Judge Brad Garcia, nominated by President Biden to the DC Circuit Court of Appeals, wrote a unanimous opinion upholding an EPA rule regulating emissions from organic chemical manufacturing facilities because of the cancer risk they pose. The August 2024 decision was In Huntsman Petrochemical LLC v. EPA.
What happened in this case?
In 1998, the EPA began an extensive process to comply with the Clean Air Act and determine what regulations were needed regarding ethylene oxide emissions from organic chemical plants that make antifreeze, plastics, and other products. After extensive studies and public comment, the EPA concluded that people living near such plants have a lifetime cancer risk from ethylene oxide exposure that is “four times” higher than what the EPA “deems acceptable.”
The EPA issued a regulation regulating these emissions in 2020. It reviewed and rejected industry efforts to reconsider and revise the regulation in 2022. Led by Huntsman Petrochemical LLC, the industry filed a petition to the D.C. Circuit to overturn the regulation.
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How did Judge Garcia and the DC Circuit decide and why does it matter?
Judge Garcia wrote a unanimous opinion denying the motion and upholding the EPA rule. He noted that courts generally show the agency “the utmost deference” in cases like this one, in which the EPA evaluates “scientific data within its area of expertise.” Nevertheless, he carefully examined “every step” of the EPA’s analysis and concluded that the agency’s decision was correct. Industry had not shown, he concluded, that the EPA rule was “arbitrary, capricious” or “an abuse of discretion,” the legal requirements that must be met to overturn such rules.
Garcia analyzed and dismissed a “litany of complaints” from the chemical industry about the rule. For example, the companies claimed that the EPA failed to consider a model used by a Texas environmental agency that failed to identify the high cancer risk the EPA found. Garcia wrote that the EPA “sufficiently explained” why the Texas model was wrong and “did not really challenge the accuracy of the EPA model.” The Texas model “did not fit the data,” he continued, while “the model chosen by the EPA did.”
Judge Garcia’s opinion was obviously important to the EPA and the people whose health would have been at risk had its chemical emissions rule not been implemented as industry demanded. The decision is also an excellent example of careful judicial analysis used to uphold complex rules made by the EPA and other agencies. It also serves as an example of the importance of confirming unbiased judges to our nation’s federal courts.
