Court Opinion

ID: 9699504
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 20:28:47.431537+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:35:55.068621
License: Public Domain

DISSENTING OPINION BY
Judge McGINLEY.
I respectfully dissent.
The DEP is entitled to the summary judgment relief it requests. There is no genuine dispute as to any material fact. The record supports the conclusion that the DEP’s Compliance Plan is a statement of policy and not a regulation. The NPDES permits issued by the DEP to Petitioners meet all regulatory and statu*70tory requirements of the Chesapeake Bay Program and the federal Clean Water Act.1 The load restrictions in the subject NPDES permits are based on water quality standards for the Chesapeake Bay established by the State of Maryland and approved by the EPA. Under Section 303 of the federal Clean Water Act, Pennsylvania is required to achieve the water quality standards established by Maryland. The DEP has merely conveyed to the regulated community, via the Compliance Plan, its recommended approach for complying with these standards.
At the outset, I agree with the majority’s analysis of the first prong of the “binding norm” test. The plain language of the Compliance Documents indicates that it is not a binding norm.
As the majority points out, the Compliance Plan is made up of three documents: (1) Pennsylvania’s Chesapeake Bay Tributary Implementation Plan for NPDES Permitting (Implementation Plan); (2) Chesapeake Bay Tributary Strategy (Tributary Strategy); and (3) Alternative Allocation Strategy.
The plain language of the Compliance Documents indicates that it is not a binding norm. The DEP specifically states that it intends to treat the plan as a statement of policy and to retain considerable flexible discretion when developing and issuing NPDES permits to meet the Chesapeake Bay’s water quality standards. The Implementation Plan expressly states:
The strategy outlined in this guidance document is intended to supplement-existing requirements. Nothing in this strategy shall affect regulatory requirements. The information herein is not an adjudication or a regulation. There is no intent on the part of the Department to give the strategy described in this document weight or deference. This document establishes the framework, within which the Department will exercise its administrative discretion in the future. The Department reserves the discretion to deviate from this strategy if circumstances warrant.
Pennsylvania’s Chesapeake Bay Tributary Strategy Implementation Plan for NPDES Permitting at 1 (Emphasis added).
The Tributary Strategy also makes it clear that it was not intended to be treated as a binding norm. The DEP’s Tributary Strategy states unequivocally that it is a “plan” to correct the nutrient and sediment problems in the tributary watersheds of the Chesapeake Bay and that one of its purposes is to provide a “framework” to develop new program initiatives. Chesapeake Bay Tributary Strategy at 1.
Aso, the Compliance Plan documents also make it clear that the DEP plans to retain considerable flexible discretion to develop and issue NPDES permits to meet water quality standards. The Tributary Strategy Plan stresses that it merely “establishes the framework, within the Department [DEP] will exercise its administrative discretion in the future” and that the DEP “reserves the discretion to deviate from this strategy if circumstances warrant.” Pennsylvania’s Chesapeake Bay Tributary Strategy at 1. (Emphasis added).
It is true that an agency’s characterization of its own action is not dispositive. Rushton Mining, 591 A.2d at 1173. How*71ever, when the policy at issue is read in its entirety and in context with pertinent existing laws and regulations, it is clear that the DEP’s policy is just that; it is a plan to bring Pennsylvania in compliance with the minimum water quality standards based on criteria developed by the EPA and research performed by the Bay Program. Those standards are the product of a collaborative process between the EPA and the Bay States and represent a scientific consensus defining the water quality conditions necessary to protect the Bay from the effects of nutrient and sediment overloading.
Unfortunately, neither the Petitioners nor the majority analyze the policy in context of the federal Clean Water Act’s Chesapeake Bay Program. To view the policy in a vacuum totally disregards the Clean Water Act’s requirement that Pennsylvania must meet the water quality standards for the Bay established by Maryland. Section 303 of the Clean Water Act requires that NPDES permits include any requirements necessary to achieve water quality standards established under Section 303 of the Act. Such requirements expressly include limitations for all pollutants “which may be discharged at a level which will cause, have reasonable potential to cause, or contribute to an excursion above any State water quality standard,” not just those of the State in which the discharge occurs. 40 C.F.R. § 122.44(d)(1)(f) (emphasis added).
