ELR Citation: ELR 20019
No(s). s. 03-10262, -10263 (11th Cir. Jan 20, 2006)

The court partially grants environmental organizations' petitions for review of U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) orders denying their requests that the Agency object to four Clean Air Act Title V permits issued by the Georgia Environmental Protection Division. EPA abused its discretion and acted arbitrarily and capriciously in failing to object to a permit for which the state agency failed to implement a mailing list to notify the public of its right to comment. EPA was wrong in asserting that it can avoid its own unambiguous mailing list requirement in the Title V permitting process. EPA's duty is to enforce requirements, not to grant absolution to state agencies that have violated them. But EPA did not err by failing to object to the remaining permits on the basis that the state agency failed to require the facilities to report all of their monitoring data and to provide all relevant information to the public during the comment period. EPA's interpretations of the regulations at issue were reasonable.