484
Opinion of the Court
If, for example, areas were classified in the year 2000, many of the deadlines would already have expired at the time of classification.
These gaps in Subpart 2's scheme prevent us from concluding that Congress clearly intended Subpart 2 to be the exclusive, permanent means of enforcing a revised ozone standard in nonattainment areas. The statute is in our view ambiguous concerning the manner in which Subpart 1 and Subpart 2 interact with regard to revised ozone standards, and we would defer to the EPA's reasonable resolution of that ambiguity. See FDA v. Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corp., 529 U. S., at 132; INS v. Aguirre-Aguirre, 526 U. S. 415, 424 (1999). We cannot defer, however, to the interpretation the EPA has given.
Whatever effect may be accorded the gaps in Subpart 2 as implying some limited applicability of Subpart 1, they cannot be thought to render Subpart 2's carefully designed restrictions on EPA discretion utterly nugatory once a new standard has been promulgated, as the EPA has concluded. The principal distinction between Subpart 1 and Subpart 2 is that the latter eliminates regulatory discretion that the former allowed. While Subpart 1 permits the EPA to establish classifications for nonattainment areas, Subpart 2 classifies areas as a matter of law based on a table. Compare § 7502(a)(1) with § 7511(a)(1) (Table 1). Whereas the EPA has discretion under Subpart 1 to extend attainment dates for as long as 12 years, under Subpart 2 it may grant no more than 2 years' extension. Compare §§ 7502(a)(2)(A) and (C) with § 7511(a)(5). Whereas Subpart 1 gives the EPA considerable discretion to shape nonattainment programs, Subpart 2 prescribes large parts of them by law. Compare §§ 7502(c) and (d) with § 7511a. Yet according to the EPA, Subpart 2 was simply Congress's "approach to the implementation of the [old] 1-hour" standard, and so there was no reason that "the new standard could not simultaneously be implemented under . . . subpart 1." 62 Fed. Reg.
Page: Index Previous 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 NextLast modified: October 4, 2007