JUSTICE STEVENS delivered the opinion of the Court.
In the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1977, Pub. L. 95-95, 91 Stat. 685, Congress enacted certain requirements applicable
I
The EPA regulations containing the plantwide definition of the term stationary source were promulgated on October
The court observed that the relevant part of the amended Clean Air Act "does not explicitly define what Congress envisioned as a `stationary source, to which the permit program. . . should apply," and further stated that the precise issue was not "squarely addressed in the legislative history." Id., at 273, 685 F. 2d, at 723. In light of its conclusion that the legislative history bearing on the question was "at best contradictory," it reasoned that "the purposes of the nonattainment program should guide our decision here." Id., at 276, n. 39, 685 F. 2d, at 726, n. 39.
The basic legal error of the Court of Appeals was to adopt a static judicial definition of the term "stationary source" when it had decided that Congress itself had not commanded that definition. Respondents do not defend the legal reasoning of the Court of Appeals.
II
When a court reviews an agency's construction of the statute which it administers, it is confronted with two questions. First, always, is the question whether Congress has directly spoken to the precise question at issue. If the intent of Congress is clear, that is the end of the matter; for the court,
"The power of an administrative agency to administer a congressionally created . . . program necessarily requires the formulation of policy and the making of rules to fill any gap left, implicitly or explicitly, by Congress." Morton v. Ruiz, 415 U.S. 199, 231 (1974). If Congress has explicitly left a gap for the agency to fill, there is an express delegation
We have long recognized that considerable weight should be accorded to an executive department's construction of a statutory scheme it is entrusted to administer,
Accord, Capital Cities Cable, Inc. v. Crisp, ante, at 699-700.
In light of these well-settled principles it is clear that the Court of Appeals misconceived the nature of its role in reviewing the regulations at issue. Once it determined, after its own examination of the legislation, that Congress did not actually have an intent regarding the applicability of the bubble concept to the permit program, the question before it was not whether in its view the concept is "inappropriate" in the general context of a program designed to improve air quality, but whether the Administrator's view that it is appropriate in the context of this particular program is a reasonable one. Based on the examination of the legislation and its history which follows, we agree with the Court of Appeals that Congress did not have a specific intention on the applicability of the bubble concept in these cases, and conclude that the EPA's use of that concept here is a reasonable policy choice for the agency to make.
III
In the 1950's and the 1960's Congress enacted a series of statutes designed to encourage and to assist the States in curtailing air pollution. See generally Train v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc., 421 U.S. 60, 63-64 (1975). The Clean Air Amendments of 1970, Pub. L. 91-604, 84 Stat. 1976, "sharply increased federal authority and responsibility
Section 111(a) defined the terms that are to be used in setting and enforcing standards of performance for new stationary sources. It provided:
In the 1970 Amendments that definition was not only applicable to the NSPS program required by § 111, but also was made applicable to a requirement of § 110 that each state implementation plan contain a procedure for reviewing the location of any proposed new source and preventing its construction if it would preclude the attainment or maintenance of national air quality standards.
In due course, the EPA promulgated NAAQS's, approved SIP's, and adopted detailed regulations governing NSPS's
Nonattainment
The 1970 legislation provided for the attainment of primary NAAQS's by 1975. In many areas of the country, particularly the most industrialized States, the statutory goals were not attained.
In light of this situation, the EPA published an Emissions Offset Interpretive Ruling in December 1976, see 41 Fed. Reg. 55524, to "fill the gap," as respondents put it, until Congress acted. The Ruling stated that it was intended to
IV
The Clean Air Act Amendments of 1977 are a lengthy, detailed, technical, complex, and comprehensive response to a major social issue. A small portion of the statute — 91 Stat.
Basically, the statute required each State in a nonattainment area to prepare and obtain approval of a new SIP by July 1, 1979. In the interim those States were required to comply with the EPA's interpretative Ruling of December 21, 1976. 91 Stat. 745. The deadline for attainment of the primary NAAQS's was extended until December 31, 1982, and in some cases until December 31, 1987, but the SIP's were required to contain a number of provisions designed to achieve the goals as expeditiously as possible.
