ELR Citation: 50 ELR 20181
No(s). 18-1325 (D.C. Cir. Jul 28, 2020)

The D.C. Circuit upheld EPA's 2018 decision to add a wheel-covering facility in Mississippi to the NPL. The company that assumed environmental liabilities for the facility argued that EPA improperly applied the hazard ranking system regulations to the site by failing to account for the company's mitigation efforts—installing a sub-slab depressurization system. The court found that the regulations did not require the Agency to consider the company's mitigation efforts when it assessed the site for the NPL, and thus that its failure to do so was neither arbitrary nor capricious. The company next argued that EPA acted arbitrarily by relying on a residential, rather than an industrial, health benchmark when evaluating the "targets" metric under the regulations. The court found that the Agency had reasonable policy reasons for using the residential health benchmark and that its analysis properly adjusted the site's score to account for workers' reduced hours of exposure. It therefore denied the company's petition to review the listing decision.