Court Opinion

ID: 9493979
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 15:25:16.796266+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:56:08.711654
License: Public Domain

RIPPLE, Circuit Judge,
concurring in the judgment.
As the panel notes, this is a very unusual case. The Environmental Protection Agency, an agency charged with a high responsibility and an often difficult task, here seeks to gain access to an individual’s property, for the purpose of continuing to inspect the land for evidence of the release or threat of a release of hazardous substances and for the purpose of effectuating a fairly extensive remedial action. What makes this case unusual is the very limited evidence of an environmental hazard that the E.P.A. has put forward to justify its request for an access order that includes the authority to “effectuate a response action.” 42 U.S.C. § 9604(e)(3)(D).
The panel quite properly holds that Congress, by allowing, in Section 104(e)(5)(B)(i), for review of access requests under an arbitrary and capricious standard, did not intend to tolerate such intrusions when they are based on the very limited evidence of contamination put forward in this case.
The court’s analysis, while adequately responding to the narrow and unusual situation before us, does leave a conceptual and practical difficulty that is bound to emerge in future and more difficult cases. In these eases, the E.P.A. will proffer more significant evidence of the release or threat of release of hazardous substances on an individual’s property and seek access to that land to investigate more accurately the nature and extent of the violation and to implement a significant remedy. In such an instance, a court will need to take into consideration the scope of the E.P.A.’s planned response action in order to carry out its responsibility under Section 104(e)(5) of determining whether “under the circumstances of the case the demand for entry [more specifically, a demand for entry to ‘effectuate a response action’ under Section 104(e)(3)(D)] ... is arbitrary and capricious, an abuse of discretion, or otherwise not in accordance with law.” 42 U.S.C. § 9604(e)(5)(B)(i). What remains unclear are the circumstances that will justify a court’s denial of entry to effectuate a remedial order. Section 113(h) certainly appears to curb courts from examining the technical merit of a response action presented by the government and from micromanaging the activities that such an action could include. Yet, when the E.P.A.’s evidence of contamination allows access for some type of response action, but makes the contemplated remedy seem significantly disproportionate to the perceived violation, the limitations on the court’s authority are not well-defined. Today’s opinion, by suggesting that the *604E.P.A.’s remediation request must be reasonable, implies that there must be a proportionality between the investigative results and the proposed plan. Such a balancing approach may result in courts assuming a great deal more latitude than Congress intended.
Today’s decision is hardly the occasion to delineate comprehensively or precisely the limits of judicial authority in such a situation. Disagreements can be expected between the E.P.A. and those that it seeks to regulate. The conflicting mandates of Section 104(e)(5) and Section 113(h) will collide far more starkly than they do in this case. More explicit congressional guidance would permit the E.P.A. to fulfill its responsibilities and the courts to respond more precisely to the legislative mandate.