Court Opinion

ID: 9492534
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 14:43:32.469784+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:55:21.400131
License: Public Domain

CANBY, Circuit Judge,
dissenting:
With all due respect to the majority, I do not believe that Congress intended to establish such a startling system of appellate review of civil penalty assessment orders. Under the majority’s view of 33 U.S.C. § 1319(g)(8), an initial decision of a hearing officer must be appealed to a court of appeals within 30 days of its issuance. Yet the same initial decision may be reviewed and modified by the Environmental Appeals Board on its own motion within 45 days after it is served upon the parties! 40 C.F.R. § 22.30(b).1 This construction of the statute leaves us with a virtually unprecedented system of judicial review of unfinished administrative business. As Carney points out, a violator who is subject to a $25,000 penalty might forego an appeal to the court of appeals, only to find that, after the 30 day appeal time to that court has run, the Environmental Appeals Board reviews the decision and quadruples the penalty.
In my view, the language of the § 1319(g)(8) does not compel this result. It provides that a person against whom a penalty is assessed may appeal to a court of appeals “by filing a notice of appeal in such court within the 30-day period beginning on the date the civil penalty order is issued.” Id. (emphasis added). Nothing-in the Act requires us to construe the Administrative Law Judge’s initial decision as a “civil penalty order” as soon as it is handed down. The majority is quite correct in saying that the Administrator has delegated to administrative law judges the authority to “issue all necessary orders,” 40 C.F.R. § 22.04, but that delegation does not compel us to view the Administrative Law Judge’s initial decision as a matured “civil penalty order.” Indeed, there is considerable indication in the regulations that the EPA itself does not so regard it.
The governing regulation states that the presiding officer shall issue “his initial decision” containing findings of fact, conclusions of law, and “a recommended civil penalty assessment.” 40 C.F.R. § 22.27(a) (emphasis added). This language is wholly unsuited for describing a “civil penalty order” ready for judicial review. Indeed, the regulations contain the usual administrative provision that:
The initial decision of the Presiding Office shall become the final order of the *921Environmental Appeals Board within forty-five (45) days after its service upon the parties and without further proceedings unless (1) an appeal to the Environmental Appeals Board is taken from it by a party to the proceedings, or (2) the Environmental Appeals Board elects, sua sponte, to review the initial decision.
40 C.F.R. § 22.27(c). Why should we not assume that Congress intended us to follow the normal administrative review practice and view such a final order as the one assessing a penalty, appealable to this court under § 1319(g)(8) within 30 days after it “issues,” i.e., after it becomes the final order of the Board?
The regulations governing appeals to the Board buttress the view that the ALJ’s initial decision is not the final decision of the Agency. The initial decision may be appealed to the Environmental Appeals Board within 20 days (or may be reviewed by the Board sua sponte within 45 days), and parties in their notice of appeal must set forth alternative findings and conclusions and a “proposed order together with relevant references to the record and the initial decision.” 40 C.F.R. § 22.30(a). The Board is then required to “issue a final order as soon as practicable.” 40 C.F.R. § 22.31(a) (emphasis added).
Certainly the statute and the regulations together permit (I might say “compel”) an interpretation that a “civil penalty order” is “issued” within the meaning of § 1319(g)(8) when the Environmental Appeals Board has issued a final order or when the time for its review has run. The majority is apparently of the view that such a construction is inconsistent with § 1319(g)(5), which states that “[a]n order issued under [§ 1319(g)(8) ] shall become final 30 days after its issuance unless a petition for review is filed” with the court of appeals or a rehearing is requested. But the question in dispute is when a “civil penalty order” is actually “issued” under § 1319(g)(8). If it is not issued until the Board finishes its review or the time for such review has run, then § 1319(g)(5) merely provides that the order becomes “final” for collection purposes 30 days later. We should not let the tyranny of the words “final” or “issue” lead us to a nonsensical result. There is no inconsistency in holding that an Administrative Law Judge’s decision becomes the decision of the Administrator only after administrative review or after time for such review has run (and thus becomes “final” and “issues” for purposes of judicial review), and that the order becomes “final” for purposes of collection 30 days later under § 1319(g)(5).
If there is any strain in so interpreting the language of subsection (g)(5), I would endure it in order to reach a result that will avoid judicial and administrative disorder in the review process, leaving us with an unprecedented system of judicial review while the administrative process is still in an interlocutory stage. Congress could not have intended that result. Perhaps the difference in my approach to § 1319 and that of the majority is found in my disagreement with the majority’s statement that “where statutory language is clear, our inquiry is at an end.” We and other courts often utter unconditional statements like this about the plain meaning rule, but are unable to live with them in practice. Some qualifications have to be acknowledged. See, e.g., Consumer Product Safety Comm’n v. GTE Sylvania, Inc., 447 U.S. 102, 108, 100 S.Ct. 2051, 64 L.Ed.2d 766 (1980) (“Absent a clearly expressed legislative intention to the contrary, [the statutory] language must ordinarily be regarded as conclusive.”). Indeed, Seattle-First Nat'l Bank v. Conaway, 98 F.3d 1195, 1197 (9th Cir.1996), cited by the majority in support of its unconditional statement, adds an important qualification: “At least that is true where what seems to be the plain meaning of the statute does not lead to ‘absurd or impracticable consequences.’ ” Id. at 1197 (citations omitted). In this case, a rigid “plain meaning” of the words “final” and “issued” in § 1913(g)(5) has led to absurd or impractical consequences. Congress cannot have intended the result the. majority attributes to it.
*922The majority states that the wisdom of immediate judicial review of a non-final administrative decision is demonstrated by “EPA’s confused and dilatory actions in this case.” But if the initial decision of the ALJ was wrong, a point that I do not reach, there is every reason to give the Agency itself a chance to correct it by administrative review, as we normally do before inserting the courts into the process.2
Because I believe that §§ 1319(g)(8) may properly be construed to require the filing of a notice of appeal within 30 days after an ALJ’s decision becomes the decision of the Board, and that the majority’s contrary interpretation creates a chaotic system of judicial review that cannot have been intended by Congress, I dissent. I would hold Carney’s appeal to be timely and would address its merits.

. The initial decision may also be appealed to the Board by the parties, within 20 days after service upon them of the initial decision. 40 C.F.R. § 22.30(a)(1).

. I cannot endorse the majority’s statement in its footnote 2 that "EPA was largely responsible for Carney’s noncompliance with the CWA.” EPA did not cause the discharge of pollutants. Although it did give confusing signals concerning enforcement, EPA made its position clear in many communications to Carney that Carney's discharges were violations of the Act. These communications are fully described in the Environmental Appeals Board's Remand Order of June 9, 1997, pp. 8-13.