On Tuesday, the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia vacated EPA's final rule governing reporting of air releases from animal feeding operations. The Court found that EPA had no statutory authority to exempt AFOs from the reporting regulations.
The decision is also important because it is another in a recent line of cases regarding the extent of agency authority to interpret statutes. The issue was whether EPA had authority to exempt smaller AFOs from reporting requirements, on the ground that it could not:
foresee a situation where [it] would take any future response action as a result of such notification[s].
Although EPA did not explicitly justify its rule on de minimis grounds, the Court understood EPA to be making a de minimis argument and analyzed the rule in that context. The Court concluded that EPA had not justified a de minimis exception, because:
an agency can't use it to create an exception where application of the literal terms would "provide benefits, in the sense of furthering the regulatory objectives, but the agency concludes that the acknowledged benefits are exceeded by the costs."
Here, the Court found that there were benefits to requiring reporting without a de minimis exception. That was enough to vacate the rule.
It is worth noting the concurrence from Judge Janice Rogers Brown, who agreed that EPA had overstepped, but was concerned about the panel opinion's summary of Chevron as being focused on whether the agency's interpretation is "reasonable." Stoking the anti-Chevron flames, Judge Brown wrote to make clear that the "reasonableness" inquiry does not apply at step one of Chevron. Ever-vigilant, she wants to be certain that courts do not abdicate their duty to state what the unambiguous language of a statute means.
I don't have any problem with that. Phase I of Chevron is an important bedrock principle. If there's no ambiguity, there's no deference. However, it's worth noting that Judge Brown also stated that:
an Article III renaissance is emerging against the judicial abdication performed in Chevron's name.
Notwithstanding the congressional discussion of this issue, I remain skeptical that any such "Article III renaissance" is occurring. One concurrence from one appellate judge who happens to be named Gorsuch does not a renaissance make.
Of course, the really important part of Judge Brown's
concurrence was her citation to Luck Be a Lady, from Guys and
Dolls, the greatest musical of all time.
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