Maine v. Johnson

498 F.3d 37, 37 Envtl. L. Rep. (Envtl. Law Inst.) 20204, 64 ERC (BNA) 2089, 2007 U.S. App. LEXIS 18761, 2007 WL 2258265
CourtCourt of Appeals for the First Circuit
DecidedAugust 8, 2007
Docket04-1363, 04-1375
StatusPublished
Cited by7 cases

This text of 498 F.3d 37 (Maine v. Johnson) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the First Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Maine v. Johnson, 498 F.3d 37, 37 Envtl. L. Rep. (Envtl. Law Inst.) 20204, 64 ERC (BNA) 2089, 2007 U.S. App. LEXIS 18761, 2007 WL 2258265 (1st Cir. 2007).

Opinion

BOUDIN, Chief Judge.

This case presents a three-way dispute among two Indian tribes, the Environmental Protection Agency (“EPA”) and the State of Maine (“Maine”). The two tribes are the Penobscot Nation and the Passa-maquoddy Tribe (collectively, “the southern tribes”). Also involved are two different statutory regimes: the Clean Water Act, 33 U.S.C. § 1251 et seq. (2000), which the EPA administers in the first instance, and a pair of interlocking federal and state statutes—the Settlement Acts 1 —that govern Maine’s authority vis-a-vis Maine tribes.

Among other things, the Clean Water Act empowers the EPA to issue permits for the discharge of pollutants into naviga *40 ble waters. 33 U.S.C. § 1342(a). On certain conditions, the statute entitles states to administer their own permitting programs in place of the EPA’s. Id. § 1342(b). A state desiring to do so must apply to the EPA, and if the state has “adequate authority to carry out the described program,” and other requirements are met, the EPA “shall approve” the program. Id.

The present litigation has its origins in such an application. On November 18, 1999, Maine submitted its application under section 1342(b) to take over discharge permitting in Maine. The Clean Water Act sets a 90-day period for the EPA to review the application. Id, § 1342(c)(1). Once this period has expired, the EPA

shall suspend the issuance of permits under subsection (a) of this section as to those discharges subject to such program unless [the Administrator] determines that the State permit program does not meet the requirements [of section 1342(b) ].

Id,

The application presented questions as to what authority the State had vis-a-vis the southern tribes—in particular, as to discharges connected to tribal members or entities, tribal waters or tribal activities. The EPA and Maine agreed to extend the 90-day review period four times, see 40 C.F.R. § 123.21(d), eventually setting September 26, 2000, as the new deadline. This deadline also expired without an EPA decision, and the EPA then suspended its own issuance of new permits, as section 1342(c)(1) commands.

In January 2001, the EPA approved the State’s program in all areas of Maine “outside disputed Indian territory,” but took no “final action on the issues related to the State’s jurisdiction and the applicability of State law in Indian country for the purposes of implementing the NPDES program in those areas.” State Program Requirements, 66 Fed.Reg. 12,791, 12,795 (Feb. 28, 2001). 2

Then, in October 2003, the EPA concluded that Maine had authority to regulate nineteen discharge facilities owned by non-Indians located outside, but discharging to boundaries within, the territorial waters of the southern tribes. 3 The EPA reached the same conclusion as to a facility located outside tribal territory but owned and used jointly by the Passamaquoddy Tribe and a neighboring municipality. 68 Fed.Reg. at 65,052, 65,054 & n. 4, 65,056.

However, the EPA refused to approve the State’s plan as applied to two tribal-owned facilities located on tribal lands and discharging into navigable waters within the southern tribes’ territories but which thereafter pass other downstream communities. Id. at 65,066. The EPA found that discharges from these facilities were “immaterial” and had no “substantial effect [ ] on non-members”; and it concluded that their regulation was an “internal tribal matter” over which the State lacked adequate authority. Id. As to these two facili *41 ties, the EPA retained permitting authority. Id.

Additionally, the EPA expressed concern that Maine’s permitting program might not ensure water quality standards adequate to protect the southern tribes’ right to fish for individual sustenance, id. at 65,067—a right assertedly guaranteed to the tribes by state law. 30 M.R.S.A. § 6207(4). Citing its authority to object to specific state permits and to retake permitting authority from the states under certain conditions, 33 U.S.C. § 1342(d), the EPA said that it would “require the state to address the tribes’ uses consistent with the requirements of the CWA.” 68 Fed. Reg. at 65,068.

Petitions for judicial review, which we have consolidated, followed. The southern tribes say that the EPA erred in approving Maine’s program as to the nineteen non-tribal facilities that discharge into tribal waters. They argue that the Settlement Acts reserved to the tribes authority (vis-a-vis the State) to regulate pollution by non-Indians within the tribes’ territories, and that the EPA has a trust obligation to retain permitting authority to facilitate tribal control over the tribes’ natural resources.

For its part, Maine defends the EPA as to the nineteen facilities but contends that the EPA erred in exempting the two tribal-owned facilities from the state permitting program. Several towns and other entities subject to permitting under the Clean Water Act have intervened in favor of Maine’s authority; but in addition, they say that state permitting authority as to all the facilities has already come into force by operation of law.

Our review is de novo as to issues of law, 5 U.S.C. § 706; Penobscot Air Servs., Ltd, v. FAA, 164 F.3d 713, 718-19 (1st Cir.1999), except that the EPA gets a measure of deference in applying ambiguous terms m any statute it administers, including the Clean Water Act. Chevron U.S.A. Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc,, 467 U.S. 837, 842-44, 104 S.Ct. 2778, 81 L.Ed.2d 694 (1984). As to factual matters, the EPA is entitled to deference unless its findings are unreasonable. Adams v. EPA, 38 F.3d 43, 49 (1st Cir.1994).

The extent of Maine’s authority as to the southern tribes has a unique history. In the later 18th and early 19th centuries, Maine was part of Massachusetts and agreements between Massachusetts and Maine tribes appeared to surrender much or all of the tribes’ aboriginal sovereignty. H.R. Rep. 96-1353, at 12 (1980), reprinted in 1980 U.S.C.C.A.N. 3786, 3787. Until the 1970s, Maine and its courts considered the tribes to be “as completely subject to the state as any other inhabitants can be.” State v.

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498 F.3d 37, 37 Envtl. L. Rep. (Envtl. Law Inst.) 20204, 64 ERC (BNA) 2089, 2007 U.S. App. LEXIS 18761, 2007 WL 2258265, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/maine-v-johnson-ca1-2007.