Chlorine Chemistry Council v. EPA
United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit
206 F.3d 1286 (D.C. Cir. 2000)
The EPA (defendant) set the maximum contaminant level goal for chloroform at zero despite its own convened Scientific Advisory Board reviewing peer-reviewed evidence concluding chloroform was a threshold carcinogen — posing cancer risk only above a certain dose, with no risk below that threshold; the EPA Administrator initially set an appropriate non-zero goal of 300 parts per billion consistent with this evidence but the final rule reverted to a zero threshold anyway. The Chlorine Chemistry Council (plaintiff) challenged the rule as inconsistent with the Safe Drinking Water Act's requirement to use the best available science.
Whether the EPA's promulgation of a zero-exposure goal for a contaminant, contrary to its own reviewed scientific evidence establishing a safe threshold exposure level, satisfies the Safe Drinking Water Act's requirement that the agency use the best available peer-reviewed science.