Before issuing a permit, § 173 requires (1) the state agency to determine that there will be sufficient emissions reductions in the region to offset the emissions from the new source and also to allow for reasonable further progress toward attainment, or that the increased emissions will not exceed an allowance for growth established pursuant to § 172(b)(5); (2) the applicant to certify that his other sources in the State are in compliance with the SIP, (3) the agency to determine that the applicable SIP is otherwise being implemented, and (4) the proposed source to comply with the lowest achievable emission rate (LAER).
V
The legislative history of the portion of the 1977 Amendments dealing with nonattainment areas does not contain any specific comment on the "bubble concept" or the question whether a plantwide definition of a stationary source is permissible under the permit program. It does, however, plainly disclose that in the permit program Congress sought to accommodate the conflict between the economic interest in permitting capital improvements to continue and the environmental interest in improving air quality. Indeed, the House Committee Report identified the economic interest as one of the "two main purposes" of this section of the bill. It stated:
The portion of the Senate Committee Report dealing with nonattainment areas states generally that it was intended to "supersede the EPA administrative approach," and that expansion should be permitted if a State could "demonstrate that these facilities can be accommodated within its overall plan to provide for attainment of air quality standards." S. Rep. No. 95-127, p. 55 (1977). The Senate Report notes the value of "case-by-case review of each new or modified major source of pollution that seeks to locate in a region exceeding an ambient standard," explaining that such a review "requires matching reductions from existing sources against
Senator Muskie made the following remarks:
VI
As previously noted, prior to the 1977 Amendments, the EPA had adhered to a plantwide definition of the term "source" under a NSPS program. After adoption of the 1977 Amendments, proposals for a plantwide definition were considered in at least three formal proceedings.
In January 1979, the EPA considered the question whether the same restriction on new construction in nonattainment areas that had been included in its December 1976 Ruling
The EPA's summary of its proposed Ruling discloses a flexible rather than rigid definition of the term "source" to implement various policies and programs:
In August 1980, however, the EPA adopted a regulation that, in essence, applied the basic reasoning of the Court of Appeals in these cases. The EPA took particular note of the two then-recent Court of Appeals decisions, which had created the bright-line rule that the "bubble concept" should be employed in a program designed to maintain air quality but not in one designed to enhance air quality. Relying heavily on those cases,
In 1981 a new administration took office and initiated a "Government-wide reexamination of regulatory burdens and complexities." 46 Fed. Reg. 16281. In the context of that
In explaining its conclusion, the EPA first noted that the definitional issue was not squarely addressed in either the statute or its legislative history and therefore that the issue involved an agency "judgment as how to best carry out the Act." Ibid. It then set forth several reasons for concluding that the plantwide definition was more appropriate. It pointed out that the dual definition "can act as a disincentive to new investment and modernization by discouraging modifications to existing facilities" and "can actually retard progress in air pollution control by discouraging replacement of older, dirtier processes or pieces of equipment with new, cleaner ones." Ibid. Moreover, the new definition "would simplify EPA's rules by using the same definition of `source' for PSD, nonattainment new source review and the construction moratorium. This reduces confusion and inconsistency." Ibid. Finally, the agency explained that additional requirements that remained in place would accomplish the fundamental purposes of achieving attainment with NAAQS's as expeditiously as possible.
VII
In this Court respondents expressly reject the basic rationable of the Court of Appeals' decision. That court viewed the statutory definition of the term "source" as sufficiently flexible to cover either a plantwide definition, a narrower definition covering each unit within a plant, or a dual definition that could apply to both the entire "bubble" and its components. It interpreted the policies of the statute, however, to mandate the plantwide definition in programs designed to maintain clean air and to forbid it in programs designed to improve air quality. Respondents place a fundamentally different construction on the statute. They contend that the text of the Act requires the EPA to use a dual definition — if either a component of a plant, or the plant as a whole, emits over 100 tons of pollutant, it is a major stationary source. They thus contend that the EPA rules adopted in 1980, insofar as they apply to the maintenance of the quality of clean air, as well as the 1981 rules which apply to nonattainment areas, violate the statute.
