Opinion ID: 501787
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Jurisdiction over Processing and Support Facilities

Text: 257 Industry appeals the district court's statutory interpretation of the Secretary's authority under Sec. 701(28)(A) and the court's alternative holding that there is authority under Sec. 701(28)(B) for the Secretary's jurisdiction over processing and support facilities. Without reaching the statutory question at issue in Sec. 701(28)(A), we affirm the court's judgment based on the authority given to the Secretary in Sec. 701(28)(B). 258 SMCRA gives the Secretary jurisdiction over surface coal mining operations, which are broadly defined by Sec. 701(28)(A) as including activities conducted on the surface of lands in connection with a surface coal mine.... Such activities include ... in situ distillation or retorting, leaching or other chemical or physical processing, and the cleaning, concentrating, or other processing or preparation, loading of coal for interstate commerce at or near the mine site. Id. (emphasis added). For its part, the companion subsection, 701(28)(B), states that surface coal mining operations include 259 the areas upon which [those activities identified in Sec. 701(28)(A) ] occur or where [those activities identified in Sec. 701(28)(A) ] disturb the natural land surface. Such areas shall also include ... repair areas, storage areas, processing areas, shipping areas and other areas upon which are sited structures, facilities, or other property or materials on the surface, resulting from or incident to [those activities identified in Sec. 701(28)(A).] SMCRA Sec. 701(28)(B) (emphasis added). 77 260 Based on his reading of Sec. 701(28), Secretary Andrus promulgated regulations governing environmental impacts from offsite coal preparation plants. See 30 C.F.R. Sec. 785.21 and Part 827 (1979). The regulations were initially upheld by Judge Flannery in 1980, PSMRL I (Round II), 19 E.R.C. at 1501; and following the remand of the entire case in February 1983, Secretary Watt repromulgated essentially the same regulations. See 30 C.F.R. Secs. 700.5, 785.21 & Part 827 (1984). It is this repromulgation and the Secretary's supporting justification that are now before us. 261 When repromulgating the regulations, Secretary Watt recognized that 262 it is unclear from the syntax alone ... whether the phrase at or near the mine site at the end of the examples in Paragraph (A), modifies only the phrase immediately preceding it, i.e., loading of coal for interstate commerce, or whether it also modifies the cleaning, concentrating or other processing or preparation. 263 48 FED.REG. 20392 (1983). Secretary Watt opted for the broader view of his jurisdiction in light of his policy of exercising the most complete jurisdiction available under the Act, see id., and also in reliance on Judge Flannery's 1980 holding that the at or near language modified only the loading of coal. PSMRL I (Round II), 19 E.R.C. at 1501. In addition, Watt found support for his interpretation in Judge Flannery's alternative holding that Sec. 701(28)(B) provides an independent basis for jurisdiction in that it extends the Secretary's authority to processing areas and other areas that contain sited structures and facilities resulting from or incident to [activities identified in Sec. 701(28)(A) ]. 48 FED.REG. 20393 (1983). 264 Industry challenges the Secretary's construction of the statutory language, contending that the Secretary's jurisdiction extends only to coal processing facilities located at or near the mine site. Under this reading of Sec. 701(28)(A), the phrase at or near the mine site modifies the entire family of post-extractive activities set off from the earlier extractive activities by the and that precedes their enumeration. Therefore, the argument goes, the Secretary may regulate only the cleaning, concentrating, or other processing or preparation of coal that takes place at or near the mine site. Section 701(28)(B) does not, in Industry's view, provide any additional authority to the Secretary to regulate offsite processing facilities because that subsection concerns only the extent to which the area within which activities defined in subsection (A) occur may be regulated along with the activity itself. If offsite coal processing facilities are not an activity covered by subsection (A), then (B) is inapposite. 265 The district court, faced with an issue it had already decided once, not surprisingly reaffirmed its earlier decision sustaining the Secretary's regulations. PSMRL II (Round I), 21 E.R.C. at 1199-1203. The court observed that each activity in subsection (A) is separated by a comma, and therefore concluded the phrase at or near the mine site refers only to the activity following the preceding comma--the loading of coal. Once again, the district court held that the Secretary had jurisdiction to regulate off-site processing plants based on the reference to processing areas in Sec. 701(28)(B). PSMRL II (Round I) at 1200. Industry appeals. 266 All parties, including Industry, seem to agree that the language of Sec. 701(28)(A) lends itself to two possible readings. Industry believes its parsing of the statute is clearly better, 78 but does not base its challenge on the plain meaning of the statute. It relies principally on a passage in the Senate Report--the only discussion in the legislative history specifically on point--that used slightly different phraseology to explain the intent of the statutory language: Activities included are ... the cleaning, or other processing or preparation and loading for interstate commerce of coal at or near the mine site. S.REP. NO. 128 at 98. The syntax of the Senate Report clearly makes processing an object of coal at or near the mine site. It is somewhat less clear, however, whether the Senate Report manifests a clear congressional intent as to the meaning of Sec. 701(28)(A). Differences between the Senate Report syntax and that in the statute might well reflect a deliberate congressional decision. Surely, the exclusion of concentrating in the quoted passage from the Report does not mean that Congress' inclusion of concentrating in the statutory language should be ignored. Moreover, other portions of the legislative history suggest that Congress was specifically concerned about coal processing facilities and stored coal materials, and not necessarily only those within the immediate proximity of an operating surface coal mine. See H.R.REP. NO. 218, 95th Cong., 1st Sess. 57, 125-26 (1977), reprinted in 1977 U.S.CODE CONG. & ADMIN.NEWS 593, 657-58. 