SAFE AIR FOR EVERYONE v. EPA
The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals today released an opinion in SAFE AIR FOR EVERYONE v. EPA, No. 05-75269, an administrative appeal. The panel consisted of Arthur L. Alarcón, Pamela Ann Rymer, and Marsha S. Berzon, Circuit Judges.
BERZON, Circuit Judge:
The Clean Air Act (”CAA” or “the Act”), 42 U.S.C. §§ 7401-7671q, authorizes the creation of air quality standards for a number of pollutants, including particulate matter produced as a byproduct of burning. To implement these standards, the Act establishes a system of State Implementation Plans (”SIPs”), whereby states submit, subject to the United States Environmental Protection Agency’s (”EPA”) review and approval, proposed methods for maintaining air quality. Once approved by EPA these plans “[h]av[e] `the force and effect of federal law.’ ” Trs. for Alaska v. Fink, 17 F.3d 1209, 1210 n.3 (9th Cir. 1994) (quoting Union Elec. Co. v. EPA, 515 F.2d 206, 211 (8th Cir. 1975), aff’d, 427 U.S. 246 (1976)). In this case, we are presented with a preexisting SIP containing language that prohibits open burning generally and contains no exception allowing farmers to burn the residue left in their fields after harvesting their crops. Petitioner, Safe Air for Everyone (”SAFE”), challenges EPA’s decision to approve an amendment to that SIP authorizing such burning. SAFE argues that certain CAA provisions which prohibit amending SIPs so that they interfere with meeting air quality standards forbid EPA’s action, at least absent further analysis of field burning’s impact on Idaho’s air quality; EPA maintains that its approval of the amendment does not contravene any CAA provisions. We hold that as it presently stands, EPA’s approval is legally unsustainable. EPA grounded its approval of this amendment on the premise that the preexisting Idaho SIP did not ban field burning, so that the amendment only clarified what was already the case. This view of the preexisting SIP is one with which we cannot agree. Because our review of an administrative agency’s decision begins and ends with the . . .