Chemical Waste Management, Inc. v. United States Environmental Protection Agency
United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit
873 F.2d 1477 (1989)
The Resource Conservation and Recovery Act required a public hearing before EPA (defendant) could sanction hazardous-waste facilities, and EPA's original Part 22 regulations used formal adjudicative procedures for such hearings. When Congress added § 3008(h), allowing EPA to issue corrective-action orders with a right to a public hearing, EPA promulgated Part 24 regulations permitting informal hearings before an EPA officer for less complex corrective measures, with review and a final decision by a regional administrator and the option of judicial review. Chemical Waste Management (plaintiff) petitioned for review, challenging EPA's use of informal rather than formal procedures for these hearings.
Whether courts will uphold an agency's regulations interpreting a statutory “hearing” requirement so long as those regulations reflect a reasonable interpretation of ambiguous statutory language.