Marathon Oil Co. v. Environmental Protection Agency

Marathon Oil Company and other oil companies (collectively, oil companies) (plaintiffs) operated offshore production platforms in Cook Inlet, Alaska. The production process and the residence of operators on the platforms generated certain waste products that the oil companies hoped to discharge into the water. The oil companies sought discharge permits from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) (defendant) as required by the Federal Water Pollution Control Act (Control Act). The EPA conducted adjudicatory hearings before issuing permits, but the adjudicatory hearings did not comply with all the procedural protections under the Administrative Procedure Act (APA). Specifically, contrary to the procedural protections, the EPA considered evidence outside the record. The key issue in the hearings was the appropriate effluent limitations, meaning the specific limits on the amount of waste that could be discharged. When the EPA issued permits, the oil companies were unhappy with the permits’ effluent limitations, claiming that they required a greater degree of pollution control than was possible using best-practicable-control technology. The oil companies filed three separate petitions in the Ninth Circuit, seeking review of the EPA’s decisions. They argued, among other things, that the EPA violated the APA by not complying with its procedural protections. The EPA argued that those protections did not apply here because the Control Act required only an opportunity for a public hearing, not a full adjudicatory hearing. The Ninth Circuit consolidated the cases and considered the parties’ arguments.