Chicago v. Environmental Defense Fund, 511 U.S. 328, 12 (1994)

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Cite as: 511 U. S. 328 (1994)

Opinion of the Court

We also do not agree with petitioners' contention that our construction renders § 3001(i) ineffective for its intended purpose of promoting household/nonhazardous-industrial resource recovery facilities, see 42 U. S. C. §§ 6902(a)(1), (10), (11), by subjecting them "to the potentially enormous expense of managing ash residue as a hazardous waste." Brief for Petitioners 20. It is simply not true that a facility which is (as our interpretation says these facilities are) a hazardous waste "generator" is also deemed to be "managing" hazardous waste under RCRA. Section 3001(i) clearly exempts these facilities from Subtitle C TSDF regulations, thus enabling them to avoid the "full brunt of EPA's enforcement efforts under RCRA." Practice Guide § 29.05[1].

* * *

RCRA's twin goals of encouraging resource recovery and protecting against contamination sometimes conflict. It is not unusual for legislation to contain diverse purposes that must be reconciled, and the most reliable guide for that task is the enacted text. Here that requires us to reject the Solicitor General's plea for deference to the EPA's interpretation, cf. Chevron U. S. A. Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc., 467 U. S. 837, 843-844 (1984), which goes beyond the scope of whatever ambiguity § 3001(i) contains. See John Hancock Mut. Life Ins. Co. v. Harris Trust & Sav. Bank, 510 U. S. 86, 109 (1993). Section 3001(i) simply cannot be read to contain the cost-saving waste-stream exemption petitioners seek.5

For the foregoing reasons, the judgment of the Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit is

Affirmed.

5 In view of our construction of § 3001(i), we need not consider whether an agency interpretation expressed in a memorandum like the Administrator's in this case is entitled to any less deference under Chevron than an interpretation adopted by rule published in the Federal Register, or by adjudication.

339

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