## Facts

- EPA regulates “nonroad engines” under the Clean Air Act through a certification program requiring manufacturers to obtain a certificate of conformity for an “engine family” before selling or importing covered engines into the United States.
- Certified engines must carry emissions-control labels identifying conformity with EPA standards; engines not covered by a U.S. certificate generally must enter through EPA’s Independent Commercial Importer program, which entails added compliance and testing burdens.
- Independent equipment dealers imported and resold foreign-purchased equipment in competition with original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), which complained to EPA about imports lacking proper U.S. emissions labeling.
- EPA took the position that engines imported into the United States must bear compliant labels, and that manufacturers could use “destination-specific” labels indicating an engine was not covered by a U.S. certificate when intended for non-U.S. markets.
- The Independent Equipment Dealers Association (IEDA) asserted that if an engine belongs to a certified engine family, it must be treated as covered regardless of the manufacturer’s intended destination.
- In December 2002, IEDA requested EPA’s concurrence with IEDA’s interpretation; EPA responded that it did not concur and stated the regulatory requirements did not apply to manufacturers that did not introduce, or intend to introduce, engines into U.S. commerce.
- IEDA petitioned for review in the D.C. Circuit, arguing the letter effectively amended the regulations without notice-and-comment rulemaking and was alternatively arbitrary or capricious.

## Issues

1. Whether EPA’s letter responding to IEDA’s request for interpretive guidance was a reviewable action under the Clean Air Act’s judicial-review provision, 42 U.S.C. § 7607.
2. Whether the letter amounted to a final, substantive amendment of the nonroad engine regulations that would trigger Clean Air Act notice-and-comment procedures and permit arbitrary-and-capricious review.

## Decision

- The D.C. Circuit dismissed the petition for lack of jurisdiction.
- The court held EPA’s letter was not a reviewable final agency action, nor a “promulgation or revision” of a rule within the categories subject to direct appellate review under 42 U.S.C. § 7607.
- Because the letter was nonreviewable in this posture, the court did not reach IEDA’s claims about notice-and-comment violations or arbitrariness.

## Legal Principles

- Appellate jurisdiction under 42 U.S.C. § 7607 depends on the presence of an EPA action within the statute’s specified, directly reviewable categories; absent such an action, the court lacks jurisdiction.
- Informal agency correspondence that provides interpretive guidance in response to an inquiry, without purporting to change regulatory text or to bind regulated parties, generally does not constitute final agency action.
- A claimed inconsistency between an agency’s interpretive statement and an existing regulation does not, by itself, transform the statement into a legislative rule requiring notice-and-comment procedures.
- Practical market effects of an agency interpretation do not establish reviewability unless the agency communication itself imposes legal consequences or fixes rights or obligations.

## Conclusion

The D.C. Circuit dismissed IEDA’s petition because EPA’s interpretive letter declining to endorse IEDA’s reading of the nonroad-engine certification rules did not constitute a final, reviewable agency action under the Clean Air Act’s exclusive judicial-review scheme.


Indep. Equip. Dealers Ass'n v. EPA, 372 F.3d 420 (D.C. Cir. 2004)