Opinion ID: 722370
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Background Specific to TMPA's Claims

Text: 63 Section 402(4)(A) of the Clean Air Act Amendments specifies that the Administrator may adjust a unit's emission allowances for accidents that caused prolonged outages. 42 U.S.C. § 7651a(4)(A). That provision reads, in pertinent part: 64 For each utility unit that was in commercial operation prior to January 1, 1985, the baseline shall be the annual average quantity of mmBtu's [heat energy] consumed in fuel during calendar years 1985, 1986 and 1987.... The Administrator, in the Administrator's sole discretion, may exclude periods during which a unit is shutdown for continuous period of four calendar months or longer, and make appropriate adjustments under this paragraph. Upon petition of ... any unit, the Administrator may make appropriate baseline adjustments for accidents that caused prolonged outages. 65 Id. (emphasis added). 66 As a response to EPA's general request for applications for outage adjustments in the July 1991 Notice, see 56 Fed.Reg. 33,282 (July 19, 1991), but prior to any establishment of standards guiding EPA review of these applications, TMPA submitted an application for an adjustment to its baseline for a 33-day outage during the calendar years 1985, 1986 [or] 1987 that was caused by the failure of the plant's cooling bars. Having received several applications for similar adjustments, EPA proposed to dispense with these applications by distributing them among several categories based on the statutory requirements. One proposed category would have allowed adjustments for applications that demonstrated that an outage was prolonged--tentatively defined as being four months or longer--and caused by an accident--that is, the occurrence of a natural phenomenon ... or an incident unrelated to the operation of the unit that is unpreventable, unforeseeable, and not caused by worker error. Acid Rain Provisions, 57 Fed.Reg. 30,034, 30,036-38 (July 7, 1992). 67 As TMPA's adjustment application stated that its outage lasted only 33 days in the relevant period, it did not qualify for this proposed category (or any proposed category that would have granted it an adjustment). See id. at 30,037 & 30,038 Table 2. Moreover, because the EPA refused to accept any revised applications lest the EPA be unable to publish a corrected NADB by the statutory deadline, see id., TMPA could not supplement its application to show that its outage might qualify for such a category. Instead, TMPA submitted comments about the suggested categories, and it directed the attention of the EPA to a colloquy between two representatives during the floor discussion of § 402(4)(A)--the Barton-Lent colloquy, see 136 Cong. Rec. H12,876-77 (daily ed. Oct. 26, 1990)--that supported TMPA's position that its outage merited some adjustment. 68 In March 1993, the EPA issued a final interpretation of § 7651a(4)(A). This final rule generally maintained the proposed definition for accident, but redefined a prolonged outage by reducing the necessary minimum from four to three months. Notice of Availability of the National Allowance Data Base, 58 Fed.Reg. 15,720, 15,723 (March 23, 1993). EPA explained this reduction as necessary in order to avoid rendering the statutory language governing accidentally-caused outages mere surplus, as another segment of § 402(4)(A) already provided that a utility that suffered a four-month outage, for whatever reason, could apply for an adjustment. See 42 U.S.C. § 7651a(4)(A). The EPA also concluded that, as three months was longer than the average outage according to a NERC study added to the record by the EPA one day prior to the promulgation of the final rule, three months could reasonably be deemed prolonged. See id. At that time, the EPA made a final list of applicants that would not receive adjustments, including TMPA. 69 TMPA challenges the EPA's decisions and its decision-making on several grounds.