American Mining Congress v. United States Environmental Protection Agency
263 U.S. App. D.C. 197, 824 F.2d 1177 (1987)
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Rule of Law:
Materials that are recycled and reused in an ongoing industrial manufacturing process have not been 'discarded' within the meaning of the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA), and therefore are not 'solid waste' subject to EPA regulation.
Facts:
- Petitioner American Mining Congress (AMC) represents mining industries that engage in extractive metallurgy, a process which involves incrementally reprocessing ore and other materials to extract metal.
- Petitioner American Petroleum Institute (API) represents petroleum refineries that use interdependent processing steps where various hydrocarbon streams are returned to appropriate stages for eventual use.
- Both industries recapture materials, such as mineral-bearing dusts (mining) and escaped hydrocarbons (refining), and immediately re-feed them back into their continuous production processes.
- These reused materials are known as 'in-process secondary materials' and have not left the original production site.
- The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) promulgated a final rule amending the definition of 'solid waste' under RCRA.
- This rule defined these in-process secondary materials as 'solid waste' subject to regulation, on the theory that they were 'discarded' when removed from one stage of a process, even if immediately reused in another.
Procedural Posture:
- The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) promulgated a final rule that amended the definition of 'solid waste' under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA).
- The American Mining Congress (AMC) and the American Petroleum Institute (API), acting as petitioners, filed a consolidated petition for review, challenging the rule directly in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.
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Issue:
Does the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) have statutory authority under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) to regulate secondary materials that are reused within an ongoing industrial production process, on the grounds that such materials constitute 'discarded material' and therefore 'solid waste'?
Opinions:
Majority - Starr
No. The EPA's authority under RCRA is limited to materials that are 'discarded' in the ordinary sense of the word, meaning disposed of, abandoned, or thrown away. The court, applying the first step of the Chevron analysis, found that Congress had spoken directly and unambiguously to the issue. The plain language of the statute, defining 'solid waste' as 'discarded material,' does not encompass materials that are destined for immediate reuse within an ongoing industrial process. These materials have not yet become part of the 'waste disposal problem' that Congress intended RCRA to address. The court also applied the canon of ejusdem generis, reasoning that the general term 'other discarded material' should be interpreted in light of the specific preceding terms 'garbage, refuse, sludge,' all of which are materials that have been disposed of. The legislative history further supports this narrow interpretation, indicating a focus on the problems of land disposal of waste rather than the regulation of active manufacturing processes.
Dissenting - Mikva
Yes. The statutory term 'discarded' is ambiguous, and the court should have deferred to the EPA's reasonable interpretation under the second step of the Chevron analysis. The majority's narrow reading renders other parts of the RCRA statute, such as specific exemptions for certain on-site recycled materials, superfluous; if such materials were never 'waste' to begin with, there would be no need to exempt them. The dissent argues for a functional approach, noting that in-process secondary materials can still spill, leak, and cause the same environmental harms as abandoned wastes. The EPA’s decision to regulate these materials was a reasonable measure to protect human health and the environment, consistent with RCRA's broad remedial objectives.
Analysis:
This decision significantly narrowed the EPA's regulatory authority under RCRA by establishing that the concept of 'discarded' has a plain-meaning limit tied to disposal. It created a crucial distinction between materials that are part of a continuous industrial process and those that have exited that process to become part of the waste stream. This ruling forced the EPA to revise its definition of solid waste and has had a lasting impact, leading to decades of subsequent litigation and rulemaking over what constitutes legitimate recycling versus 'sham recycling' designed to evade RCRA jurisdiction.
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