Statutory Language
The definition of the term "stationary source" in § 111(a)(3) refers to "any building, structure, facility, or installation" which emits air pollution. See supra, at 846. This definition is applicable only to the NSPS program by the express terms of the statute; the text of the statute does not make this definition
The definition in § 302(j) tells us what the word "major" means — a source must emit at least 100 tons of pollution to qualify — but it sheds virtually no light on the meaning of the term "stationary source." It does equate a source with a facility — a "major emitting facility" and a "major stationary source" are synonymous under § 302(j). The ordinary meaning of the term "facility" is some collection of integrated elements which has been designed and constructed to achieve some purpose. Moreover, it is certainly no affront to common English usage to take a reference to a major facility or a major source to connote an entire plant as opposed to its constituent parts. Basically, however, the language of § 302(j) simply does not compel any given interpretation of the term "source."
Respondents recognize that, and hence point to § 111(a)(3). Although the definition in that section is not literally applicable to the permit program, it sheds as much light on the meaning of the word "source" as anything in the statute.
We are not persuaded that parsing of general terms in the text of the statute will reveal an actual intent of Congress.
Legislative History
In addition, respondents argue that the legislative history and policies of the Act foreclose the plantwide definition, and that the EPA's interpretation is not entitled to deference because it represents a sharp break with prior interpretations of the Act.
Based on our examination of the legislative history, we agree with the Court of Appeals that it is unilluminating. The general remarks pointed to by respondents "were obviously not made with this narrow issue in mind and they cannot be said to demonstrate a Congressional desire . . . ." Jewell Ridge Coal Corp. v. Mine Workers, 325 U.S. 161, 168-169 (1945). Respondents' argument based on the legislative history relies heavily on Senator Muskie's observation that a new source is subject to the LAER requirement.
Our review of the EPA's varying interpretations of the word "source" — both before and after the 1977 Amendments — convinces us that the agency primarily responsible for administering this important legislation has consistently interpreted it flexibly — not in a sterile textual vacuum, but in the context of implementing policy decisions in a technical and complex arena. The fact that the agency has from time to time changed its interpretation of the term "source" does not, as respondents argue, lead us to conclude that no deference should be accorded the agency's interpretation of the statute. An initial agency interpretation is not instantly carved in stone. On the contrary, the agency, to engage in informed rulemaking, must consider varying interpretations
Significantly, it was not the agency in 1980, but rather the Court of Appeals that read the statute inflexibly to command a plantwide definition for programs designed to maintain clean air and to forbid such a definition for programs designed to improve air quality. The distinction the court drew may well be a sensible one, but our labored review of the problem has surely disclosed that it is not a distinction that Congress ever articulated itself, or one that the EPA found in the statute before the courts began to review the legislative work product. We conclude that it was the Court of Appeals, rather than Congress or any of the decisionmakers who are authorized by Congress to administer this legislation, that was primarily responsible for the 1980 position taken by the agency.
Policy
The arguments over policy that are advanced in the parties' briefs create the impression that respondents are now waging in a judicial forum a specific policy battle which they ultimately lost in the agency and in the 32 jurisdictions opting for the "bubble concept," but one which was never waged in the Congress. Such policy arguments are more properly addressed to legislators or administrators, not to judges.
Judges are not experts in the field, and are not part of either political branch of the Government. Courts must, in some cases, reconcile competing political interests, but not on the basis of the judges' personal policy preferences. In contrast, an agency to which Congress has delegated policymaking responsibilities may, within the limits of that delegation, properly rely upon the incumbent administration's views of wise policy to inform its judgments. While agencies are not directly accountable to the people, the Chief Executive is, and it is entirely appropriate for this political branch of the Government to make such policy choices — resolving the competing interests which Congress itself either inadvertently did not resolve, or intentionally left to be resolved by the
When a challenge to an agency construction of a statutory provision, fairly conceptualized, really centers on the wisdom of the agency's policy, rather than whether it is a reasonable choice within a gap left open by Congress, the challenge must fail. In such a case, federal judges — who have no constituency — have a duty to respect legitimate policy choices made by those who do. The responsibilities for assessing the wisdom of such policy choices and resolving the struggle between competing views of the public interest are not judicial ones: "Our Constitution vests such responsibilities in the political branches." TVA v. Hill, 437 U.S. 153, 195 (1978).