Moreover, a crucial consideration to determine whether a policy is a binding norm, one which the majority failed to consider, is whether the policy interprets or tracks an existing statute or regulation. Had the majority considered this factor, it would have concluded, as I do, that the Compliance Plan was a statement of policy-
A “statement of policy,” is defined in Section 102 of the CDL as:
any document, except an adjudication or a regulation, promulgated by an agency which sets forth substantive or procedural personal or property rights, privileges, immunities, duties, liabilities or obligations of the public or any part thereof, and includes, without limiting the generality of the foregoing, any document interpreting or implementing any act of Assembly enforced or administered by such agency.
45 P.S. § 1102(13) (emphasis added).
In other words, a statement of policy is “one that tracks a statute and does not expand upon its plain meaning.” Such a rule need not be issued in accordance with the Commonwealth Documents Law. Pennsylvania Human Relations Comm’n v. Norristown Area Sch. Dist., 473 Pa. 334, 374 A.2d 671 (1977). Uniontown Area School District v. Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission, 455 Pa. 52, 313 A.2d 156 (1973).
In Home Builders, this Court held the Comprehensive Stormwater Policy was not a regulation because it constituted an approach for “achieving compliance with existing requirements ” over which DEP retained discretion. Home Builders, 828 A.2d at 453 (emphasis added).
There, a homebuilders association, consisting of over 100 production and custom home builders, remodelers and land developers, filed a petition for review seeking, inter alia, a declaration that the Stormwa-ter Policy was an improperly promulgated regulation because it imposed new, mandatory regulatory requirements for protecting water quality in NPDES permits that went beyond the requirements of federal and state law.
Applying the “binding norm” test this Court held that the Stormwater Policy was *72not a regulation, but rather, a policy statement which described “a recommended approach of achieving compliance with the existing requirements ” of state and federal law. Id. at 453. Specifically, the Policy recommended “a uniform approach to stormwater management” that the DEP believed would “assure consistency in its stormwater programs and assure compliance with the existing use protection required by 25 Pa.Code § 934c(a).” Id. at 453.
Similarly, in J.R. Reynolds Inc. v. Department of Labor and Industry, 661 A.2d 494 (Pa.Cmwlth.1995), this Court found that a formula applied by the Department of Labor for calculating fringe benefit credits was an interpretive rule and, therefore, not subject to publication requirements of the CDL.
There, Reynolds failed to adequately segregate its fringe benefits payments according to the hours that workers had labored on public works projects. To determine whether Reynolds was in compliance with the requirements of the Pennsylvania Prevailing Wage Act2 (Act), the Department of Labor and Industry, Prevailing Wage Division (Division) applied an “averaging formula.” J.R. Reynolds, 661 A.2d at 496. The Division determined that Reynolds underpaid its workers $11,453. Reynolds appealed.
In its determination, the Prevailing Wage Appeals Board (Board) concluded that the Division’s averaging formula was an interpretation of the Act, as opposed to a legislative rule. The Board reasoned that the formula was a mechanism for applying the law and did not improperly expand the meaning of the Act.
This Court affirmed and concluded that the averaging formula was simply a mechanism used to apply the law to a contractor who fails to keep records required under the Act. The formula did not expand upon the plain meaning of the Act. Since the formula was an interpretive rule that tracked the Act there was no requirement that it be published or codified as a regulation pursuant to the CDL.
Similarly, the Compliance Plan at issue here does not expand upon the plain meaning of the Clean Water Act or enlarge its original purpose. The Compliance Plan identified a methodology that the DEP planned to use to arrive at cap loads which was consistent with and tracked the federal regulatory and statutory requirements.
Section 1267 of the federal Clean Water Act, 33 U.S.C. § 1267 was enacted by Congress and required the EPA to maintain a “Chesapeake Bay Program.” The Bay Program was developed to assist the signatories of the “Chesapeake Bay. Agreement” (Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia, Delaware and the District of Columbia) to develop and implement specific action plans to carry out the responsibilities of the Bay Program.
Section 117(g) of the federal Clean Water Act, 33 U.S.C. § 1267(g) provides:
(g) Chesapeake Bay Program
(1) Management strategies
The Administrator, in coordination with other members of the Chesapeake Executive Council, shall ensure that management plans are developed and implementation is begun by signatories to the Chesapeake Bay Agreement to achieve and maintain — (emphasis added).
