(j) nor Part D, to which it applies, have been excluded from coverage of the APA, we conclude that the APA's duty of reasonable timeliness applies to this rulemaking. Accordingly, we have jurisdiction over Sierra Club's claim, and we must determine whether EPA has unreasonably delayed reaching a final decision on whether to list strip mines.