Opinion ID: 580022
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Spokane I Order

Text: 23 Citizens contends that the Administrator erred by holding Citizens had failed to meet an especially heavy burden of providing hard data in support of recycling as a best available control technology for the Spokane incinerator. Spokane I at 13-14. Citizens argues that, by improperly imposing this burden, the Administrator changed the rules of administrative review without notice, prevented Citizens from complying with the new rules, and shifted the burden of advancing new air pollution control technologies from PSD applicants to public intervenors. 24 The PSD permit procedure imposes different burdens on different parties at various stages of the process. Initially, the burden rests with the PSD applicant to identify the best available control technology. Relying on EPA guidance memoranda, the Administrator concluded that the statutory definition of BACT [best available control technology] imposes a responsibility on the permit applicant to identify the particular 'available' technology that will produce the maximum degree of reduction of each regulated pollutant to be emitted from the proposed facility. Spokane I at 8 (emphasis omitted); see also 42 U.S.C. § 7475(a)(3) (placing responsibility on the applicant to demonstrate that emissions from the proposed new source will not cause excessive air pollution). Specifically, the applicant is expected to employ a top-down methodology to identify the best available control technology. Spokane I at 9. 25 Under the top-down methodology, applicants must apply the best available control technology unless they can demonstrate that the technology is technically or economically infeasible. Id. The top-down approach places the burden of proof on  'the applicant to justify why the proposed source is unable to apply the best technology available.'  Id. (quoting EPA guidance memorandum) (emphasis added). The burden of identifying and applying the best available control technology thus lay with Spokane during the proceedings before Ecology. 26 Once the permitting process reaches the public comments stage, [a]ll persons, including [permit] applicants, who believe ... the ... tentative decision to ... prepare a draft permit is inappropriate, must raise all reasonably ascertainable issues and submit all reasonably available arguments supporting their position. 40 C.F.R. § 124.13. The permitting authority is then obligated to respond to all significant comments. Id. § 124.17(a)(2). As the Administrator recognized in this case, Spokane I at 12-13,  'comments must be significant enough to step over a threshold requirement of materiality before any lack of agency response or consideration becomes of concern. The comment cannot merely state that a particular mistake was made...; it must show why the mistake was of possible significance in the results.'  Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Corp. v. NRDC, 435 U.S. 519, 553, 98 S.Ct. 1197, 1216, 55 L.Ed.2d 460 (1978) (quoting Portland Cement Ass'n v. Ruckelshaus, 486 F.2d 375, 394 (D.C.Cir.1973), cert. denied, 417 U.S. 921, 94 S.Ct. 2628, 41 L.Ed.2d 226 (1974)) (emphasis added). 27 Upon initial approval of a permit, any person who filed comments may petition the Administrator for review of the permit decision on any ground, so long as it was raised to the extent required during the public comment period. 40 C.F.R. § 124.19(a). In petitioning the Administrator for review of a PSD permit, the burden shifts from applicants to petitioners such as Citizens. Under EPA regulations, in order to obtain administrative review petitioners must show that approval of the permit was based on: 28 (1) A finding of fact or conclusion of law which is clearly erroneous, or 29 (2) An exercise of discretion or an important policy consideration which the Administrator should, in his or her discretion, review. 30 Id. Petition for administrative review of a permit decision, then, is not a matter of right. Indeed, as the Administrator emphasized, EPA has determined that the  'power of review should be only sparingly exercised,' and 'most permit conditions should be finally determined at the Regional [State] level.'  Spokane I at 3 (quoting preamble to review regulation, 45 Fed.Reg. 33,412 (1980)). 31 Once the case reaches this court, we apply the arbitrary or capricious standard set forth above to the agency action approving the PSD permit. Contrary to EPA's argument, we do not simply review whether it was arbitrary or capricious for the Administrator to reject Citizens' claims that Ecology clearly erred. Rather, we conduct a deferential review of the entire agency action, including the adequacy of Ecology's response to Citizens' comments. See 5 U.S.C. § 704 (A preliminary, procedural, or intermediate agency action or ruling not directly reviewable is subject to review on the review of the final agency action.); see also id. §§ 706 (providing for judicial review of agency action), 551(13) (defining agency action as including the whole or a part of an agency rule, order, license, sanction, relief, or the equivalent or denial thereof, or failure to act), 701(b)(2) (incorporating section 551 definition of agency action into APA judicial review provisions). 32 With these varying standards and levels of review in mind, the issue ultimately presented to this court is whether EPA's response to Citizens' comments concerning recycling was arbitrary or capricious. We think this issue turns on whether the agency properly relied on the significant comment threshold test set forth at 40 C.F.R. § 124.17(a)(2) in refusing to consider recycling as a possible best available control technology. 33 In taking this approach, we reject Citizens' argument that, instead of relying on the § 124.17 threshold test, EPA imposed a new heavy burden requiring Citizens to produce hard data concerning recycling before EPA could be required to consider recycling as a possible best available control technology. Citizens bases its argument here on the fact that Ecology responded to Citizens' comments, and that § 124.17 only requires a response when comments are significant. Citizens therefore concludes that its comments must be significant, such that EPA must have employed a different, new test in order to avoid further consideration of recycling. 34 We disagree. Citizens' argument fails to take into account that the burden of proof at the permitting stage rested upon the permit applicant, not EPA. So long as EPA declines to require a response from the applicant, and otherwise does not substantively respond to a comment, we surmise that EPA has not considered the comment to be significant. It is this determination that we must review. 5