We hold that the EPA's definition of the term "source" is a permissible construction of the statute which seeks to accommodate progress in reducing air pollution with economic growth. "The Regulations which the Administrator has adopted provide what the agency could allowably view as . . . [an] effective reconciliation of these twofold ends . . . ." United States v. Shimer, 367 U. S., at 383.
The judgment of the Court of Appeals is reversed.
It is so ordered.
JUSTICE MARSHALL and JUSTICE REHNQUIST took no part in the consideration or decision of these cases.
JUSTICE O'CONNOR took no part in the decision of these cases.
FootNotes
"The plan provisions required by subsection (a) shall —
.....
"(6) require permits for the construction and operation of new or modified major stationary sources in accordance with section 173 (relating to permit requirements)." 91 Stat. 747.
"(ii) `Building, structure, facility, or installation' means all of the pollutant-emitting activities which belong to the same industrial grouping, are located on one or more contiguous or adjacent properties, and are under the control of the same person (or persons under common control) except the activities of any vessel." 40 CFR §§ 51.18(j)(1)(i) and (ii) (1983).
"We regret, of course, that Congress did not advert specifically to the bubble concept's application to various Clean Air Act programs, and note that a further clarifying statutory directive would facilitate the work of the agency and of the court in their endeavors to serve the legislators' will." 222 U. S. App. D. C., at 276, n. 39, 685 F. 2d, at 726, n. 39.
"Particularly with regard to the primary NAAQS's, Congress and the Courts have made clear that economic considerations must be subordinated to NAAQS achievement and maintenance. While the ruling allows for some growth in areas violating a NAAQS if the net effect is to insure further progress toward NAAQS achievement, the Act does not allow economic growth to be accommodated at the expense of the public health." 41 Fed. Reg. 55527 (1976).
"A number of commenters indicated the need for a more explicit definition of `source.' Some readers found that it was unclear under the 1976 Ruling whether a plant with a number of different processes and emission points would be considered a single source. The changes set forth below define a source as `any structure, building, facility, equipment, installation, or operation (or combination thereof) which is located on one or more contiguous or adjacent properties and which is owned or operated by the same person (or by persons under common control).' This definition precludes a large plant from being separated into individual production lines for purposes of determining applicability of the offset requirements." 44 Fed. Reg. 3276.
"(3) require, in the interim, reasonable further progress (as defined in section 171(1)) including such reduction in emissions from existing sources in the area as may be obtained through the adoption, at a minimum, of reasonably available control technology;
"(4) include a comprehensive, accurate, current inventory of actual emissions from all sources (as provided by rule of the Administrator) of each such pollutant for each such area which is revised and resubmitted as frequently as may be necessary to assure that the requirements of paragraph (3) are met and to assess the need for additional reductions to assure attainment of each standard by the date required under paragraph (1);
"(5) expressly identify and quantity the emissions, if any, of any such pollutant which will be allowed to result from the construction and operation of major new or modified stationary sources for each such area; . . .
.....
"(8) contain emission limitations, schedules of compliance and such other measures as may be necessary to meet the requirements of this section." 91 Stat. 747.
Section 171(1) provided:
"(1) The term `reasonable further progress' means annual incremental reductions in emissions of the applicable air pollutant (including substantial reductions in the early years following approval or promulgation of plan provisions under this part and section 110(a)(2)(I) and regular reductions thereafter) which are sufficient in the judgment of the Administrator, to provide for attainment of the applicable national ambient air quality standard by the date required in section 172(a)." Id., at 746.
