California v. U.S. Envtl. Prot. Agency
| Decision Date | 22 October 2020 |
| Docket Number | No. 19-17480,19-17480 |
| Citation | 978 F.3d 708 |
| Parties | State of CALIFORNIA, BY AND THROUGH Attorney General Xavier BECERRA and the California Air Resources Board; State of Illinois; State of Maryland; State of New Mexico; State of Oregon; Commonwealth of Pennsylvania; State of Rhode Island; State of Vermont, Plaintiffs-Appellees, Environmental Defense Fund, Intervenor-Plaintiff-Appellee, v. U.S. ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY; Andrew Wheeler, Acting Administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Defendants-Appellants, and E. Scott Pruitt, Administrator, U.S. EPA, Defendant. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Ninth Circuit |
Joan M. Pepin (argued), David Gunter, and Leslie M. Hill, Attorneys; Eric Grant, Deputy Assistant Attorney General; Jeffrey Bossert Clark, Assistant Attorney General; Environment and Natural Resources Division, United States Department of Justice, Washington, D.C.; Matthew C. Marks and Karen J. Palmer, Attorneys, EPA Office of General Counsel, Washington, D.C.; for Defendants-Appellants.
Elizabeth B. Rumsey (argued) and Julia K. Forgie, Deputy Attorneys General; Gary Tavetian and David A. Zonana, Supervising Deputy Attorneys General; Robert Byrne and Sally Magnani, Senior Assistant Attorneys General; Xavier Becerra, Attorney General; Office of the Attorney General, Oakland, California; Kwame Raoul, Attorney General; Daniel I. Rottenberg, Assistant Attorney General; Attorney General's Office, Chicago, Illinois; Brian E. Frosh, Attorney General; Leah J. Tulin, Assistant Attorney General; Attorney General's Office, Baltimore, Maryland; Hector Balderas, Attorney General; Bill Grantham, Assistant Attorney General; Office of the Attorney General, Albuquerque, New Mexico; Ellen F. Rosenblum, Attorney General; Paul Garrahan, Attorney-Charge, Natural Resources Division; Oregon Department of Justice; Salem, Oregon; Josh Shapiro, Attorney General; Michael J. Fischer, Chief Deputy Attorney General; Robert A. Reiley, Assistant Director, Department of Environment Protection; Office of the Attorney General, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania; Thomas J. Donovan Jr., Attorney General; Nicholas F. Persampieri, Assistant Attorney General; Office of the Attorney General; Montpelier, Vermont; for Plaintiffs-Appellees.
Susannah Weaver (argued) and Matthew Littleton, Donahue Goldberg Weaver & Littleton, Washington, D.C.; Peter Zalzal and Rachel Fullmer, Environmental Defense Fund, Boulder, Colorado; for Intervenor-Plaintiff-Appellee.
Before: Eugene E. Siler,* Kenneth K. Lee, and Patrick J. Bumatay, Circuit Judges.
On one level this case is about trash. When we toss our food packaging, the core of an apple, or almost any other material, our garbage winds up in one place: municipal solid-waste landfills. Over a thousand of these landfills are littered across the country to store and process household waste. Responsibility for regulating such landfills rests with the Environmental Protection Agency, in cooperation with states. This includes promulgating emissions guidelines—because gases like methane and carbon dioxide are produced as a byproduct of the waste-decomposition process—and issuing plans detailing how those guidelines will be implemented.
EPA promulgated new landfill emissions guidelines in 2016. Doing so set off a series of mandates for states and EPA. First, each state was required to submit a plan on how it would implement the new guidelines. Second, EPA was to approve or disapprove each state plan it received. Finally, for states that failed to submit a plan at all, EPA had to promulgate a federal plan that would govern implementation in those states. The deadline for EPA to comply with its final requirement—issuing the federal plan—was set by regulation for November 30, 2017. But EPA blew this deadline.
Several states sued to force EPA to promulgate its federal plan. While EPA responded to the suit, it also kicked off the rulemaking process to extend its regulatory deadline for issuing a federal plan. While this rulemaking was underway, the district court ruled for the plaintiff states and entered an injunction requiring EPA to promulgate the plan within six months. A few months later, EPA finalized the rulemaking process, which extended its regulatory deadline by two years.
At this point, EPA faced two conflicting deadlines: November 2019 under the court's order and August 2021 under the amended regulations. EPA asked the district court to modify the injunction, but it declined to do so. Instead, the district court found the prior injunction "pose[d] no obstacle" to EPA and that, in spite of the new regulations, "all other circumstances indicate that enforcement of the judgment is still equitable." California v. EPA , No. 18-cv-3237-HSG, 2019 WL 5722571, at *3–4 (N.D. Cal. Nov. 5, 2019).
