Opinion ID: 529912
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Was EPA's Explanation Adequate?

Text: 65 The Supreme Court has made it abundantly clear that a reviewing court is not to supplement an agency's reasons for proceeding as it did, nor to paper over its plainly defective rationale: The reviewing court should not attempt itself to make up for such deficiencies [in the agency's explanation]; we may not supply a reasoned basis for the agency's action that the agency itself has not given. Motor Vehicles Manufacturers Ass'n v. State Farm Mut. Auto Ins. Co., 463 U.S. 29, 43, 103 S.Ct. 2856, 2866-67, 77 L.Ed.2d 443 (1983) (citing SEC v. Chenery Corp., 332 U.S. 194, 196, 67 S.Ct. 1575, 1577, 91 L.Ed. 1995 (1947)). We will, however, 'uphold a decision of less than ideal clarity if the agency's path may reasonably be discerned.'  Id. (quoting Bowman Transportation, Inc. v. Arkansas-Best Freight System, Inc., 419 U.S. 281, 286, 95 S.Ct. 438, 442, 42 L.Ed.2d 447 (1974)). Accordingly, in order to determine whether we can affirm EPA's action here, we must parse the language of the Final Rule to see whether it can be interpreted to make a sensible argument for the approach EPA adopted. We find that it cannot. 66 As we have said, EPA, in its Proposed Rule, expressed a tentative preference for an approach that combined screening levels and BDAT. It indicated that it thought either that approach or BDAT alone was consistent with the statute, and recognized that there were myriad uncertainties inherent in any attempt to model the health and environmental effects of the land disposal of hazardous wastes. It initially concluded, however, that despite those uncertainties, the better approach was to adopt the combination of screening levels and BDAT. Nevertheless, in the Final Rule, it rejected its earlier approach, and adopted a regime of treatment levels defined by BDAT alone. 67 In order fully to convey the inadequacy of EPA's explanation, we quote the relevant portion of the Final Rule at length: 68 Although a number of comments on the proposed rule favored the first approach; that is, the use of screening levels to cap treatment that can be achieved under BDAT, several commenters, including eleven members of Congress, argued strongly that this approach did not fulfill the intent of the law. They asserted that because of the scientific uncertainty inherent in risk-based decisions, Congress expressly directed the Agency to set treatment standards based on the capabilities of existing technology. 69 The Agency believes that the technology-based approach adopted in today's final rule, although not the only approach allowable under the law, best responds to the above-stated comments. Accordingly, the final rule establishes treatment standards under RCRA section 3004(m) based exclusively on levels achievable by BDAT. The Agency believes that the treatment standards will generally be protective of human health and the environment. Levels less stringent than BDAT may also be protective. 70 The plain language of the statute does not compel the Agency to set treatment standards based exclusively on the capabilities of existing technology.... By calling for standards that minimize threats to human health and the environment, the statute clearly allows for the kind of risk-based standard originally proposed by the Agency. However, the plain language of the statute does not preclude a technology-based approach. This is made clear by the legislative history accompanying the introduction of the final section 3004(m) language. The legislative history provides that [T]he requisite levels of [sic] methods of treatment established by the Agency should be the best that has been demonstrated to be achievable and that [T]he intent here is to require utilization of available technology in lieu of continued land disposal without prior treatment. (Vol. 130, Cong.Rec. 9178, (daily ed., July 25, 1984)). Thus, EPA is acting within the authority vested by the statute in selecting [sic] to promulgate a final regulation using its proposed alternative approach of setting treatment standards based on BDAT. 71 The Agency believes that its major purpose in adopting the risk-based approach of the proposal (i.e., to allow different standards for relatively low-risk, low-hazard wastes) may be better addressed through changes in other aspects of its regulatory program. For example, EPA is considering the use of its risk-based methodologies to characterize wastes as hazardous pursuant to section 3001. 72 51 Fed.Reg. at 40,578. 73 To summarize: after EPA issued the Proposed Rule, some commenters, including eleven members of Congress, chastised the agency on the ground that the use of screening levels was inconsistent with the intent of the statute. They stated that because of the uncertainties involved, Congress had mandated that BDAT alone be used to set treatment standards. EPA determined that the best respon[se] to those comments was to adopt a BDAT standard. It emphasized, however, that either course was consistent with the statute (and that it was therefore not required to use BDAT alone). Finally, it asserted, without explanation, that its major purpose in initially proposing screening levels may be better addressed through changes in other aspects of its regulatory program, and gave an example of one such aspect that might be changed. 74 This explanation is inadequate. It should go without saying that members of Congress have no power, once a statute has been passed, to alter its interpretation by post-hoc explanations of what it means; there may be societies where history belongs to those in power, but ours is not among them. In our scheme of things, we consider legislative history because it is just that: history. It forms the background against which Congress adopted the relevant statute. Post-enactment statements are a different matter, and they are not to be considered by an agency or by a court as legislative history. An agency has an obligation to consider the comments of legislators, of course, but on the same footing as it would those of other commenters; such comments may have, as Justice Frankfurter said in a different context, power to persuade, if lacking power to control. Skidmore v. Swift & Co., 323 U.S. 134, 140, 65 S.Ct. 161, 164, 89 L.Ed. 124 (1944). 75 It is unclear whether EPA recognized this fundamental point. On the one hand, it suggested that the adoption of a BDAT-only regime best-respond[ed] to the comments suggesting that the statute required such a rule. On the other hand, EPA went on at some length to establish that the comments were in error, in that screening levels are permissible under the statute. EPA's rationale, in other words, is that several members of Congress (among others) urged upon it the claim that Proposition X (Congress mandated BDAT) requires Result A (EPA adopts BDAT), and that although Proposition X is inaccurate, the best response to the commenters is to adopt Result A. 76 Nor is anything added by EPA's bald assertion that its reason for initially preferring Result B (screening levels) may be better served by other changes in the statutory scheme. In its Proposed Rule, EPA had, after extensive analysis of the various alternatives, come to the opposite conclusion. It is insufficient, in that context, for EPA to proceed in a different direction simply on the basis of an unexplained and unelaborated statement that it might have been wrong when it earlier concluded otherwise. 77 In the entire relevant text of the Final Rule, EPA neither invokes nor discusses the uncertainties inherent in the land disposal process in support of its determination to use BDAT. EPA's only mention of the concept is in its description of the commenters' argument that, because of such uncertainties, Congress mandated BDAT--an argument that EPA rejected. While it may be that EPA intended that reference to act as an incorporation of all the uncertainties it outlined in its Proposed Rule, or all the many challenges to its assumptions that commenters submitted in response to the Proposed Rule, that intent, if indeed it exists, is so shrouded in mist that for this court to say that we could discern its outlines would be as illogical as the agency's explanation in the Final Rule itself. 78 Accordingly, we grant the petitions for review in this respect.