348
Stevens, J., dissenting
municipalities throughout the Nation have reasonably relied for over a decade.10 It explains why the legislative history fails to mention an intent to impose significant new burdens on the operation of municipal incinerators. Finally, it is the construction that the EPA has adopted and that reasonable jurists have accepted.11
The majority's decision today may represent sound policy. Requiring cities to spend the necessary funds to dispose of their incinerator residues in accordance with the strict requirements of Subtitle C will provide additional protections to the environment. It is also true, however, that the conservation of scarce landfill space and the encouragement of the recovery of energy and valuable materials in municipal wastes were major concerns motivating RCRA's enactment. Whether those purposes will be disserved by regulating municipal incinerators under Subtitle C and, if so, whether environmental benefits may nevertheless justify the costs of such additional regulation are questions of policy that we are not competent to resolve. Those questions are precisely the kind that Congress has directed the EPA to answer. The
stream passing through an exclusively household waste facility." Ante, at 338. Of course, it is not the 1984 amendment that casts doubt on the validity of the regulation, see ante, at 338, n. 4, but the Court's rigid reading of § 1004(6)'s definition of the term "hazardous waste generation" that has achieved that result. Since that definition has been in RCRA since 1976, the Court utterly fails to explain how the 1984 amendment made any change in the law.
10 At oral argument Government counsel advised us that the Chicago incinerator is one of about 150 comparable facilities in the country and that the EPA has never contended that the acceptance of nonhazardous commercial waste subjected any of them to regulation under Subtitle C. Tr. of Oral Arg. 25.
11 See specially Judge Haight's comprehensive opinion in Environmental Defense Fund, Inc. v. Wheelabrator Technologies, Inc., 725 F. Supp. 758 (SDNY 1989), aff'd, 931 F. 2d 211 (CA2 1991). That decision is cited with approval by Circuit Judge Ripple, 985 F. 2d 303, 305 (CA7 1993) (dissenting opinion); Environmental Defense Fund, Inc. v. Chicago, 948 F. 2d 345, 352 (CA7 1991) (dissenting opinion), in this litigation.
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