So, this case is not just about trash, landfills, or emissions guidelines; it's also about the separation of powers and the limits of a court's equitable discretion. We're asked to decide whether a district court abuses its discretion by refusing to modify an injunction even after its legal basis has evaporated and new law permits what was previously enjoined. We answer affirmatively and reverse.
EPA is empowered to regulate "new" and "existing" sources of pollution under the Clean Air Act. See 42 U.S.C. §§ 7410, 7411. For any "new" sources, EPA shoulders primary regulatory responsibility. See id. § 7411(b), (c). But regulation of "existing" sources is a joint enterprise between EPA and the states. See id. § 7411(d)(1).
From 1975 until 2019, EPA regulations for existing sources of pollution required a series of actions upon the issuance of any new emissions guidelines. Under these regulations, states were given nine months to submit an implementation plan after EPA publishes new emissions guidelines. 40 C.F.R. § 60.23(a)(1). Within four months of that deadline, EPA had to approve or disapprove of the plan. Id . § 60.27(b). If a state failed to submit a plan of its own, EPA had to issue a federal plan that would govern. Id . § 60.27(d). EPA had six months from the state-submission deadline to do so. Id.
Our case concerns the emissions guidelines, and required implementation plans, for municipal solid-waste landfills. In 1996, EPA established emissions guidelines for such landfills, requiring the installation of control technology if they emitted more than 50 megagrams of certain air pollutants in a year. 61 Fed. Reg. 9905, 9907 (Mar. 12, 1996). EPA amended those guidelines in 2016 to lower the emissions threshold from 50 to 34 megagrams annually. 81 Fed. Reg. 59,276, 59,278 (Aug. 29, 2016).
This amendment triggered the regulatory timeline for action discussed above. See 40 C.F.R. § 60.30f(a) (2016). First, each state was required to submit a plan by May 30, 2017. Id . § 60.30f(b). Second, EPA was required to approve or disapprove of such plans by September 30, 2017. 81 Fed. Reg. at 59,304. Finally, EPA was required to promulgate a federal plan by November 30, 2017. Id.
EPA missed its deadlines: September 30th and November 30th came and went, but EPA failed to approve any state plan or issue a federal plan. In May 2018, several states brought suit alleging that EPA violated its own regulations and sought an injunction compelling the agency to promulgate a federal plan.1
Five months later, in October 2018, EPA began a rulemaking process to amend the timing regulations at the heart of the States’ suit. EPA's stated goal was to bring its regulatory deadlines for existing-source pollution in line with statutory timelines for new-source pollution under 42 U.S.C. § 7410. 84 Fed. Reg. 32,520, 32,564 (July 8, 2019). EPA then moved for a stay of the litigation pending resolution of the rulemaking process. The district court refused to stay the litigation. As the case went on, EPA made an additional attempt to continue the case, in light of the government shutdown at the time, but its motion was denied.
At the end of the day, the States prevailed. On May 6, 2019, the district court entered an injunction requiring EPA to approve or disapprove of state plans by September 6, 2019. (EPA has already complied with this part of the court's injunction, so it is not at issue here.) The district court also required EPA to issue a federal plan by November 6, 2019.
About two months after the district court's order, EPA completed the rulemaking process, and the new timing regulations were promulgated. 84 Fed. Reg. 32,520. Under the new regulations, (1) states have three years after EPA promulgates new emission guidelines to submit an implementation plan, 40 C.F.R. § 60.23a(a)(1) ; (2) EPA must take action to approve or disapprove of a state plan within a year, id . § 60.27a(b); and (3) EPA must issue any federal plan within two years, id . § 60.27a(c). On August 26, 2019, EPA finalized a regulatory amendment that made the new timing regulations applicable to the 2016 emissions guidelines. See 84 Fed. Reg. 44,547. Between these two regulations, EPA's deadline to promulgate a federal plan was pushed out to August 30, 2021.
EPA then confronted dueling deadlines: comply with the district court's injunction requiring a plan by November 6, 2019, or follow the new law establishing August 30, 2021, as the deadline.2 To resolve this dilemma, EPA filed a motion under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 60(b)(5) requesting relief from the district court's injunction. The district court denied the motion but temporarily stayed its injunction. EPA brought the appeal now before us and moved for a stay of the district court's injunction pending appeal, which was granted by a motions panel.
We review "for an abuse of discretion the district court's decision to deny a Rule 60(b) motion, and review de novo any questions of law underlying the decision to deny the motion." Deocampo v. Potts , 836 F.3d 1134, 1140 (9th Cir. 2016).
Although a court's order is ordinarily final, the Federal Rules of...
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