Nutrient Standards Under The Clean Water Act

There is an interesting lawsuit wending its way through the Federal District Court for the Northern District of Florida. The case is Florida Wildlife Federation v. EPA, Case No. 08-00324. It involves an attempt by the Florida Wildlife Federation (along with a variety of other environmental groups) to mandate the EPA to issue numerical limits on nutrient levels in Florida’s navigable waterways under the Clean Water Act.

Nutrients, like nitrates and phosphates, are distinct from other pollutants in that they are not only naturally present in bodies of water, they are necessary to maintain healthy aquatic ecosystems. But run-off from agriculture, and discharges from certain industries, can cause imbalances in nutrient levels that disrupt local ecosystems. Most people who live in coastal areas are familiar with the phenomenon known as red-tide, a sometimes harmful type of algal bloom that some have linked to nitrate and phosphate run-off from agricultural activity. Similar problems can crop up in lakes and rivers.

While Florida currently has a water quality standard for nutrients, the standard is “narrative.” It simply states, “Nutrients: In no case shall nutrient concentrations of a body of water be altered so as to cause an imbalance in natural populations of aquatic flora and fauna.” Rule 62-302.530(47)(b), Fla. Admin. Code. While this sort of regulation certainly serves as a nice mission statement, the devil – as always – is in the detail. The plaintiffs in Florida Wildlife argue that while this standard sounds nice, it is entirely subjective, and has resulted in ineffective efforts to regulate nutrient levels in Florida’s waters.

The plaintiffs’ initial legal hook was a 1998 EPA document called the Clean Water Action Plan, 63 Fed. Reg. 14,109, and a 1998 EPA report entitled National Strategy for the Development of Regional Nutrient Criteria, 63 Fed. Reg. 34,648, which argue that nutrient pollution is a significant problem, and that the lack of numerical nutrient criteria makes it difficult to effectively regulate nutrient contamination. The Clean Water Action Plan actually commits the EPA to the development of numerical nutrient criteria by 2003. Needless to say, this didn't happen.

The plaintiffs in Florida Wildlife allege that the Action Plan and National Strategy constitute “determinations” under 33 USC §1313(c)(4)(B) of the Clean Water Act which would require the EPA to “promptly prepare and publish regulations setting forth a revised or new water quality standard for the navigable waters involved….” In other words, the plaintiffs argue that because the EPA issued the documents, the Clean Water Act requires the EPA to issue numerical nutrient regulations.

So why do we care?

We care because the Action Plan and National Strategy are not limited to Florida. If the report constitutes a “determination” within the meaning of the Clean Water Act, it would require numerical nutrient standards nationwide, and currently only a handful of states have them.

Unsurprisingly, the EPA initially resisted the lawsuit on the basis that the Action Plan and National Strategy were not formal determinations. But on January 14, 2009, some six months after the lawsuit was filed, the EPA did a complete about-face and issued a formal determination that numerical nutrient criteria are necessary for Florida (and only Florida). And now the plaintiffs and EPA have agreed upon a Consent Decree (in essence an agreed upon judgment that would be issued by the Court), that will require the creation and implementation of numerical nutrient standards for Florida by October 15, 2011. In essence, the Consent Decree amounts to the EPA consenting to a judgment against it.

The EPA, however, is not the only defendant in the suit. A number of Florida state agencies have intervened and are now crying foul at the consent decree. They have objected on the bases that (1) the 2009 determination appears to have been created solely to settle the lawsuit without any scientific support; and (2) the timeline set by the decree is entirely unrealistic and will lead to the adoption of scientifically indefensible standards.

Though I have to admit to being skeptical that valid standards can be arrived at within the time period allotted, that is actually not what interests me here. The EPA’s rather fishy 2009 determination, and the Consent Decree, will be like blood in the water for environmental organizations across the country.

This case has all the hallmarks of an environmental “test case,” prior to a larger national effort. It is remarkable therefore that the EPA has essentially rolled over and conceded the case. If the Consent Decree is approved, I would not be surprised to see copy-cat litigation nationwide. And because the legal issues would be identical, the Consent Decree could be used to force the EPA to mandate numerical standards in every state. That would be a massive undertaking given the technical complexities involved.

This begs the question - what is going on at the EPA? Is this an indication of changing priorities regarding regulation and enforcement? If so, it wouldn't be the first indication.

There will be a fairness hearing on the Consent Decree on November 16th. It will be interesting to see whether the Court approves it.

And The Hammer Comes Down

No...it's not a gavel reference, but rather a reference to a New York Times article that I just came across (thanks to WaterSISWEB). The head of the EPA, Lisa P. Jackson, was recently before Congress's Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure. What she had to say was very interesting.

