4/24/2021 0 Comments Oklahoma Deputy Font
Lungren, Attorney General of California, Richard Blumenthal, Attorney General of Connecticut, Charles M.The Act generally prohibits the discharge of effluent into a navigable body of water unless the point source obtains a National Pollution Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permit from a State with an EPA-approved permit program or from the EPA itself.
A Fayetteville, Arkansas, sewage treatment plant received an EPA-issued permit, authorizing it to discharge effluent into a stream that ultimately reaches the Illinois River upstream from the Oklahoma border. Respondents, Oklahoma and other Oklahoma parties, challenged the permit before the EPA, alleging, inter alia, that the discharge violated Oklahoma water quality standards, which allow no degradation of water quality in the upper Illinois River. The EPAs Chief Judicial Officer remanded the initial affirmance of the permit by the Administrative Law Judge (ALJ), ruling that the Act requires an NPDES permit to impose any effluent limitations necessary to comply with applicable state water quality standards, and that those standards would be violated only if the record shows by a preponderance of the evidence that the discharge would cause an actual detectable violation of Oklahomas water quality standards. The ALJ then made detailed findings of fact, concluding that Fayetteville had satisfied the Chief Judicial Officers standard, and the Chief Judicial Officer sustained the permits issuance. The Court of Appeals reversed, ruling that the Act does not allow a permit to be issued where a proposed source would discharge effluent that would contribute to conditions currently constituting a violation of applicable water quality standards. It concluded that the Illinois River was already degraded, that the Fayetteville effluent would reach the River in Oklahoma, and that the effluent would contribute to the Rivers deterioration even though it would not detectably affect the Rivers water quality. There is no need to address the question whether the Act requires compliance with affected States standards, for it clearly does not limit the EPAs authority to mandate such compliance. EPA regulations, which since 1973 have required that an NPDES permit not be issued when compliance with affected States water quality standards cannot be insured, are a reasonable exercise of the Agencys discretion and are a well-tailored means of reaching the Acts goal of achieving state water quality standards. The EPAs authority is not constrained by the limits in Ouellette, supra, concerning an affected States direct input into the permit process, does not conflict with the Acts legislative history and statutory scheme, and is not incompatible with the balance among competing policies and interests that Congress struck in the Act. Pp. 104-107. Instead, the Act vests in the EPA and the States broad authority to develop long-range, area-wide programs to alleviate and eliminate existing pollution. Pp. 107-108. Thus, it failed to give substantial deference to the Agencys reasonable, consistently held interpretation of its own regulations, which incorporate the Oklahoma standards. Had it been properly respectful of the EPAs permissible reading of the Act - that what matters is not the Rivers current status, but whether the proposed discharge will have a detectable effect on that status - it would not have adjudged the Agencys decision arbitrary and capricious. Pp. 109-114. Edward W. Warren argued the cause for petitioners in No. With him on the briefs were Winston Bryant, Attorney General of Arkansas, Mary B. Stallcup, Angela S. Jegley, David G. Norrell, James N. McCord, Walter R. Niblock, and Nancy L. With him on the briefs were Solicitor General Starr, Assistant Attorney General Stewart, Harriet S. Shapiro, Michael A. McCord, Anne S. Almy, Gary S. Guzy, and E. Donald Elliot. Robert A. Butkin, Assistant Attorney General of Oklahoma, argued the causes for respondents in both cases. With him on the brief for respondents State of Oklahoma et al. Rudolph, Assistant Attorney General, and Martha Phillips Allbright; for the State of Nevada et al. Johnson, John E. Gotherman, Mark I. Wallach, Roy D. Bates, Ogden Stokes, Thomas S. Smith, Robert J. Alfton, and John Dodge; for Champion International Corp. J. Jeffrey McNealey, Michael K. Nestrud, Richard A. Flye, Jerry C. Jones, and Jess Askew III; for the Colorado Water Congress by Mark T. Burson, Attorney General of Tennessee, John Knox Walkup, Solicitor General, and Michael D. Pearigen, Deputy Attorney General, Jimmy Evans, Attorney General, of Alabama, Grant Woods, Attorney general of Arizona, Daniel E.
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