Reference no: EM133427186

Case Study: Under the Clean Air Act, owners of "major stationary sources" of air pollution in areas of the country not meeting the National Ambient Air Quality Standards are required to meet very stringent requirements whenever they modify a major stationary source so that it increases pollution. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) adopted a rule under the Clean Air Act that interpreted the term "stationary source" in the Act to mean a collection of smokestacks within a contiguous facility. The effect of this interpretation was to allow a company to avoid the stringent requirements incident to modifying their facilities by offsetting any increase in pollution from one smokestack by decreasing emissions from other smokestacks at the facility so that the whole facility's emissions did not increase. This was known as the "bubble policy," because it in effect allowed a company to place a bubble over a facility and measure the emissions from the bubble, rather than from each smokestack. An environmental group, unhappy because this interpretation would enable facilities to avoid stringent emission limitations in many cases, seeks judicial review of the rule, alleging that the term "stationary source" in the Act requires each smokestack to be considered a separate source. The Act does not itself define the term.

Question: How, if at all, should courts defer to EPA's interpretation? Explain and provide case law to support it.