(A) the nutrient goals of the Chesapeake Bay Agreement for the quantity of nitrogen and phosphorus entering the Chesapeake Bay and its watershed; (emphasis added).
*73(B) the water quality requirements necessary to restore living resources in the Chesapeake Bay ecosystem.
One of the goals of the Chesapeake Bay Program is to reduce the nutrient loads, specifically total nitrogen and total phosphorus. The EPA issued technical guidance for establishing water quality criteria to protect the resources of the Chesapeake Bay. The EPA’s report, entitled “Technical Support Document for the Identification of Chesapeake Bay Designated uses and Attainability” set forth total loading caps for the entire bay and further refined those gross allocations to allocations of pollutants by- major tributary basis and jurisdiction, including Pennsylvania. In other words, based on each tributary’s nutrient and sediment input to the Bay, the EPA divided the total Chesapeake Bay pollution load proportionally to each tributary and jurisdiction. The cap load allocations established by the EPA show where the nutrient and sediment loads will most effectively be reduced to achieve restoration goals. The EPA assigned Pennsylvania specific cap loads to ensure compliance with new Maryland water quality standards in an attempt to restore the water quality of the Chesapeake Bay.
The DEP, the agency in charge of implementing the Clean Water Act, in turn, determined which portions of the nutrient load delivered came from point sources and from nonpoint sources, respectively, and assigned a cap load to each. The DEP then developed the Tributary Strategy to meet the cap loads for each category of sources. These formulas were then applied to each permittee, based on its unique design flow, to determine its cap load. In other words, the nutrient-related restrictions in the DEP issued NPDES permits are based on these allocations.
The DEP’s Compliance Plan, including the Tributary Strategy, as its name suggests, is merely a strategy proposed by the DEP to meet existing federal statutory and regulatory requirements. It is not a regulation. The Compliance Plan sets forth no new binding requirements that are not already in place pursuant to the mandates of the federal Clean Water Act. Again, DEP’s proposed nutrient management plan, which includes a proposed formula for calculating individual point source nitrogen and phosphorus cap loads, simply tracks Section 117(g) of the federal Clean Water Act, 33 U.S.C. § 1267(g), entitled “Chesapeake Bay Program.” Section 117(g) of the federal Clean Water Act requires Pennsylvania to develop and implement management plans to achieve and maintain the nutrient goals of the Chesapeake Bay Agreement for the quantity of nitrogen and phosphorus entering the Chesapeake Bay. The Compliance Plan sets forth DEP’s recommendations for achieving that compliance and the strategies it intends to put into practice to ensure that the effluent limits meet the water quality standards established under the Clean Water Act. Because the Compliance Plan imposes no “new” obligations on Petitioners that did not already exist under the Clean Water Act, it is not subject to the strictures of the Commonwealth Documents Law.
The majority does not consider the correlation between the policy at issue and the DEP’s obligations under the Chesapeake Bay Agreement to reduce the amount of sediment and nutrients in the Bay by the year 2010. As a result, I believe this undermines over a decade-long collaborative process between the EPA, the DEP and the five other signatories of the Chesapeake Bay Agreement and hinders, without basis, the DEP’s efforts to carry out its responsibilities under the Chesapeake Bay Program.
*74In light of the technically complex nature of the Clean Water Act and the reciprocal plan to restore the Chesapeake Bay, I believe this Court should favor the expertise of the DEP, the state agency responsible for implementing the Clean Water Act and the Chesapeake Bay Program. Groce v. Department of Environmental Protection, 921 A.2d 567 (Pa.Cmwlth.2007).
For these reasons, I would grant the DEP’s petition for summary judgment, declare the Compliance Plan to be a valid statement of policy, and allow the DEP to implement the NPDES permits and Tributary Strategy to ensure Pennsylvania’s compliance with federal water pollution control requirements.
President Judge LEADBETTER joins in this dissent.

. "NPDES” is an acronym For National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System, a system of federal regulatory controls, pursuant to the Federal Water Pollution Control Act (also known as the federal Clean Water Act), 33 U.S.C. §§ 1251—1376, which governs the discharge of pollutants into waters of the United States. A NPDES permit may be issued by the DEP pursuant to the regulations at 25 Pa.Code §§ 92.1-92.94.

. Act of August 15, 1961, P.L. 987, as amended, 43 P.S. §§ 165-1-165-17.