35 Anticipating our approach, Citizens contends that the Administrator erred in holding that Citizens' comments on Spokane's PSD application were not sufficiently significant to require Ecology either to request a response from the permit applicant or otherwise to consider recycling as a possible best available control technology. It is incumbent upon intervenors who wish to participate to structure their participation so that it is meaningful, so that it alerts the agency to the intervenors' position and contentions. Vermont Yankee, 435 U.S. at 553, 98 S.Ct. at 1216. Citizens contends that their comments to Ecology about recycling met this standard. 36 In considering Citizens' administrative petitions, the Administrator noted that, because the permit applicant bears the burden of identifying the best available control technology, the slightest suggestion by an intervenor in the comments might compel applicants to undertake time-consuming, costly studies. Spokane I at 12. Deploring this scenario, the Administrator emphasized that applicants and agencies need respond in detail only to  'significant comments.'  Id. (emphasis added by Administrator) (quoting 40 C.F.R. § 124.17(a)(2)). Citing the Vermont Yankee Court, the Administrator noted that petitioners' responsibility to present its position and contentions effectively was especially heavy when asking an applicant or agency to  'embark upon an exploration of uncharted territory.'  Id. at 13-14 (quoting Vermont Yankee, 435 U.S. at 553, 98 S.Ct. at 1216). Finding that recycling as an air pollution control was such uncharted territory, the Administrator held that Citizens failed to meet its burden to show Ecology clearly erred in failing to evaluate recycling in detail despite Citizens' comments. We agree with the Administrator's reading of the Vermont Yankee decision. 37 In light of Citizens' comments and Vermont Yankee, EPA's decision not to consider recycling as a possible best available control technology was not arbitrary or capricious. Citizens does not assert that at the time it originally filed its comments with Ecology, hard data existed concerning the effects of fuel cleaning and separation used in combination with state-of-the-art cleaning devices. Rather, it is undisputed that no such hard data existed. In considering Citizens' comments, Ecology stated that the technology needed further study in order to quantify its benefits, and even after the Spokane PSD permit had been issued, a 1989 EPA Municipal Waste Task Force Report concluded that data are currently inadequate to determine precisely the effect on air emissions and ash of eliminating specific materials from the waste stream prior to combustion. Citizens does not contest these statements. 38 Although Citizens has structured its comments so as to be more specific than were those in Vermont Yankee, Citizens offers no hard evidence of the effectiveness of fuel cleaning and separation in combination with scrubbers and baghouses. Nor does Citizens refer to analogous technology that would quantifiably validate the effectiveness, or even the use, of fuel cleaning and separation in combination with state-of-the-art technologies. Instead, Citizens contends its comments are sufficient to provoke consideration of recycling as a possible best available control technology on the common sense argument of burn less, pollute less. 39 Taken by itself, burn less, pollute less is of course a common sense approach. However, once the addition of state-of-the-art control technologies are introduced into the equation, this common sense statement can no longer stand on its own two feet. As the Administrator indicated, because Spokane's proposed incinerator will incorporate state-of-the-art pollution control technologies, recycling may not result in a demonstrable reduction in emissions of regulated pollutants. Spokane I at 22. Thus, Citizens was required to introduce something more specific. In particular, it appears EPA considered necessary some indication of what materials recycling would remove from the waste stream, and what regulated air pollutants would thereby be further diminished after existing control technologies have been taken into account. Here, Citizens did not set forth with specificity, if at all, either issues or evidence in support of its common sense argument. 40 As the Administrator concluded, the three studies submitted by Citizens are not relevant to the question whether fuel cleaning and separation in combination with conventional, state-of-the-art pollution control equipment is best available control technology for the Spokane incinerator. 6 Spokane I at 15-17. One of the studies compared emissions from incinerators lacking air pollution controls to those from the same uncontrolled incinerators with the addition of recycling. Id. at 15. The Administrator reasoned that it is impossible to conclude from this study whether recycling would have decreased emissions further had the test incinerators also employed the state-of-the-art technologies proposed for the Spokane incinerator. Id. at 15-16. Another study determined that recycling was not the best available control technology for the facility in San Marcos, California. Id. at 16-17. Thus, none of the studies supported the proposition that a recycling requirement for Spokane's incinerator would reduce emissions of regulated pollutants over and above the reductions Spokane will achieve by installing the other technologies already required by the PSD permit. Id. at 17. We find nothing arbitrary or capricious in the Administrator's analysis of these studies. 41 In light of the statutory requisite that the proposed technology be the best available control technology, and in the absence of anything specific or quantifiable in support of a position that common sense alone cannot sustain, we conclude that EPA's decision not to consider recycling in permitting the Spokane incinerator was not arbitrary or capricious. 42
