Opinion ID: 529709
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Regulated Interests

Text: 18 HWTC initially argues that the California List rule burdens its members who operate treatment facilities at least insofar as EPA has approved of solidification as a method of avoiding the limitations on land disposal of liquid wastes. As a consequence, it predicts that its members will be forced by competitive market conditions to offer solidification services to their customers, which will in turn increase the members' exposure to EPA penalties because solidification is allegedly insufficient adequately to reduce the mobility of hazardous constituents in the waste. In essence, HWTC wants EPA to prohibit its members from using this relatively low-technology treatment approach so that they can sell more of their high-technology services. 19 Assuming that HWTC accurately anticipates how the interplay of market forces and the regulatory regime will work out, its members still are not regulated in the relevant sense. A party is 'regulated' for purposes of the 'zone' test only if it is regulated by the particular regulatory action being challenged. HWTC II, 861 F.2d at 284. It is most decidedly not regulated for such purposes when its challenge is based upon the agency's failure to constrain it by law. While it is often said that competition is the best regulator, it would be a mere play on words to say that a firm is regulated and thus has standing to sue when it has only been remitted to the constraining force of the competitive market place.