267 We tend to agree with Industry that reading the at or near language as modifying processing is the clearly better interpretation of subsection (A), but that is not to say that it is the only permissible construction. See Young v. Community Nutrition Inst., 476 U.S. 974, 106 S.Ct. 2360, 2364, 90 L.Ed.2d 959 (1986) ([respondents'] reading of the statute may seem to some to be the more natural interpretation, but the phrasing of [the statute] admits of either respondents' or petitioner's reading); Chevron, 467 U.S. at 842-43, 104 S.Ct. at 2781-82. The Secretary's reading is not implausible: it finds at least some support in both the language and the legislative history of the Act. Nonetheless, whether his reading exceeds the bounds of reasonableness appears to us a close question. In any event, it is not a question we need decide since we find the Secretary may clearly base his jurisdiction over coal processing facilities on the broad language of Sec. 701(28)(B). 268 At issue in the interpretation of Sec. 701(28)(B) is the scope of processing areas ... and other areas upon which are sited structures, facilities or other property or materials on the surface resulting from or incident to such activities. The phrase such activities, as all parties agree, refers to the activities listed in subsection (A). The Industry contends, as we have noted, that subsection (B) is therefore limited only to activities listed in subsection (A). We agree, however, with the district court that the Secretary may reasonably construe the meaning of processing areas ... resulting from or incident to such activities to include processing facilities that are not at or near the mine site. We are further persuaded because Congress expressed a general concern about the environmental impacts of processing plants. The language of subsection (B) is without geographic limitation; coal processing facilities can certainly be incident to surface coal mining operations without being onsite. Moreover, the Secretary only purports to regulate facilities that are in connection with a surface coal mine or surface operations of an underground coal mine. SMCRA Sec. 701(28)(A); 30 C.F.R. Sec. 700.5 (1984). The structure of subsections (A) and (B) may well allow for Industry's restrictive interpretation of subsection (B), but it certainly does not, as Industry asserts, preclude the reasonable interpretation adopted by the Secretary and sustained by the district court. See Chevron, 467 U.S. at 842-43, 104 S.Ct. at 2781-82. 269 Although he rejected the notion that Sec. 701(28)(A) limits his jurisdiction to processing facilities located at or near the mine site, the Secretary has concluded in a separate regulation that the resulting from or incident to language in subsection (B), which modifies areas upon which are sited structures, facilities, or other property or material on the surface, connotes an element of proximity. 30 C.F.R. Sec. 701.5 (1984). The district court struck down this regulation, concluding that Congress had mandated a functional or causal test. The court pointed out that in other parts of Sec. 701(28), Congress used phrases such as in situ, at or near the mine site, or adjacent when it wanted to express a proximity limitation. The court therefore found an intent to preclude a proximity test in Congress' choice of resulting from or incident to, language that is not explicitly geographic. 270 Industry argues that the meaning of the phrase at issue is ambiguous and that under Chervon the agency must be allowed a reasonable interpretation, especially when the issue involves industrial practices of great complexity. 79 We agree. The phrase resulting from or incident to clearly suggests a causal connection, which, while not indicating an element of geographic proximity, certainly does require some type of limiting principle of proximate causation that is familiar to the courts in tort law. Otherwise, every support facility that could be considered a but for result of a surface coal mining operation would be subject to SMCRA regulation. Since causation analysis is necessarily so heavily informed by explicit policy considerations, a statutory phrase such as the one at issue here is an obvious example of the sort of congressional delegation of policy choices to an agency that courts are bound to respect. See Chevron, 467 U.S. 837, 104 S.Ct. 2778. Moreover, we note that the Secretary's regulations do not preclude the consideration of factors other than proximity:  'Resulting from or incident to' an activity connotes an element of proximity to that activity. 30 C.F.R. Sec. 701.5 (1984) (emphasis added). Proximity is used as a guiding principle in a flexible implementation of the statute that allows regulatory authorities to consider the myriad site specific situations that cannot be fully anticipated in writing a Federal regulation. 48 FED.REG. 20397 (1983). We cannot say that the Secretary's regulations reflect an unreasonable interpretation of vague statutory language. See Chevron, 467 U.S. at 842-43, 104 S.Ct. at 2781-82. 80 271