Eng v. United States Environmental Protection Agency

── Eng v. United States Environmental Protection Agency ── Court: Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit Date: April 08, 2026 Category: General FOR PUBLICATION UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT GENGHMUN ENG, No. 25-138 Petitioner, Agency No. IX- 2024-14 v. UNITED STATES OPINION ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY, Respondent. On Petition for Review of an Order of the United States Environmental Protection Agency Submitted January 30, 2026 * San Francisco, California Filed April 8, 2026 Before: Richard R. Clifton, Bridget S. Bade, and Daniel P. Collins, Circuit Judges. Opinion by Judge Collins * The panel unanimously concludes that this case is suitable for decision without oral argument. See FED. R. APP. P. 34(a)(2)(C). 2 ENG V. USEPA SUMMARY ** Environmental Law The panel denied Genghmun Eng’s petition for review of a decision of the Administrator of the United States Environmental Protection Agency (“EPA”), denying his administrative petition under § 505(b)(2) of the Clean Air Act (“CAA”), which asked the EPA to object to the renewal of an operating permit issued by the South Coast Air Quality Management District to a refinery in the Wilmington section of Los Angeles. Eng argued that the Administrator should have objected to the permit on the ground that numerous additional permitting conditions were necessary to address the potential risk of a catastrophic release of dangerous chemicals from the refinery, which is subject to the permitting requirements of Title V of the CAA. Specifically, Eng argued that alleged defects in a number of materials—namely, the Refinery’s Risk Management Plan (“RMP”), Emergency Response Plan (“ERP”), Emergency Response Manual (“ERM”), and a handful of other documents apparently related to state environmental programs—leave the Refinery unprepared for a catastrophic release of hydrogen fluoride (“HF”) or modified hydrofluoric acid (“MHF”). The Administrator rejected Eng’s claims that the permit is objectionable due to the asserted risks of HF/MHF release or alleged defects in the RMP, ERP, ERM, and other related documents. The Administrator concluded that, to the extent ** This summary constitutes no part of the opinion of the court. It has been prepared by court staff for the convenience of the reader.  ENG V. USEPA 3 that Eng’s objections were based on federal requirements concerning such risk management concerns, the Title V permitting process is not the appropriate venue to resolve these issues. The panel rejected the EPA’s threshold argument that Eng’s petition for review should be denied on the procedural ground that the Administrator properly denied all the arguments Eng now brings in this challenge for failing to raise the issues in public comments before the permitting agency. Given that the Administrator did not dispose of all of Eng’s relevant claims on procedural grounds, the panel held that it could not rest a denial of Eng’s entire petition for review solely on that basis. Because the alternative merits- based grounds argued by the EPA in this court supplied a sufficient stand-alone basis for denying the petition for review, the panel instead upheld the Administrator’s decision on those grounds without further consideration of whether Eng complied with the comment-presentation requirement of CAA § 505(b)(2). The panel concluded that the Administrator’s rejection of Eng’s petition was neither contrary to law nor arbitrary and capricious. Eng failed, both legally and factually, to demonstrate that the inclusion of additional RMP-related conditions in the refinery’s Title V permit was necessary to assure compliance wi