## Facts

- Title V of the Clean Air Act requires states to submit operating-permit programs for major stationary sources, subject to EPA approval based on statutory minimum criteria.
- Virginia submitted a Title V program, but its law allowed judicial review of permit decisions primarily for permit applicants.
- Virginia sharply limited third-party standing to seek judicial review to persons with a “substantial monetary interest,” excluding many citizens and environmental groups who participated in the public comment process.
- EPA concluded Virginia’s judicial-review limitation conflicted with Title V’s requirement that states provide an opportunity for judicial review for permit applicants, public commenters, and others eligible under state law.
- EPA issued a final rule disapproving Virginia’s program, triggering potential Clean Air Act sanctions (including certain highway-funding restrictions and other regulatory consequences) and the possibility of a federally administered permit program in Virginia.
- Virginia petitioned for review, arguing EPA misinterpreted Title V and that Title V’s conditional approval, sanctions, and federal fallback scheme were unconstitutional.

## Issues

1. Whether EPA permissibly interpreted Title V to require state permit programs to provide judicial review access to members of the public who participated in the comment process, making Virginia’s “substantial monetary interest” limitation inconsistent with the Act.
2. Whether conditioning state program approval on Title V criteria, backed by sanctions and a federal fallback program, violates the Tenth Amendment by commandeering state institutions or intruding on state sovereignty.
3. Whether the Clean Air Act’s sanctions, including potential restrictions on federal highway funds, are unconstitutionally coercive under the Spending Clause and related federalism limits.

## Decision

- The Fourth Circuit denied Virginia’s petition for review and upheld EPA’s disapproval of Virginia’s Title V program.
- The court held EPA’s interpretation of Title V’s judicial-review requirement was permissible and the disapproval was not arbitrary or capricious.
- The court held Title V’s cooperative-federalism structure, including sanctions and federal administration if a state declines or fails to obtain approval, does not violate the Tenth Amendment.
- The court held the sanctions and conditional federal funding provisions were within Congress’s Spending Clause authority and were not unconstitutionally coercive.

## Legal Principles

- Under Chevron-style review, courts uphold an agency’s reasonable interpretation of ambiguous statutory provisions within its delegated authority.
- Title V requires a state permitting program to provide an opportunity for judicial review in state court of final permit actions for permit applicants and for persons who participated in the public comment process (as well as others who could obtain review under state law).
- A state may choose to administer a federal regulatory program only by meeting federal minimum criteria; if it declines or fails, federal regulators may implement a federal program, which generally avoids Tenth Amendment commandeering concerns.
- Congress may attach conditions and consequences to federal benefits and cooperative regulatory participation; such measures are valid when they operate as inducement rather than legal compulsion.

## Conclusion

The Fourth Circuit sustained EPA’s rejection of Virginia’s Title V operating-permit program because Virginia’s restrictive standing rule conflicted with Title V’s required access to judicial review, and it rejected Virginia’s Tenth Amendment and Spending Clause challenges to the Clean Air Act’s cooperative-federalism sanctions and federal fallback structure.


Virginia v. Browner, 80 F.3d 869 (4th Cir. 1996)