"(3) The term `lowest achievable emission rate' means for any source, that rate of emissions which reflects —
"(A) the most stringent emission limitation which is contained in the implementation plan of any State for such class or category of source, unless the owner or operator of the proposed source demonstrates that such limitations are not achievable, or
"(B) the most stringent emission limitation which is achieved in practice by such class or category of source, whichever is more stringent.
"In no event shall the application of this term permit a proposed new or modified source to emit any pollutant in excess of the amount allowable under applicable new source standards of performance."
The LAER requirement is defined in terms that make it even more stringent than the applicable new source performance standard developed under § 111 of the Act, as amended by the 1970 statute.
"a proper balance between environmental controls and economic growth in the dirty air areas of America. . . . There is no other single issue which more clearly poses the conflict between pollution control and new jobs. We have determined that neither need be compromised. . . .
"This is a fair and balanced approach, which will not undermine our economic vitality, or impede achievement of our ultimate environmental objectives." 123 Cong. Rec. 27076 (1977).
The second "main purpose" of the provision — allowing the States "greater flexibility" than the EPA's interpretative Ruling — as well as the reference to the EPA's authority to amend its Ruling in accordance with the intent of the section, is entirely consistent with the view that Congress did not intend to freeze the definition of "source" contained in the existing regulation into a rigid statutory requirement.
"The above exemption is permitted under the SIP because, to be approved under Part D, plan revisions due by January 1979 must contain adopted measures assuring that reasonable further progress will be made. Furthermore, in most circumstances, the measures adopted by January 1979 must be sufficient to actually provide for attainment of the standards by the dates required under the Act, and in all circumstances measures adopted by 1982 must provide for attainment. See Section 172 of the Act and 43 F R 21673-21677 (May 19, 1978). Also, Congress intended under Section 173 of the Act that States would have some latitude to depart from the strict requirements of this Ruling when the State plan is revised and is being carried out in accordance with Part D. Under a Part D plan, therefore, there is less need to subject a modification of an existing facility to LAER and other stringent requirements if the modification is accompanied by sufficient intrasource offsets so that there is no net increase in emissions." 44 Fed. Reg. 3277 (1979).
"However, EPA believes that complete Part D SIPs, which contain adopted and enforceable requirements sufficient to assure attainment, may apply the approach proposed above for PSD, with plant-wide review but no review of individual pieces of equipment. Use of only a plant-wide definition of source will permit plant-wide offsets for avoiding NSR of new or modified pieces of equipment. However, this is only appropriate once a SIP is adopted that will assure the reductions in existing emissions necessary for attainment. See 44 FR 3276 col. 3 (January 16, 1979). If the level of emissions allowed in the SIP is low enough to assure reasonable further progress and attainment, new construction or modifications with enough offset credit to prevent an emission increase should not jeopardize attainment." Id., at 51933.
"Moreover, Alabama Power and ASARCO taken together suggest that there is a distinction between Clean Air Act programs designed to enhance air quality and those designed only to maintain air quality. . . .
.....
"Promulgation of the dual definition follows the mandate of Alabama Power, which held that, while EPA could not define `source' as a combination of sources, EPA had broad discretion to define `building,' `structure,' `facility,' and `installation' so as to best accomplish the purposes of the Act." 45 Fed. Reg. 52697 (1980).
"5. States will remain subject to the requirement that for all nonattainment areas they demonstrate attainment of NAAQS as expeditiously as practicable and show reasonable further progress toward such attainment. Thus, the proposed change in the mandatory scope of nonattainment new source review should not interfere with the fundamental purpose of Part D of the Act.
"6. New Source Performance Standards (NSPS) will continue to apply to many new or modified facilities and will assure use of the most up-to-date pollution control techniques regardless of the applicability of nonattainment area new source review.
"7. In order to avoid nonattainment area new source review, a major plant undergoing modification must show that it will not experience a significant net increase in emissions. Where overall emissions increase significantly, review will continue to be required." 46 Fed. Reg. 16281 (1981).
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