Ms. Jackson essentially admitted what everyone has long known - that the EPA has done very little to enforce clean water regulations over the last decade. Moreover, she has promised that the EPA's laxity is now at an end. This signals the enforcement sea change that many have expected ever since the Obama administration came into office.

Of course the proof is in the pudding as they say. We will have to wait and see whether the EPA will really carry through on the rhetoric. But for an administration eager to take a strong line on environmental issues - an ambition that is being thwarted in Congress - the EPA provides a convenient executive tool for unilateral action.

Clean Water Restoration Act Unconstitutional?

The Pacific Legal Foundation recently issued a press release putting forth the argument by attorney Reed Hopper that the Clean Water Restoration Act (CWRA) is unconstitutional. (Thanks to Aquafornia for picking this up) Mr. Hopper is the Principle Attorney for the Pacific Legal Foundation, and represented the petitioner (the winning side) in the Rapanos case.

Is Mr. Hopper correct? Pacific Legal’s press release doesn’t contain much specific information on the reasons for his position – so I asked him. In response to an e-mail inquiring into the basis for his position, Mr. Hopper kindly provided me with a copy of his July 17, 2007 testimony before the Subcommittee of Water Resources and Environment. In that testimony he addresses a previous (though substantively identical) version of the CWRA, and discusses the constitutional problems he sees with it.

Mr. Hopper raises two compelling questions in his testimony: 1) whether the inclusion of non-navigable waters within the CWRA exceeds Congress’ authority under the Commerce Clause; and 2) whether the definition of ‘waters of the United States” which extends “to the fullest extent that these waters…are subject to the legislative power of Congress under the Constitution.” is an effective abdication by Congress of its legislative responsibilities. (S. 787, §4(3)).

As Mr. Hopper points out, the Supreme Court has held,

[W]e have identified three broad categories of activity that Congress may regulate under its commerce power. First, Congress may regulate the use of the channels of interstate commerce. Second, Congress is empowered to regulate and protect the instrumentalities of interstate commerce, or persons or things in interstate commerce, even though the threat may come only from intrastate activities. Finally, Congress' commerce authority includes the power to regulate those activities having a substantial relation to interstate commerce, i.e., those activities that substantially affect interstate commerce.

U.S. v. Lopez, 514 U.S. 549, 558-559 (1995)(citations omitted). Under which of these three categories, if any, do non-navigable intrastate waters (and activities that effect them) fit? Mr. Hopper contends that they do not fall within either of the first two categories and thus must fall within the third – that they “substantially affect” interstate commerce – for the CWRA to be constitutional. Mr. Hopper makes a compelling case that they do not, as they facially have nothing to do with interstate economic activities.

As to the argument that Congress is essentially abdicating its legislative responsibilities to the courts, I am not sure that I agree. I do however agree that the language is an explicit invitation for litigation over the “fullest extent” of Congress’ legislative power. But, given the inevitability that the constitutionality of the CWRA will be litigated whether or not the language is there, this is probably an argument of little moment.

If the CWRA is passed into law by Congress I do not doubt that Mr. Hopper, or some other attorney, will have an opportunity to argue these questions before the Supreme Court. But, Mr. Hopper’s position, and the Supreme Court’s decision in Rapanos, leaves me with a question. Is the analysis factually out of date?

The discussion over the constitutionality of the CWRA focuses on water as a means of conveyance, like a road or rail line. This is understandable in the context of the Clean Water Act’s reference to “navigable” waters. But ever increasingly water is considered – first and foremost – a resource. Further, it is a resource that is regularly shipped across state lines by a multi-billion dollar bottled water industry. It is also a resource that the States themselves are fighting over, sometimes to the point of litigation. Water has become a commodity. And it is a commodity that is critical to innumerable industries (see this article for examples).

It is not hard for me to imagine that activities that affect apparently “intrastate” bodies of water or wetlands would have a deleterious effect on the availability of water within a State, and thus affect the pattern of commerce relating to – or dependant on – water. Any individual instance may have a negligible impact overall, but that is irrelevant. In Maryland v. Wirtz, 392 U.S. 183 (1968) the Supreme Court noted, “[t]he Court has said only that where a general regulatory statute bears a substantial relation to commerce, the de minimis character of individual instances arising under that statute is of no consequence." Id. at 197, n. 27. If water is viewed as a pervasive commodity, then an argument can be made that a regulatory statute governing its treatment bears a “substantial relation” to commerce.

Clean Water Closer To Restoration

As readers will be aware from my prior posts (both of which can be found here), a bill entitled the "Clean Water Restoration Act" is wending its way through Congress. Well, as discussed in this New York Times editorial, the bill may start wending a little faster. The Obama administration has written to the House and Senate committees considering the bill urging that they approve the legislation. Some of the urgency may derive from efforts to polish the United States' environmental credentials in advance of the December climate change talks in Copenhagen.

