Opinion ID: 195402
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: come from a conforming transportation

Text: plan and program as defined in subparagraph (A) or for 12 months after November 15, 1990, from a transportation program found to conform within 3 years prior to such date of enactment. -34- mandate that no transportation project may receive federal funding or support unless the project comes from a conforming Plan and TIP as defined in 7506(c)(3)(A) or, until November of 1991, from a plan or program found to conform within 3 years prior to November 15, 1990. The issue before us is whether 7506(c)(3) applies to all projects regardless of their status, or just to projects that have yet to receive a conformity determination as of November, 1990. Without delving into statutory minutiae -- and, as a consequence, declining the parties' invitation to engage the battle of dueling legislative histories -- we believe that it is certainly reasonable for the district court to (implicitly) interpret the grace period provision in 7506(c)(3)(B)(i) as applying only prospectively and not to past projects like the Jamestown Connector. First of all, 7506(c)(3)(B) does not say that no project can receive federal support unless it comes from a conforming transportation plan. Instead, the grace period sentence relied on by the plaintiffs, 7506(c)(3)(B)(i), is part of a provision explaining the manner in which the conformity of plans, TIPs and projects will be demonstrated for purposes of the restriction in 7506(c)(1). Plans whose conformity has already been demonstrated do not appear to fall under the auspices of this provision. The grace period in 7506(c)(3)(B)(i) talks about projects that come from . . . a transportation program found to conform within 3 years prior to November 1991. It says nothing about the project itself being found to conform during the prior -35- 3 years. Consequently, the provision seems specifically aimed at projects whose conformity had yet to be demonstrated by the time the 1990 Amendments took effect.8 The Jamestown Connector was found to conform in 1988 at the latest (by means of the approval of the Jamestown FSEIS) and we see no indication in 7506(c)(3) that Congress intended to abrogate this determination. Furthermore, the language of 7506(c)(3) -- Until such time as the implementation plan revision . . . is approved, conformity of such plans, programs and projects will be demonstrated if . . . -- sounds like it is referring to the interim period, that is, the time between the enactment of the Amendments and the adoption of the new SIPs. Thus, a prospective application of the provision seems particularly appropriate and, conversely, a retroactive application particularly inappropriate. This interpretation of 7506(c)(3) has apparently been adopted by the EPA and the Department of Transportation. See June 7, Environmental Protection Agency and Dept. of Transportation Guidance for Determining Conformity of Transportation Plans, Programs and Projects With Clean Air Act Implementation Plans During Phase I of the Interim Period, June 7, 1991 at 22-23, 24- 8 For this reason, the plaintiffs' argument that the defendants' interpretation of 7506(c)(3)(B)(i) would make that provision superfluous is specious. Presumably, there existed plenty of projects in 1990 that were not as far along as the Jamestown Connector and had not yet received a conformity determination, as did Jamestown, prior to the 1990 Amendments. Those projects may have come from conforming Plans and TIPs at the time of the Amendments, but the projects themselves had yet to receive a determination of conformity. As a result, the grace period in 7506(c)(3)(B)(i) was enacted to address these types of projects. -36- 25 (interpreting 7506(c)(3) to apply only to projects that have yet to receive conformity determinations); see also 58 Fed. Reg. 62190-91 (EPA and Department of Transportation regulations holding that its Interim Guidance governs conformity determinations made between 1990 and 1993). It is well established that we afford considerable deference to an agency's interpretation of a statute that it is primarily charged with enforcing, especially a complicated one like the CAA. Puerto Rican Cement Co. v. United States EPA, 889 F.2d 292 (1st Cir. 1989) (Courts give EPA's construction of the statute controlling weight unless it is plainly erroneous); see also Chevron United States, Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc., 467 U.S. 837, 844-45 (1984); Larson, 2 F.3d at 466-69; Comit Pro Rescate De La Salud v. Puerto Rico Aqueduct & Sewer Auth., 888 F.2d 180, 186 (1st Cir. 1989), cert. denied, 494 U.S. 1029 (1990). We realize that a result of this interpretation of the CAA is that states may have conforming transportation projects without having any conforming transportation plans or programs. We see no problem with this outcome as long as federal government support is limited to projects that were basically already on their way to completion before the 1990 CAA Amendments.9 The 9 Although the FHWA did not authorize construction of the Jamestown Connector until 1992 and the Corps did not issue its permit to fill wetlands until 1992 as well, the final federal environmental go-ahead for the project was given in 1988, and Rhode Island had acquired much of the land for the project by 1990. See Conservation Law Found., 827 F. Supp. at 890. -37- plaintiffs' position, however, would result in a more absurd situation -- a complete halt of all ongoing projects regardless of how close to completion those projects have become. We see no indication in the CAA that Congress intended such a result. Affirmed. -38-