Ormet Primary Aluminum Corp. v. Ohio Power Co.

207 F.3d 687, 30 Envtl. L. Rep. (Envtl. Law Inst.) 20457, 50 ERC (BNA) 1308, 2000 U.S. App. LEXIS 5108, 2000 WL 308995
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit
DecidedMarch 27, 2000
Docket99-1419, 99-1454
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 207 F.3d 687 (Ormet Primary Aluminum Corp. v. Ohio Power Co.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

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Ormet Primary Aluminum Corp. v. Ohio Power Co., 207 F.3d 687, 30 Envtl. L. Rep. (Envtl. Law Inst.) 20457, 50 ERC (BNA) 1308, 2000 U.S. App. LEXIS 5108, 2000 WL 308995 (4th Cir. 2000).

Opinion

Affirmed by published opinion. Judge NIEMEYER wrote the opinion, in which Judge WILKINS and Judge SEYMOUR joined.

OPINION

NIEMEYER, Circuit Judge:

This is an action brought under the Clean Air Act by an industrial consumer of electric power to obtain rights to valuable pollution emissions allowances allocated by the Environmental Protection Agency for the Kammer Generating Station, near Moundsville, West Virginia. Ormet Corporation, an aluminum manufacturer, sued Ohio Power Company, an electric utility, as well as affiliated companies and personnel and the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, claiming that because of their contractual arrangement with respect to the Kammer plant, Ormet became a joint owner of the plant under the Clean Air Act, and is therefore entitled to a proportionate amount of the pollution emissions allowances.

On cross-motions for summary judgment the district court concluded that, under the Clean Air Act, the contractual arrangement between Ormet and Ohio Power did not make Ormet a joint owner of the Kammer plant and that Ormet was therefore not entitled to a proportionate share of the pollution emissions allowances allocated to the plant. Accordingly, the court entered summary judgment against Ormet. For the reasons that follow, we affirm.

I

Ormet Corporation manufactures primary aluminum at its plant near Hannibal, Ohio. Electricity is its single greatest “raw material” cost in its production of aluminum. Indeed, the Hannibal facility consumes as much electricity each day as does the city of Pittsburgh.

To secure electrical power for its Hannibal facility, in 1957 Ormet entered into a series of agreements with Ohio Power. Under those agreements, three power-generating units were constructed at the Kammer Generating Station near Mounds-ville, West Virginia, with Ormet becoming the owner of two of the units and Ohio Power becoming the owner of the third. The parties agreed to an undivided ownership of the plant’s common areas in proportion to their ownership of the units.

As Ormet’s power needs grew, it looked to Ohio Power for assurances that Ohio Power would supply power even beyond the capacity of the Kammer Generating Station. Accordingly, in December 1966, Ormet and Ohio Power revised their arrangement and executed a new contract, entitled “Power Agreement.” Under this 1966 Power Agreement, Ohio Power acquired all of Ormet’s ownership interest in the Kammer Generating Station and, at the same time, agreed to supply Ormet with its requirements for power at prices defined by contractually specified formulas. The 1966 Power Agreement had a 25-year term with an option for a 5-year extension, which Ormet exercised in 1991.

Upon the enactment in 1990 of Title IV of the Clean Ar Act, 42 U.S.C. §§ 7651-7651o, which created the Acid Rain Program, pollution emissions rights associated with specified fossil fuel-fired combustion plants in the United States, including the Kammer Generating Station, became a valuable commodity. In 1994, Ormet filed this action under the Clean Air Act seeking a declaratory judgment that, in view of its contractual relationship with Ohio Power, it owned a proportionate share (89%) of those rights allocated to the Kammer plant. Ormet alleged that these rights had a value in excess of $40 million.

On defendants’ motion challenging the district court’s subject matter jurisdiction, *689 the district court dismissed Ormet’s complaint. The court interpreted Ormet’s claim as a challenge to the acid rain permit issued to Ohio Power by the Environmental Protection Agency (“EPA”), and therefore as a “collateral attack on the EPA’s decision to allocate allowances to the private defendants.” The court held that Or-met’s exclusive avenue to review the EPA’s decision was through § 307 of the Clean Air Act, which lodges review of final EPA action exclusively in the United States Courts of Appeals. The district court thus concluded that it lacked subject matter jurisdiction to entertain Ormet’s suit. On appeal from that decision, we concluded that Ormet’s complaint raised sufficiently substantial federal questions under the Clean Air Act to justify invoking the district court’s federal-question jurisdiction, conferred by 28 U.S.C. § 1331. Accordingly, we vacated the district court’s dismissal order and remanded this case for disposition on the merits. See Ormet Corp. v. Ohio Power Co., 98 F.3d 799 (4th Cir.1996).

On cross-motions for summary judgment, the district court interpreted the 1966 Power Agreement between Ormet and Ohio Power in light of the Clean Air Act’s requirements and held that Ormet did not have an ownership interest in the Rammer plant. Accordingly, the court concluded, Ormet was not entitled to a proportionate share of the EPA’s allowances for pollution emissions allocated to the plant. More particularly, the district court concluded that the 1966 Power Agreement did not make Ormet a part owner because Ormet did not purchase power under a “life-of-the-unit, firm power contractual arrangement” as defined by § 402(27) of the Clean Air Act, 42 U.S.C. § 7651a(27). The court held that

because the Power Agreement does not entitle Ormet to a “specified amount or percentage of capacity in associated energy generated by a specified generating unit (or units),” the Power Agreement is not a “life-of-the-unit, firm power contractual arrangement.”

Accordingly, it granted summary judgment in favor of the remaining defendants, Ohio Power and an affiliated company, American Electric Power Service Corporation. These appeals followed.

II

Because an understanding of the statutory scheme is necessary to an understanding of our holding, we provide a general outline of the relevant provisions of the Clean Air Act.

Title IV of the Clean Air Act, enacted as part of the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990, Pub.L. No. 101-549, 104 Stat. 2399, established the Acid Rain Program. The Act prescribes limits for emissions of sul-phur dioxide and nitrogen oxides from specified electric utility plants in the contiguous 48 states, including the Rammer Generating Station. See 42 U.S.C. §§ 7651c, 7651d. It requires that owners or operators of fossil fuel-fired combustion devices, referred to as “units,” obtain emissions permits from the EPA for each location or “source” where units exist. See 42 U.S.C. § 7651g. Each permit allocates to each unit a number of emissions “allowances” authorized for the location, and each allowance authorizes the holder to emit one ton of sulphur dioxide. See 42 U.S.C. §§ 7651g(a), 7651a(3). The Act provides that these emissions allowances may be bought and sold as any other commodity. See 42 U.S.C.

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207 F.3d 687, 30 Envtl. L. Rep. (Envtl. Law Inst.) 20457, 50 ERC (BNA) 1308, 2000 U.S. App. LEXIS 5108, 2000 WL 308995, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/ormet-primary-aluminum-corp-v-ohio-power-co-ca4-2000.