43 Citizens also contends that, in requiring it to demonstrate quantitatively the effects of recycling in combination with pollution control technology, the Administrator erred in construing the term available, as used in the statutory phrase best available control technology, to mean quantifiably effective. Citizens points out that the Clean Water Act requires new sources of pollution to employ the best available demonstrated control technology. 33 U.S.C. § 1316(a)(1) (emphasis added). Congress did not require demonstrated effectiveness under the Clean Air Act, however. Instead, Citizens argues, a technology is available under the Clean Air Act so long as it is not purely theoretical or experimental. See Portland Cement Ass'n, 486 F.2d at 391 (quotation omitted). The Administrator erred, Citizens concludes, in denying Citizens' petition for lack of data quantifying recycling as a best available control technology for Spokane's incinerator. Obviously, Citizens argues, recycling is neither purely theoretical nor experimental. 44 Even if we were to agree that the Administrator erred in construing the statutory term available to mean quantifiably effective, the error did not prejudice Citizens. As Citizens concedes, a technology's effectiveness must be considered at some point to determine whether it is the best technology. The Administrator's rationale applies with equal force to a best as well as to an available determination. As the Administrator observed, without the requisite knowledge about the technology's effects on emissions, the technology also cannot be regarded as the 'best' technology. Spokane I at 18. Indeed, and as the Administrator further noted, the top-down ranking methodology for best available control technologies requires some kind of quantification of effectiveness in order to rank technologies. Spokane I at 9-10. Accordingly, we find no error in the Administrator's application of the term best; we have no occasion to rule on EPA's construction of the term available. 45
46 Citizens argues finally that EPA itself supplied whatever substantiation Citizens' comments may have lacked when the Administrator approved the draft New Source Performance Standard requiring recycling for municipal incinerators such as Spokane's. In approving the new recycling standard, Citizens points out, the Administrator relied on both the NRT study 7 and the same common sense inferences rejected by the Administrator in denying Citizens' first petition. If the NRT study and common sense suffice for the proposal of nationwide, mandatory standards, Citizens argues, they ought to suffice to require Ecology and EPA to consider recycling as a possible best available control technology. 47 In the order denying Citizens' second petition, the Administrator explained three reasons for refusing to consider the proposed new recycling standard in support of Citizens' petition. Spokane II at 5 n. 3. First, the new standard was still in draft form, susceptible to public comment and change. Id. Second, if finally adopted, the standard would apply to Spokane's incinerator in all events. Id. 8 Third, the evidence supporting the new standard did not appear in the record for Spokane's PSD permit either before Ecology or before the Administrator in the first petition. Id. In the interest of repose, therefore, the Administrator declined to review the evidence at that stage. Id. 48 Citizens deftly attempts to undermine the Administrator's rationale. If the issue is persuasiveness of the evidence to EPA itself, Citizens argues, lack of final approval does not weaken the Administrator's imprimatur on the evidence shown by his initial approval of the draft recycling standard. Citizens adduced the exact same evidence in its comments as EPA considered in proposing the new recycling standard; i.e., the NRT study and common sense. The NRT study and common sense arguments were on the record both before Ecology during the permit process and before the Administrator in Citizens' first petition. Thus, Citizens concludes, the Administrator acted arbitrarily and capriciously by rejecting, on the one hand, Citizens' recycling evidence in support of its petition and, on the other hand, adopting the exact same evidence in support of the draft recycling standard for all new municipal incinerators. 49 Data supporting a New Source Performance Standard, however, must necessarily be more generalized than data supporting a best available control technology determination for a particular incinerator in a particular place. Indeed, we have previously distinguished New Source Performance Standard or NSPS determinations from those made under the PSD program. In Northern Plains Resource Council, we explained: 50 While the NSPS program and the PSD are both interrelated parts of a comprehensive federal legislative effort to protect and enhance this nation's air quality, the two programs play different roles in achieving that broad general goal.... 51 The focus of the NSPS program ... is upon the affected facility component in a stationary source, i.e. the particular apparatus to which a standard is applied. The NSPS program is therefore equipment oriented. On the other hand, the PSD program covers the whole stationary source, and focuses on where the plant will be located and its potential effect on its environs. The PSD program is therefore site oriented. 52 645 F.2d at 1355-56 (emphasis in original) (citation omitted). We therefore concluded that definitions of statutory terms are not necessarily transferable between the PSD and NSPS programs. Id. at 1356. Likewise, the data required for adoption of an equipment oriented New Source Performance Standard may fall far short of the data required for the site oriented best available control technology determination under the PSD program. Given the distinction between the two programs, the Administrator did not act arbitrarily and capriciously in rejecting Citizens' petition under the PSD program based on data valid for the NSPS program.