The Battle Over Guidance Is Joined Again: EPA Finalizes Its Mountaintop Removal Guidance

mountain_topThe fight about guidance and rules is in the news again. Yesterday, EPA finalized its guidance on Clean Water Act permitting with respect to mountaintop mining. As most of our readers know, EPA issued Interim Guidance in April 2010. In January 2011, in National Mining Association v. Jackson, Judge Reggie Walton, while denying plaintiff’s preliminary injunction, signaled that he thought that EPA’s Interim Guidance probably was a legislative rule that should have gone through notice and comment rule-making.

Judge Walton’s decision did not deter EPA, which finalized the guidance without significant changes. As the Legal Planet blog – a supporter of the guidance – noted, “the only differences between the interim guidance and this final one are cosmetic.” What are the nature of those cosmetic changes? They emphasize the flexible, non-binding nature of the guidance, hoping to fare better in the next round of judicial review than the agency did in defending the Interim Guidance.

EPA reiterates that this guidance is guidance and not a rule. The CWA provisions and supporting regulations described in this document contain the legally and practically binding requirements. This guidance does not substitute for those provisions or regulations and is not itself a regulation. It does not impose legally or practically binding requirements on EPA, the Corps, or the regulated community, and may not apply to a particular situation depending on the circumstances. Any decisions regarding a particular permit will be based on the facts relevant to that permit and will be evaluated in accordance with the applicable statutes, regulations, and case law. Interested persons are always free to raise questions regarding the recommendations in this guidance in a particular situation. EPA will consider whether or not the recommendations or interpretations in this guidance are appropriate in each situation based on the statutes, regulations, and case law. The use of language such as “recommend,” “may,” “should,” and “can” is intended to describe agency policies and recommendations, while the use of mandatory terminology such as “must” and “required” refers to existing requirements under the CWA, its implementing regulations, and relevant case law.

walk like a duck(1)The real trick about guidance is that it is not what EPA says in the document that matters; it is how EPA actually utilizes the guidance in practice. It is in some respects similar to the distinction between a facial constitutional challenge to a regulation and an “as applied” challenge. If EPA actually implements this document as a guide to its decision-making, then it is guidance. If EPA line staff implement it by rote, then it’s a rule. In other words, if it walks like a duck, it’s a duck, even if it does not talk like one.

Time will tell whether the courts believe EPA’s protestations that this really is just guidance. Time will also tell whether EPA implements this as guidance or implements it as a rule.

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