The Chevron USA - Essay Example

In this connection, the EPA framed regulations in 1981 enabling the nonattainment states to adopt a ‘bubble approach’ to comply with the prescribed standards of air quality. The bubble concept treats the entire plant with multiple sub-plants as one single bubble and permits variations in emission levels as long as the total emissions do not exceed the permissible levels. The moot point is what stationery source means. Whether each subunit is a stationary source or all of them in an industrial grouping?

The National Resources Defense Council (NRDC) opposed the bubble concept in the Court of Appeals alleging that the bubble concept was unlawful. Although the Appeals Court agreed with the NRDC’s stand, the Supreme Court where in Chevron an affected party impleaded itself along with the EPA, held that since there was no particular reason adduced in the legislative history of the relevant provision of the Clean Air Act, EPA’s interpretation in a reasonable manner cannot be found fault with by the judiciary.

The Supreme Court held that the “bubble” theory was a matter of policy which should be rather addressed to legislators or administrators and not the judiciary. The decision is considered a land mark in the administrative law since it allows greater flexibility for the administrative agencies to interpret law which until the decision was the job of judiciary alone. Post Chevron, government agencies enjoy greater freedom in interpreting the law which the Congress has left any issue unexplained or ambiguous (Shultz).

The Administrative Procedure Act (APA) 1946 is a federal law governing the manner in which the federal agencies frame regulations and it provides for judicial review of agency decisions. (BarnesGreenBook). Section 706 (2) (A) of the APA provides for the reviewing court to hold any decision as “arbitrary capricious, an abuse of discretion, or otherwise not in accordance with law”. (BarnesGreenBook) The Chevron case is not only a land mark decision in administrative law but also in the domain of ‘separation of powers’.

The case which dealt with the issue of meaning of ‘stationary source’ has now become an oft-cited decision ever since. The bubble concept or plant-wide concept has resulted in calculation of plant emission as a whole instead of calculating the emission of pollutant from each pollution-emitting equipment. This enables industrial units having more than one source of pollutant emitting devices to sustain an increase coming from one device through a corresponding reduction in another device within the same industrial unit.

It has been rendered possible due to the Apex court’s examining the bona-fides of an agency through a two-step test. First step is to check whether the legislative history speaks of Congressional deliberations on the precise question at issue. If the legislative intent is clear, the Court must give effect to the Congressional intent which is unambiguously clear. If not, instead of arriving at its own conclusion, the Court should see whether the agency’s interpretation is ‘based on a permissible construction of the statute’.

Thus in the instant case, Justice Stevens examined the statutory text of the Clean Air Act and its legislative history. He found there was no evidence to show that the Congress had