Opinion ID: 574870
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Future Waste Streams

Text: 83 The 9/89 Rule denies Bevill status to any waste stream that did not exist when the Rule was promulgated, and to any extent waste stream that did not meet the Bevill criteria at the time of rulemaking. According to the Agency, it could and did make 84 a one-time determination of Bevill status. Wastes not yet in existence and wastes not meeting the high volume/low hazard criteria during any of the past five years would ... not be eligible for Bevill exclusion status in the future. 85 54 Fed.Reg. at 36,595. As a result, an after-arising waste stream that meets all of the substantive criteria for Bevill status will be regulated under either Subtitle C or Subtitle D of RCRA. Id. at 36,596. 86 Petitioners argue that denying Bevill status to future waste streams is contrary to the purpose of the Bevill Amendment. They point in particular to special wastes that do not currently satisfy the high volume threshold but will do so in the future. 87 The statutory provision directing EPA to study Bevill wastes suggests by its terms that a one-time study is sufficient. See 42 U.S.C. § 6982(p) (The Administrator shall conduct a detailed and comprehensive study ... [and] shall publish a report of such study....). The way in which the temporary nature of the Bevill Amendment is expressed in the statute also lends support to EPA's interpretation. See 42 U.S.C. § 6921(b)(3)(A) (Bevill exclusion operative until at least six months after ... submission of the applicable study). 88 In any event, this court's holding in EDF II secures EPA's position that a one-time determination is sufficient. There we interpreted the Bevill Amendment as an exclusion specifically for the category of wastes designated as 'special wastes[ ]' ... in EPA's 1978 proposed hazardous waste regulations. EDF II, 852 F.2d at 1329 (quoting 51 Fed.Reg. 36,234 (1986)). While we did not go so far as to foreclose Bevill status for a future waste that might satisfy a pre-set criterion, we clearly enough rejected the theory that Congress intended the coverage of the Bevill exclusion to evolve with time. 89 In sum, while the Bevill Amendment itself is silent on the coverage of future waste streams, the statutory framework of RCRA and the precedent of EDF II both support EPA's position. In these circumstances, EPA's position is surely reasonable, and we must uphold it.F. Application of Section 3004(x) to Non-Bevill Wastes 90 In 1984 Congress added to RCRA the Hazardous and Solid Waste Amendments, commonly known as the Simpson Amendment, codified at section 3004(x). This section authorizes EPA to relax Subtitle C regulations for the extraction, beneficiation or processing of ores and minerals--a list of operations virtually identical to that in the Bevill Amendment. Accordingly, in the course of implementing the Bevill Amendment, EPA addressed the question whether a waste that is denied Bevill status is nonetheless eligible for relaxed regulation pursuant to section 3004(x). 91 In the preamble to its 9/89 Rule, EPA read section 3004(x) as having the same scope as the Bevill Amendment: the Simpson Amendment would not apply to wastes that are not special wastes and that would therefore be removed from the Bevill exclusion by the proposed rule.... [T]he proper reading of section 3004(x) is that it applies only to special wastes as defined by today's final rule. 54 Fed.Reg. at 36,624-25. 92 In this EPA merely assigned the same meaning to the same statutory formula in the two places where Congress used it. That seems eminently reasonable, in the absence of a particular reason to do otherwise. Compare Alabama Power Co. v. Costle, 636 F.2d 323, 396 (D.C.Cir.1979) (Given no expression of any contrary intent in the Act or in the legislative history regarding these definitions, we must assume that the meaning of a particular term is to be consistent throughout the Act.) with National Ass'n of Casualty and Surety Agents v. Board of Governors of the Fed. Reserve Sys., 856 F.2d 282, 287 (D.C.Cir.1988) (upholding agency's different interpretations of similar statutory phrases based upon their different economic impact). 93 Petitioners challenge the Agency's position by appealing to a competing norm of statutory construction: [W]here ... Congress adopts a new law incorporating sections of a prior law, Congress normally can be presumed to have had knowledge of the interpretation given to the incorporated law, at least insofar as it affects the new statute. Lorillard v. Pons, 434 U.S. 575, 581, 98 S.Ct. 866, 870, 55 L.Ed.2d 40 (1978). Accord Lindahl v. OPM, 470 U.S. 768, 782 & n. 15, 105 S.Ct. 1620, 1628 & n. 15, 84 L.Ed.2d 674 (1985); Haig v. Agee, 453 U.S. 280, 301 & n. 50, 101 S.Ct. 2766, 2779 & n. 50, 69 L.Ed.2d 640 (1981); Dart v. United States, 848 F.2d 217, 229 (D.C.Cir.1988). Thus, when Congress enacted section 3004(x) in 1984, petitioners assert, it adopted EPA's contemporaneous interpretation of the scope of the Bevill Amendment, which included all solid waste from the smelting and refining of ores and minerals. See 45 Fed.Reg. at 76,619. 94 In effect, petitioners advance a Chevron step one argument, i.e., that Congress has directly spoken to the precise question at issue. 467 U.S. at 842, 104 S.Ct. at 2781. They rely principally upon two points of legislative history in support of their position. First, Senator Randolph inserted into the record the following statement: 95 [O]f course, we recognize that under the ongoing reexamination of what wastes the mining waste suspension should apply to, some wastes--including previously listed wastes--may be regulated ... even earlier than the conclusion of the study. 96 130 Cong.Rec. 20,845 (July 25, 1984). This statement bespeaks an intent to include within the scope of section 3004(x) wastes that were then within the Bevill exclusion but that might subsequently be denied Bevill status. Senator Randolph, at least, viewed the scope of section 3004(x) as potentially broader than that of the Bevill Amendment. 