American Farm Bureau Federation v. U.S. EPA

792 F.3d 281 (3rd Cir. 2015)

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Nature of the Case

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Facts

The Act provides that states set a total maximum daily load, and the EPA approves or disapproves it. If D disapproves, it must create the TMDL itself. In this case, the Chesapeake Bay watershed jurisdictions agreed that they would not submit TMDLs, and D would do so in the first instance. MDLs happen after a state enacts pursuant to its law (but required by the Clean Water Act) 'water quality standards.' The state designates a use for each relevant water (e.g., recreation or fishing) and sets a target water quality based on that use. The Clean Water Act gives D primary responsibility for regulating point sources by establishing 'effluent limitations,' which are pollution caps that by statutory definition apply only to point sources. States, in turn, regulate nonpoint sources. There is significant input and oversight from D, but it does not regulate nonpoint sources directly. States set water quality standards for the waters within their borders, and they must submit to D a list of those waters for which point-source pollution limitations alone are not enough to make the water meet the applicable quality standard; for all the waters on that list, a state must submit a TMDL. If D disapproves a state submission, it takes responsibility for the unmet requirement(s). Here, the states and D agreed that the D would draft the TMDL in the first instance. P interprets the words 'total maximum daily load' as unambiguous: a TMDL can consist only of a number representing the amount of a pollutant that can be discharged into a particular segment of water and nothing more. P claims D overstepped its statutory authority in drafting the Chesapeake Bay TMDL when the agency (1) included in the TMDL allocations of permissible levels of nitrogen, phosphorous, and sediment among different kinds of sources of these pollutants, (2) promulgated target dates for reducing discharges to the level the TMDL envisions, and (3) obtained assurance from the seven affected states that they would fulfill the TMDL's objectives. P contends the final document may not specify a distribution of pollutants from point and nonpoint sources or deadlines for meeting the target reductions in pollutant discharge, nor may D in drafting the document obtain any assurance from states that they will meet the targets.