On March 31, 2018, the District Court for the District of Columbia ordered the Environmental Protection Agency (“EPA”) to complete a residual risk and technology review (“RTR”) by October 1, 2021 for nine source categories of hazardous air pollutants (“HAPs”). The specific source categories at the center of this challenge were:
• Primary Copper Smelting
• Carbon Black Production
• Cyanide Chemicals Manufacturing
• Spandex Production
• Flexible Polyurethane Foam Fabrication Operations
• Refractory Products Manufacturing
• Semiconductor Manufacturing
• Primary Magnesium Manufacturing
• Mercury Cell Chlor-Alkali Plants
Section 112 of the Clean Air Act establishes a two-stage process for regulating HAPs from stationary sources. In the first stage, EPA is required to develop technology-based standards, known as MACT standards, for specified industrial source categories. In the second stage, EPA must reassess those standards eight years after they are promulgated. This second stage is itself divided into two distinct processes: a one-time residual risk review and a technology review to be conducted every eight years.
The deadlines for these sources were seven to eight years past due. Thus, plaintiff environmental groups claimed that EPA violated the CAA because it failed to timely issue the RTRs, and they proposed an intense schedule for EPA to complete the rulemakings. Plaintiffs proposed that EPA promulgate final rules for five source categories by March 31, 2019, and for the remaining four source categories by March 31, 2020. While EPA did not disagree that the rulemakings were past due, the Agency argued that the proposed timeline was impossible to meet because of the limited resources at the Agency’s disposal and the complexities involved in these types of rulemakings. Because of these restraints, EPA requested seven years to complete the nine rulemakings, proposing nine specific dates with the earliest rule due by July 22, 2022 and the latest due by January 16, 2025.
The court held that EPA failed to demonstrate that it was impossible to issue the rulemakings in a timely manner. However, it found that the plaintiffs’ timeline was “much too draconian.” Therefore, the court set its own timeline, requiring EPA to begin the rulemakings by January 1, 2019 and issue final rules for all nine source categories no later than October 1, 2021, in less than four years. Importantly, the court gave EPA some flexibility by allowing the Agency to “move for an extension of the deadlines” if it needs more time.