ELR Citation: ELR 21038
No(s). 81-1214 (3d Cir. Sep 20, 1983)

The court sustains the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA's) decision not to reconsider the economic impact of its electroplating wastewater pretreatment standards on plants with combined wastestreams. The court first notes that several aspects of Ford's petition to EPA for reconsideration of the standards were resolved in EPA's favor in a companion, 13 ELR 21042. The court rules that in responding to the petition for reconsideration, EPA conducted the cost-benefit analysis required by the Federal Water Pollution Control Act (FWPCA) for pretreatment standards based on "best practicable technology" (BPT) and therefore properly rejected the petition to reopen the rulemaking. EPA reasonably relied on the costs of treatment of segregated wastestreams as a worst-case assumption for the costs of treatment of combined wastestreams. EPA acted within its discretion in considering treatment of segregated wastes to be BPT and in accepting adjustments to petitioner's cost estimates made by EPA's economic impact consultant. Finally, the court rules that the overall assessment of the benefits of the electroplating industry standards, upheld in the companion case, satisfies the FWPCA and that EPA did not need to conduct a separate benefit analysis for the integrated component of the industry.

A dissent would rule that EPA's rejection of the petition for reconsideration was arbitrary and capricious because the Agency gave no explanation for changes in petitioner's cost estimates (which cut the total cost of the standards by $800 million) and failed to balance the incremental effluent reduction benefits (of which there appear to be none) of applying the standards to integrated facilities against the substantial incremental costs.

[A related decision is published at 13 ELR 21042 — Ed.]

Counsel for Petitioner
Turner T. Smith, E. Milton Farley III, William B. Ellis, Manning Gasch Jr.
Hunton & Williams
P.O. Box 1535, Richmond VA 23212
(804) 788-8200

Norman Bernstein, Douglas E. Cutler
Ford Motor Co. World Headquarters
The American Rd., Dearborn MI 48121
(313) 322-3554

Counsel for Respondents
Barry S. Neuman, Michael W. Steinberg, George B. Henderson, Lee R. Tyner, Jose R. Allen
Land and Natural Resources Division
Department of Justice, Washington DC 20530
(202) 633-2664

Michael Dworkin, Michael Murchison, Ellen Siegler, Daniel J. Berry
Office of the General Counsel
Environmental Protection Agency, Washington DC 20460
(202) 382-4134

Gibbons, J., joined by Hunter and Becker, JJ.