Weyerhaeuser Co. v. Costle Case Brief Summary | Law Case Explained

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Weyerhaeuser Co. v. Costle, 590 F.2d 1011 (1978)
In Weyerhaeuser Company versus Costle, we’ll see what type of cost-benefit analysis the Environmental Protection Agency, or EPA, must conduct when setting effluent limitations.
Effluent refers to waste or sewage that’s discharged into a body of water. Under its authority in the Clean Water Act, the EPA sets effluent limitations for various industries. In 1977, the EPA issued an order that limited effluent discharges for pulp and paper mills using a sulfite process that creates a pollutant known as spent sulfite liquor. Under the EPA’s effluent limitations, paper industries were required to limit their discharges to the level of best practicable control technology currently available, known as BPT. The EPA selected the BPT standard after performing an overall cost-benefit analysis, which showed that the benefit of decreasing sulfite pollution was greater than the cost industries would incur reducing effluent.
Numerous paper companies, including Weyerhaeuser, sued EPA Administrator Douglas Costle to challenge the effluent limitations. First, Weyerhaeuser argued that the EPA must take receiving water capacity into account when it sets effluent limits. Many of the paper companies discharge effluent into the Pacific Ocean, so the companies argued that the EPA should weigh the fact that effluent would be diluted in the ocean. Second, Weyerhaeuser argued that the EPA didn’t properly consider non-water-quality environmental impacts. Finally, Weyerhaeuser claimed that the EPA should’ve also conducted an incremental cost-benefit analysis. Weyerhaeuser submitted an incremental cost-benefit analysis to the EPA; however, Weyerhaeuser’s analysis showed that implementing the new standards was below the average cost of implementing other pollution-reduction standards.
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