## Facts

- EPA issued final regulations implementing the “third-third” phase of Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) land disposal restrictions (LDRs), setting treatment standards for many hazardous wastes, including characteristic wastes (ignitable, corrosive, reactive, toxic).
- The rules used a “best demonstrated available technology” (BDAT) methodology to derive numerical treatment standards and addressed when treated wastes and residues remain regulated as hazardous.
- The regulations also addressed how RCRA LDR requirements apply alongside controls under other environmental statutes, including the Clean Water Act (CWA) and the Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA).
- Numerous industry participants and associations, along with some environmental organizations, filed consolidated petitions for review challenging multiple aspects of the rules.
- Petitioners argued the rules exceeded EPA’s statutory authority, were arbitrary and capricious under the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), conflicted with CWA/SDWA programs, and, in parts, were adopted without adequate notice and comment.
- The court reviewed the consolidated challenges and resolved them in a single per curiam decision, largely sustaining the regulatory program while directing limited remands for further agency support or explanation.

## Issues

1. Whether RCRA § 3004 authorized EPA to establish technology-based LDR treatment standards using BDAT and to apply them broadly to hazardous wastes, including characteristic wastes.
2. Whether EPA’s technical judgments and numerical standards were adequately explained and supported by the record under APA arbitrary-and-capricious review, including reliance on limited or extrapolated performance data.
3. Whether EPA’s LDR rules unlawfully altered or conflicted with regulatory schemes under the CWA or SDWA.
4. Whether specific final provisions violated notice-and-comment requirements because they were not a logical outgrowth of the proposed rules.

## Decision

- The court largely denied the petitions for review and upheld EPA’s “third-third” LDR rule in most respects.
- The court held EPA generally acted within RCRA authority in adopting the overall BDAT-based structure and regulating characteristic wastes within the LDR framework.
- The court rejected most APA challenges, finding EPA’s explanations sufficient given the technical nature and scale of the rulemaking.
- The court rejected claims that the LDR rules impermissibly amended or displaced CWA or SDWA programs, treating the statutes as operating in parallel.
- The court remanded discrete provisions where EPA’s reasoning or record support was inadequate or where notice-and-comment concerns warranted further agency action, without vacating the overall rule.

## Legal Principles

- RCRA § 3004(m) permits EPA to set technology-based treatment standards designed to substantially reduce toxicity or the likelihood of hazardous constituent migration; EPA is not limited to purely risk-based numerical limits.
- Under APA arbitrary-and-capricious review, courts defer to reasonable technical judgments if the agency considered relevant factors, responded to significant comments, and explained the connection between the record and the standards adopted; mathematical precision is not required.
- EPA may regulate certain treated characteristic wastes and residues beyond the point at which a waste no longer exhibits a hazardous characteristic when record evidence supports continuing land-disposal risks from hazardous constituents.
- Overlapping environmental statutes may impose concurrent requirements; RCRA LDR controls on treatment and land disposal are not invalid merely because a waste is also regulated under the CWA or SDWA.
- Notice-and-comment is satisfied when the final rule is a logical outgrowth of the proposal such that interested parties reasonably could have anticipated the final approach; otherwise, a limited remand may be appropriate.

## Conclusion

The D.C. Circuit sustained EPA’s core RCRA land-disposal restriction program for the “third-third” wastes, including BDAT-based treatment standards and continued regulation of certain treated characteristic wastes, while ordering limited remands for further explanation or procedural correction on specific provisions.


Chemical Waste Mgmt., Inc. v. EPA, 976 F.2d 2 (D.C. Cir. 1992)