Whitman v. American Trucking Assns., Inc., 531 U.S. 457, 22 (2001)

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478

WHITMAN v. AMERICAN TRUCKING ASSNS., INC.

Opinion of the Court

NAAQS under the heading, "Final decision on the primary standard." Id., at 38873. "In light of comments received regarding the interpretation proposed in the Interim Implementation Policy," the EPA announced, it had "reconsidered that interpretation" and settled on a new one. Ibid. The provisions of "subpart 1 of part D of Title I of the Act" will immediately "apply to the implementation of the new 8-hour [ozone] standards." Ibid.; see also id., at 38885 (new standard to be implemented "simultaneously [with the old standard] . . . under the provisions of . . . subpart 1"). Moreover, the provisions of subpart 2 "will [also] continue to apply as a matter of law for so long as an area is not attaining the [old] 1-hour standard." Id., at 38873. Once the area reaches attainment for the old standard, however, "the provisions of subpart 2 will have been achieved and those provisions will no longer apply." Ibid.; see also id., at 38884-38885.

We have little trouble concluding that this constitutes final agency action subject to review under § 307. The bite in the phrase "final action" (which bears the same meaning in § 307(b)(1) that it does under the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), 5 U. S. C. § 704, see Harrison v. PPG Industries, Inc., 446 U. S. 578, 586 (1980)), is not in the word "action," which is meant to cover comprehensively every manner in which an agency may exercise its power. See FTC v. Standard Oil Co. of Cal., 449 U. S. 232, 238, n. 7 (1980). It is rather in the word "final," which requires that the action under review "mark the consummation of the agency's decisionmaking process." Bennett v. Spear, 520 U. S. 154, 177-178 (1997). Only if the "EPA has rendered its last word on the matter" in question, Harrison v. PPG Industries, Inc., supra, at 586, is its action "final" and thus reviewable. That standard is satisfied here. The EPA's "decision-making process," which began with the 1996 proposal and continued with the reception of public comments, concluded

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