Court Opinion

ID: 9646000
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 05:07:49.164725+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:11:53.349512
License: Public Domain

If this opinion indicates that it is “FOR PUBLICATION,” it is subject to
                 revision until final publication in the Michigan Appeals Reports.

                          STATE OF MICHIGAN

                           COURT OF APPEALS

3M COMPANY,                                                        FOR PUBLICATION
                                                                   August 22, 2023
               Plaintiff-Appellee,

v                                                                  No. 364067
                                                                   Court of Claims
DEPARTMENT OF ENVIRONMENT, GREAT                                   LC No. 21-000078-MZ
LAKES, AND ENERGY,

               Defendant-Appellant.

Before: GADOLA, P.J., and MURRAY and MALDONADO, JJ.

MALDONADO, J. (dissenting).

        I would reverse the trial court’s order granting summary disposition in favor of 3M
Company because I do not believe that MCL 24.245(3)(n) requires EGLE to provide estimated
costs of compliance with the changes in the groundwater standards that were a ripple effect of the
new rules governing drinking water. Accordingly, I dissent.

                                        I. DISCUSSION

       In my opinion, the Court of Claims erred by holding that the Department was obligated to
estimate compliance costs other than those flowing directly from the actual proposed rule.

        I agree that a ripple effect of Part 201 of the NREPA is that whenever EGLE sets drinking
water standards it is also setting groundwater cleanup criterion. I also agree that EGLE,
nevertheless, did not provide estimates of compliance costs with the new groundwater cleanup
criterion in the RIS it prepared for the new drinking water standards. However, because MCL
24.245(3)(n) only requires EGLE to estimate costs of the proposed rule, and the proposed rule was
the drinking-water rule, I believe EGLE only needed to provide an estimate of the costs for
businesses and other groups to comply with the drinking-water rule; it did not need to provide an
estimate of the costs that businesses and other groups might incur as a result of the groundwater-
cleanup provisions found in Part 201 of NREPA.

       MCL 24.245(3)(n) provides that the agency must include in its regulatory-impact statement
“[a]n estimate of the actual statewide compliance costs of the proposed rule on businesses and

                                               -1-
other groups.” (Emphasis added.) The words “the” and “a” have different meanings, with the
word “the” being a definite article and the word “a” being an indefinite article. Robinson v
Lansing, 486 Mich 1, 14; 782 NW2d 171 (2010). The word “a” has general application, while the
word “the” refers to a specific thing. Id. The APA uses words like “the rule” and “the proposed
rule” to refer to a rule “as it moves through the rulemaking process.” Mich Charitable Gaming,
310 Mich App at 599. Considering the language of MCL 24.245(3)(n) in its grammatical context,
the word “the” modifies the phrase “proposed rule.” Further, when these words are considered in
the fuller statutory context, this requirement is contained within a list of requirements addressing
the proposed rule. See MCL 24.245(2). In this case, the proposed rule set is 2019-35 EG,
“Supplying Water to the Public.” These rules “pertain[ed] to establishing drinking water standards
for public water supplies” and were related to the SDWA. While it is not disputed that adopting
the proposed drinking-water rules under the SDWA inevitably has a ripple effect on the
groundwater-cleanup rules under Part 201 of the NREPA, the groundwater-cleanup rules were not
the rules that were part of this specific regulatory process. Therefore, EGLE’s regulatory-impact
statement for the proposed rule under the SDWA is sufficient.

        EGLE did identify the estimated actual statewide compliance costs of the proposed
drinking-water rule on businesses and groups. It identified those businesses and groups as those
with their own water supplies, such as condominiums, apartment buildings, residential units,
industries, and small businesses that were not connected to municipal water. EGLE did estimate
the costs to businesses and groups regarding the drinking-water rules. It did not estimate ancillary
costs that would result from changes to other standards as a result of the proposed rule, but the
APA does not require it to do so.

        I agree with 3M Company, the Court of Claims, and the majority that, by creating rules
regulating PFAS in drinking water, the Department was able to entirely avoid calculating
groundwater-cleanup costs to Michigan businesses. This appears to be a loophole in the
rulemaking process, but this Court defers to the Legislature regarding matters with complex social
and policy ramifications. Gavrilides Mgt Co, LLC v Mich Ins Co, 340 Mich App 306, 317; 985
NW2d 919 (2022). That a statute appears to be inconvenient, unnecessary, or unwise is not a
reason for this Court to avoid the application of plain statutory language. Johnson v Recca, 492
Mich 169, 187; 821 NW2d 520 (2012). Pursuant to Part 201, if drinking-water standards have
been established pursuant to the SDWA, groundwater-cleanup criteria are derived from those
standards. MCL 324.20120a(5). The Legislature decided to tie groundwater-cleanup standards
directly to drinking-water standards. The APA does not require a regulatory-impact statement for
one proposed rule to account for ripple effects in other rules, which is what has occurred in this
case.

                                       II. CONCLUSION

        Because I believe the Court of Claims applied incorrect legal principles when it interpreted
MCL 24.245(3)(n) to require the Department to estimate costs for other proposed rules ancillary
to the proposed rule addressed by a regulatory-impact statement, I would reverse. Therefore,
respectfully, I dissent.

                                                -2-
      /s/ Allie Greenleaf Maldonado

-3-