Posted April 15, 2014
In Catskill Mountains Chapter of Trout Unlimited, Inc. v. U.S. E.P.A., Nos. 08-CV-5606 (KMK), 08-CV-8430 (KMK), 2014 WL 1284544, S.D.N.Y. (March 28, 2014), the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York considered a case involving the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA’s) Water Transfers Rule. The court remanded the Water Transfers Rule, which exempts certain water transfers from permitting requirements under the Clean Water Act, holding that the EPA’s interpretation was arbitrary and capricious for “multiple reasons.”
For a copy of the decision, please contact the National Agricultural Law Center at nataglaw@uark.edu. For more information on the Clean Water Act, please visit the National Agricultural Law Center’s Reading Room on the subject here.
Background
This case is a consolidation of two cases filed by different plaintiffs, but addressing the same issues. Id. at*11. Plaintiffs, conservation groups, filed their lawsuit challenging the EPA’s Water Transfers Rule. Id. Later, several states filed a similar suit challenging the Rule. Id.
The Water Transfers Rule is an “exclusion” to the NPDES program, excluding discharges from water transfers from NPDES permitting. 40 C.F.R. § 112.3(i). Id. at *10. The final rule was issued on June 13, 2008. Id.
Analysis and Holding
The court analyzed the case under the two-step framework established in Chevron, U.S.A., Inc. v. Natural Res. Def. Council, Inc. 467 U.S. 837 (1984). Id. at *14. In step one, the court addressed “whether Congress directly spoke to the issue of whether a water transfer is an “addition … to navigable waters” under § 502(12). Id. at *15. In step two, the court considered the CWA to contain a “delegation[] of authority to the agency to fill the statutory gap in reasonable fashion.” Id. at *27. When Chevrondeference applies, an agency must “provide a reasoned explanation for its action.” Id. at *28. The reasons must be grounded in the statute. Id. at *29.
The court found EPA’s analysis arbitrary and capricious for “multiple reasons.” Id. at *36. The court concluded that EPA’s interpretation “was not supported by a reasoned explanation because it chose a flawed methodology from the start” and, thus, EPA was not entitled to deference because it did not actually answer the precise question at issue. Id. at *42. The court concluded that EPA’s interpretation also fails step two because it failed to support its ultimate conclusion by considering other alternatives and showing how the option it did choose was consistent with its analysis of congressional intent. Id.at *42.
The court stated, in “addition to finding that EPA did not provide a reasoned explanation for its decision in the context of its duty to balance the statute’s competing goals, the Court also finds that EPA failed to explain how its action was consistent and why it did not frustrate the one goal it did consider.” Id. at *49.
The court also found that the EPA did not provide a “reasoned explanation” for its interpretation of the term “navigable waters” as interpreted in the Water Transfers Rule. Id. at *57. The court stated, “because EPA may expand the scope of “navigable water” only within the limits identified in Rapanos, and because it appears in this case that the Water Transfers Rule goes beyond those limits, the Court rejects the EPA’s interpretation. Id.
The court remanded the Water Transfers Rule to give EPA a chance to “reexamine and reevaluate some new ideas.” Id. at *58.
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