ELR Citation: ELR 21372
No(s). 89-70135 (9th Cir. Sep 28, 1990)

The court holds that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) must amend its regulations under §304(l)(1)(C) of the Federal Water Pollution Control Act to require the states to identify all point sources discharging toxic pollutants into waters listed under §304(l)(1)(A) and (B). The court holds that EPA misinterpreted the statute to require that only some sources be identified. Deference to EPA's interpretation is inappropriate, because the language of the statute is unambiguous. Since the text is unambiguous, section captions are not useful in interpreting it. Discrepancies between text and captions alone do not indicate statutory drafting errors. The legislative history of the statute indicates that Congress intended all point sources to be identified. Although EPA's interpretation of paragraph C improves the way that paragraph works with other paragraphs in the statute, EPA's interpretation is not entitled to special deference. Paragraph C is neither ambiguous nor incoherent when considered with related provisions. EPA erroneously interpreted paragraph C as serving only to effectuate the individual control strategy programs required by paragraph D. Paragraph C will produce information that may prove useful for other purposes. It need not interlock perfectly with paragraph D. The court directs EPA to reconsider its interpretation of which waters are subject to individual control strategies under paragraph D, because that interpretation was based on a misinterpretation of paragraph C.

Counsel for Petitioner
Robert W. Adler
Natural Resources Defense Council
1350 New York Ave. NW, Ste. 300, Washington DC 20005
(202) 783-7800

Counsel for Respondent
Thomas M. Pacheco
Environment and Natural Resources Division
U.S. Department of Justice, Washington DC 20530
(202) 514-2000