American Trucking Associations v. United States Environmental Protection Agency
195 F.3d 4, 338 U.S. App. D.C. 389 (1999)
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Rule of Law:
When a statute grants broad discretionary authority to a regulatory agency, the agency itself must articulate and apply a determinate, intelligible principle to constrain its authority, thereby curing what would otherwise be an unconstitutional delegation of legislative power.
Facts:
- The Clean Air Act requires the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to establish National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) for certain air pollutants.
- The Act specifies that these standards must be set at a level 'requisite to protect the public health' with an 'adequate margin of safety.'
- The EPA conducted a review of the existing NAAQS for ozone (a primary component of smog) and particulate matter (PM).
- Based on scientific evidence, the EPA concluded that the existing standards were inadequate to protect public health.
- Consequently, the EPA issued a final rule promulgating new, more stringent NAAQS for both ozone and fine particulate matter (PM2.5).
- In its rulemaking, the EPA stated its intent to enforce the revised ozone standard under the general framework of Subpart 1 of the Clean Air Act.
- American Trucking Associations, Inc. and various other industry groups and states believed the new standards were based on an unlawful exercise of the EPA's statutory authority.
Procedural Posture:
- American Trucking Associations, Inc. and other petitioners challenged final rules promulgated by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.
- In its initial decision, the D.C. Circuit panel held that the EPA's construction of the Clean Air Act represented an unconstitutional delegation of legislative power and that revised ozone standards must be enforced under Subpart 2 of the Act.
- The panel remanded the rules to the EPA without vacating them.
- The EPA, along with several intervenors, petitioned the D.C. Circuit panel for a rehearing on these holdings.
- Other parties also petitioned for rehearing en banc by the full D.C. Circuit.
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Issue:
Does § 109 of the Clean Air Act, which directs the EPA to set air quality standards 'requisite to protect the public health' with an 'adequate margin of safety,' constitute an unconstitutional delegation of legislative power by failing to provide an intelligible principle to guide the EPA's discretion?
Opinions:
Majority - Per Curiam
Yes, as interpreted and applied by the EPA, § 109 of the Clean Air Act resulted in an unconstitutional delegation of legislative power because the agency failed to articulate any intelligible principle that limited its discretion. The court denies rehearing on the core nondelegation holding, reaffirming that the EPA had not stated a 'determinate standard' for choosing a particular pollution level from a range of scientific possibilities. The court noted that the EPA, for the first time on rehearing, offered a potential limiting principle derived from the statute's text. However, the court declined to evaluate this new principle, holding that under Chevron, the agency must first adopt and apply such a principle in its rulemaking. The court thus remanded the rule to provide the EPA an opportunity to formulate a constitutional construction of the Act. The court granted rehearing in part to clarify that the EPA can enforce a revised primary ozone NAAQS, but only 'in conformity with Subpart 2' of the Clean Air Act, not the more general Subpart 1.
Concurring-in-part-and-dissenting-in-part - Tatel, J.
Judge Tatel concurred in the partial grant of rehearing regarding the enforcement of the ozone standard, agreeing that the court's modification leaves open a path for the EPA to implement the new standard. However, he would have gone further and accepted the EPA's interpretation of how Subparts 1 and 2 interact as a reasonable construction of an ambiguous statute under Chevron. He dissented from the denial of rehearing on the nondelegation holding, incorporating the reasoning from his dissent from the denial of rehearing en banc.
Dissenting - Silberman, J. (from denial of rehearing en banc)
The panel's reliance on the nondelegation doctrine is 'fundamentally unsound.' The doctrine cannot be used to force an agency to narrow a broad legislative delegation from Congress. By remanding for the EPA to invent its own 'intelligible principle,' the court improperly delegates legislative power to the agency, which contravenes the doctrine's purpose of ensuring that Congress makes the key policy choices. The proper course would have been to either declare the statute unconstitutional or review the EPA's action under the Administrative Procedure Act's 'arbitrary and capricious' standard, not to create a novel remedy that improperly expands the scope of judicial review.
Dissenting - Tatel, J. (from denial of rehearing en banc)
The panel's nondelegation holding is a stark departure from over sixty years of Supreme Court precedent that has consistently upheld broad delegations of authority to administrative agencies. The Clean Air Act's directive to set standards 'requisite to protect the public health' is far more specific and constraining than other phrases like 'public interest' which the Supreme Court has found constitutional. The panel, as an 'inferior' court, has no authority to revive a near-defunct doctrine and demand a more specific standard from either Congress or the EPA, and the case's exceptional importance warranted review by the full court.
Analysis:
This decision famously resurrected the nondelegation doctrine, which had been largely dormant since the 1930s, creating a significant new potential check on the power of administrative agencies. The court's novel remedy—remanding to the agency to articulate its own 'intelligible principle'—blended nondelegation concerns with Chevron deference, suggesting an agency could cure a constitutional defect in a statute through its own interpretation. While the Supreme Court ultimately reversed this specific nondelegation holding in Whitman v. American Trucking Ass'ns (2001), the D.C. Circuit's decision sparked a major academic and judicial debate about the separation of powers and the scope of the modern administrative state that continues to this day.
