## Facts

- EPA promulgated national drinking-water standards under the Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA), setting nonenforceable Maximum Contaminant Level Goals (MCLGs) and enforceable Maximum Contaminant Levels (MCLs) for numerous contaminants, including 38 organic and inorganic chemicals.
- EPA treated certain contaminants as known or probable human carcinogens and adopted a policy of setting the MCLG at zero for such carcinogens, reasoning that no safe exposure threshold had been shown.
- International Fabricare Institute (a dry-cleaning industry trade association) and other industry petitioners sought review of EPA’s final rule, challenging aspects of the standards for several contaminants (including DBCP, EDB, and PCE).
- Petitioners asserted procedural defects, arguing EPA failed to adequately consider and respond to two scientific submissions criticizing EPA’s low-dose carcinogen risk assumptions and suggesting low-dose exposure might be less harmful than EPA’s models predicted.
- EPA stated it considered the submissions but found they did not provide reliable evidence or validated modeling establishing a harmless threshold dose, and therefore declined to change its zero-MCLG approach or the challenged standards.

## Issues

1. Whether the trade association and related petitioners had Article III and prudential standing to seek review of EPA’s SDWA regulations.
2. Whether EPA satisfied APA and SDWA notice-and-comment obligations, including providing adequate notice and a reasoned response to significant comments.
3. Whether EPA’s zero-MCLG policy for carcinogens and the contaminant-specific standards were arbitrary, capricious, or otherwise unlawful under the APA.

## Decision

- The court held all petitioners had standing based on sufficiently concrete and imminent regulatory and economic impacts on their members.
- The court rejected the procedural challenges, concluding EPA provided adequate notice and reasonably addressed significant comments, including the two scientific submissions.
- Applying deferential arbitrary-and-capricious review, the court upheld EPA’s zero-MCLG policy for carcinogens and the challenged contaminant-specific determinations.
- The court denied the consolidated petitions for review in full.

## Legal Principles

- Trade associations may establish standing to challenge agency regulations when member injuries from compliance burdens and economic impacts are concrete, imminent, and traceable to the rule.
- Under APA notice-and-comment requirements, an agency must consider significant comments and give a reasoned explanation; it need not change course based on critiques that do not supply reliable new data or validated methods warranting revision.
- Arbitrary-and-capricious review is highly deferential in technical, scientific rulemaking; a court will uphold the agency where it considered relevant factors, explained its choices, and acted consistently with statutory objectives.
- Under the SDWA framework, EPA may adopt health-protective goals for carcinogens (including zero MCLGs) when the record does not establish a safe threshold and the agency provides a rational explanation.

## Conclusion

The D.C. Circuit sustained EPA’s SDWA drinking-water standards against standing, procedural, and substantive challenges, concluding EPA reasonably explained its scientific judgments—particularly its zero-MCLG policy for carcinogens—and acted within the bounds of APA arbitrary-and-capricious review.


Int'l Fabricare Inst. v. EPA, 972 F.2d 384 (D.C. Cir. 1992)