ILLINOIS POLLUTION CONTROL BOARD
October
22,
1981
ILLINOIS ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY,
)
)
Complainant,
)
PCB 80—22
v.
)
PCB 80—193
)
Consolidated
CATERPILLAR TRACTOR COMPANY,
)
Respondent.
DISSENTING OPINION
(by ~J.Anderson):
I dissent because I believe a) the Board should have granted
the Agency’s motion
(requesting that the Board modify its original
Opinion and Order of August 20, 1981)
and entered separate Opinions
and Orders addressing the enforcement action and the variance
petition and b) the reasoning used by the Board regarding the
conditions
led to a refusal
to modify its original Order even to
rule on the variance, thus leaving Caterpillar and the Agency in
a confusing limbo
as
to whether or not Caterpillar was granted a
variance.
The Board states that,
since it is ordering the same
corrective action pursuant to the enforcement action as it would
have in the variance petition,
it “need not distin~uishsuch a
plan as a compliance order or a variance condition
as long as
“the elements of proof for each proceeding is satisfied by the
record”.
I believe this reasoning leads to some unfortunate results.
First,
the Board must distinguish between enforcement actions
and variance petitions, whether or not the plans are the same,
in order to act upon them.
In its Order of August 20, the Board
does nothing about the variance petition even though the Opinion
acknowledges sufficient future hardship.
Is variance now granted
by operation of law?
Second, the Board should be especially careful not to appear
to ignore the statutory framework under which quasi—judicial or
quasi—legislative conditions are imposed, just because the con-
ditions themselves are the same.
This
is especially important
in light of the Board’s considerable recent efforts to preserve
these distinctions in the Act, distinctions that have been
sustained by the Courts, and affect the administrative,
appeal
and review focus.
43—527
2
The enforcement Order does not bring Caterpillar into
compliance with any Board regulations until those conditions
are fulfilled.
A variance grant would bring Caterpillar into
compliance while the conditions are being fulfilled.
I believe
that Caterpillar’s petition for variance reflects its appreciation,
though belated, of the value of giving the conditions the status
of short term “temporary regulations” in a variance,
so as to be
in compliance while it seeks a better solution to its problems
than its prior hit and miss approach.
The Board could have made clear, through the separate grant
of variance, that it did not “forgive” past non—compliance even
though the “good faith” mitigating factors considered in this
enforcement action resulted in a fine not being imposed.
I have expressed similar concern in an earlier dissent in
IEPA v.
City of Abingdon,
PCB 80—105
(June 10,
1981).
The Board’s
recent separate Opinions and Orders addressing enforcement and
variance actions concerning Illinois Fruit and Produce Company
PCB 80—181,
PCB 81—104
(October
8,
1981) serve to avoid the
uncertainty created in this case.
These cases should have been
handled in a similar fashion.
‘7
Joan G. Anderson
I,
Christan L. Moffett, Clerk of the Illinois Pollution
Control Board, hereby certify that t1~eabove Dissenting Opinion
was filed on the ~
day of
~
,
1981.
/
~
~
____
Christan L. Moffétt,
Clerk
Illinois Pollut~ionControl Board
4
3—528