Rapanos Redux

Two weeks ago I posted an entry about the Clean Water Restoration Act (“CWRA”). Shortly thereafter, at the request of U.S. Representative James Oberstar, the EPA issued a report containing the anecdotal comments of various regional EPA and U.S. Army Corps of Engineer officials regarding the Supreme Court’s decision in Rapanos. That decision serves as one of the rallying points for supporters of the CWRA, who claim that it has limited the scope of federal jurisdiction under the Clean Water Act and caused confusion among government agencies as to what jurisdiction actually does exist.

The upshot of the report is that there is unverified anecdotal evidence that uncertainty associated with the Rapanos decision has increased costs to the EPA (and to some extent the Army Corps of Engineers) associated with evaluating and bringing enforcement actions. The report specifically states that nationwide the Rapanos decision has affected approximately 489 enforcement actions, “such that formal enforcement was not pursued as a result of jurisdictional uncertainty, case priority was lowered as a result of jurisdictional uncertainty, or lack of jurisdiction was asserted as an affirmative defense to an enforcement action.” (See Report, p. 1) This report supports the notion that some resolution of the confusion caused by Rapanos, such as the CWRA, is needed.

Whether Rapanos improperly limited jurisdiction under the Clean Water Act or reigned in out of control jurisdiction is a question of perspective. That the Rapanos decision has caused confusion is not. This is evident in the split of the various U.S. Courts of Appeal over which of the three tests propounded by the Supreme Court should be controlling. (See e.g. United States v. Cundiff, 555 F.3d 200, 207 (6th Cir. 2009)(“Parsing any one of Rapanos's lengthy and technical statutory exegeses is taxing, but the real difficulty comes in determining which--if any--of the three main opinions lower courts should look to for guidance.”)

Indeed, the Sixth Circuit in Cundiff discusses the dilemma and current divisions among Circuit Courts quite succinctly:

In its short life, Rapanos has indeed satisfied any "bafflement" requirement. The first court to decide what opinion was controlling decided to ignore all of them and instead opted for earlier circuit precedent which it felt was clearer and more readily applied. United States v. Chevron Pipe Line Co., 437 F. Supp. 2d 605, 613 (N.D. Tex. 2006). The Courts of Appeals have not fared much better. The Ninth Circuit has stated that Justice Kennedy's test applies in most instances, Northern California River Watch v. City of Healdsburg, 496 F.3d 993, 1000 (9th Cir. 2007), while the Eleventh Circuit has held that the Act's coverage may be established only under his test. United States v. Robison, 505 F.3d 1208, 1219-22 (11th Cir. 2007). By contrast, the First and the Seventh Circuits, though differing somewhat in their analyses, have followed Justice Stevens' advice and held that the Act confers jurisdiction whenever either Justice Kennedy's or the plurality's test is met. United States v. Johnson, 467 F.3d 56, 60-66 (1st Cir. 2006); United States v. Gerke Excavating, Inc., 464 F.3d 723, 725 (7th Cir. 2006).

Cundiff, at 208. The Sixth Circuit was able to dodge the dilemma in Cundiff by ruling that Clean Water Act jurisdiction existed under all three tests in that particular case. Other Circuits have similarly dodged the bullet thus far, while presumably hoping that either the Supreme Court or Congress will act to resolve the confusion.

Rapanos is not the first splintered decision issued by the Supreme Court, and the Court has provided some guidance to lower courts for exactly this eventuality, “When a fragmented Court decides a case and no single rationale explaining the result enjoys the assent of five Justices, ‘the holding of the Court may be viewed as that position taken by those Members who concurred in the judgments on the narrowest grounds….’" Marks v. United States, 430 U.S. 188, 193 (U.S. 1977). This test essentially invites the lower courts to guess how the Supreme Court justices would vote if the case were before them. Unfortunately, the plurality and Kennedy tests enunciated in Rapanos each flatly reject the other. This is complicated by the dissenting Justices who command four votes and held that jurisdiction exists under either test. Thus:

Although "in most cases in which [Justice Kennedy] concludes that there is no federal authority he will command five votes (himself plus the four Justices in the Rapanos plurality)," in other cases Justice Kennedy "would vote against federal authority only to be outvoted 8-to-1 (the four dissenting Justices plus the members of the Rapanos plurality) because there was a slight surface hydrological connection."

Cundiff, at 210 (citations omitted). Given the confusion among the courts, it is not difficult to see why the Army Corps of Engineers and EPA are having trouble with Rapanos.