97 Second, the House bill would have made section 3004(x) applicable only to wastes subject to the Bevill study, see 129 Cong.Rec. 30,854 (Nov. 3, 1983); the Senate version, which was enacted (with modifications not relevant here), would have applied instead to the seemingly broader category of solid waste from the extraction, beneficiation or processing of ores and minerals, ... if such solid waste is subject to regulation under this subtitle. S. 757, 98th Cong., 1st Sess. § 6(a) (1983). The committee reports tell a different tale, however. The Senate Committee Report indicates that even in the Senate version the authority to modify Subtitle C regulations did not cover wastes listed as hazardous prior to passage of the Bevill Amendment. S.Rep. No. 284, 98th Cong., 1st Sess. 29 (1983). And the Conference Report says of section 3004(x)--again, referring to the Senate version as modified--that [t]his authority is intended to extend to all of the wastes required to be studied by EPA pursuant to section 8002(f), (n), (o), and (p). H.R.Conf.Rep. No. 1133, 98th Cong., 2d Sess. 94 (1984), U.S.Code Cong. & Admin.News 1984, 5576, 5649, 5665. With the Senate initially circumscribing the scope of section 3004(x), and the conferees then explicitly tying that section to the Bevill Amendment, these reports greatly undercut the plausibility of petitioners' interpretation. 98 The statement of an individual senator carries little weight when there is other, more reliable legislative history, such as these committee reports, to the contrary. See United Mine Workers v. Federal Mine Safety & Health Review Comm'n, 671 F.2d 615, 622-23 (D.C.Cir.1982); see also Chemical Mfrs. Ass'n v. EPA, 919 F.2d 158, 164 n. 10 (D.C.Cir.1990). Taken as a whole, therefore, the legislative history does not support petitioners' argument. 99 In addition, we note that EPA had expressly put its interpretation of the Bevill exclusion (as of 1984) on a provisional basis. As we recounted in EDF II: 100 EPA ... announced [in 1980] that as a temporary accommodation of the requests of the mining industry it would interpret the mining waste exclusion as applying to solid waste from the exploration, mining, milling, smelting and refining of ores and minerals. In so doing, EPA acknowledged that such a broad interpretation of the exclusion might not be consistent with Congress's intent in enacting the Bevill Amendment. 101 EDF II, 852 F.2d at 1320 (quoting 45 Fed.Reg. 76,618, 76,619 (1980), emphases omitted). In these circumstances, we hesitate to attribute to Congress an intent to adopt as its own an interpretation upon which the administrative Agency itself had cast doubt. 102 In sum, contrary to petitioners, we do not think that Congress can be said to have spoken directly, or if it did, to have spoken clearly enough to be discerned, to the question whether section 3004(x) incorporates EPA's 1984 interpretation of the scope of the Bevill Amendment. The relevant legislative history is, for petitioners' purposes, at best ambiguous. We therefore review the Agency's interpretation of the statute under the deferential standard of Chevron step two, 467 U.S. at 843, 104 S.Ct. at 2781, and uphold as reasonable EPA's reading of section 3004(x) as coterminous with the Bevill Amendment, for the reason assigned at the outset of this section. G. The Mixture Rule 103 The 9/89 Rule provides that EPA will, under almost all circumstances, 54 Fed.Reg. at 36,622, apply to waste streams consisting of both Bevill and non-Bevill wastes the mixture rule it had earlier promulgated pursuant to Subtitle C, see 40 C.F.R. § 261.3. If the non-Bevill waste is a listed hazardous waste, then the resultant mixture would be considered a hazardous waste unless and until the mixture is delisted; if the non-Bevill waste is a hazardous characteristic waste, then the mixture would be considered a hazardous waste if it exhibits one or more of the same hazardous characteristics that are exhibited by the non-excluded waste. Id. Only if any hazardous characteristic that the mixture exhibits is attributable solely to the Bevill waste component would the mixture be deemed not to be a hazardous waste, and thus qualify for the Bevill exclusion. 104 In extending the Subtitle C mixture rule to the Bevill context, EPA assumed the validity of that rule, which we have since vacated on a procedural ground and remanded to the Agency for reconsideration. See Shell Oil Co. v. EPA, 950 F.2d 741 (D.C.Cir.1991). Were the Subtitle C mixture rule still in place, the Bevill mixture rule might well constitute a reasonable extension of it. Following our decision in Shell Oil, we express no opinion on this matter. 950 F.2d at 765. If the EPA desires to and successfully does repromulgate the Subtitle C rule, it will similarly be able to repromulgate the Bevill rule, and attempt to justify the latter by reference to the former. Alternatively, the Agency may wish to justify the Bevill rule on independent grounds. Because we vacated the Subtitle C rule and remanded it to the Agency, however, see Shell Oil, the Bevill mixture rule must now also be remanded. Cf. SEC v. Chenery Corp., 318 U.S. 80, 95, 63 S.Ct. 454, 462, 87 L.Ed. 626 (1943). H. The Treatment Permit Requirement 105 As a complement to the mixture rule, EPA observes in the preamble to the 9/89 Rule that a processing operation must have a treatment permit in order to perform the mixing itself: 106 [M]ixing a characteristic hazardous waste with a Bevill waste would constitute treatment of a hazardous waste, and would be subject to the appropriate regulation for the treatment, storage, or disposal of hazardous wastes, including obtaining a permit. 107 54 Fed.Reg. at 36,622. Petitioners object that this conclusion is arbitrary and capricious for want of any explanation for how [it] ... was reached, including any discussion of the statutory or regulatory definitions of 'treatment.'  108 Having remanded the Bevill mixture rule, we have no occasion today to pass upon the validity of this corollary rule. If the EPA reinstates the underlying mixture rule, or otherwise decides to adhere to this permit rule, petitioners may seek review of that decision in due course.