Bayview Hunters Point Community Advocates v. Metropolitan Transportation Commission

The Metropolitan Transportation Commission plans, coordinates, and finances regional transportation in the San Francisco Bay Area. Over the past twenty five years, MTC has been one of several government agencies responsible for preparing and implementing programs to attain federal air quality standards in the Bay Area in order to comply with the Clean Air Act. One component of a plan initially adopted in 1982 was called Transportation Control Measure 2, or, in the tradition of acronyms which infects both government and environmental regulation, TCM 2. TCM 2 was designed to reduce air pollutants by increasing the use of public transit. The reductions in emissions estimated to result from TCM 2 were predicated on a “target” ridership increase of 15% over 1982-83 ridership levels. In this legal action, Plaintiffs Bayview Hunters Point Community Advocates and others (collectively “Bayview”) contend that TCM 2 imposed an enforceable obligation upon MTC to increase ridership by 15% over 1982-83 levels, and that MTC’s failure to achieve such an increase constitutes a violation of TCM 2.

The District Court granted summary judgment in Bayview’s favor and issued an injunction requiring MTC…

dissenting:

I respectfully disagree with my colleagues that TCM 2 does not impose an enforceable obligation on MTC. Regardless of whether the “plain language” of TCM 2 suggests that the 15% ridership increase is best construed as an “obligation” or a “commitment” or a “target” or a “requirement,” it is undeniable that the Clean Air Act requires that state implementation plans be submitted to EPA in an “enforceable form.” See Clean Air Act (“CAA”), 42 U.S.C. § 7502 (c); Trustees for Alaska v. Fink, 17 F.3d 1209, 1212 (9th Cir.1994). When the EPA approved TCM 2 as a component of California’s SIP in 1984, the measure became a federally enforceable regulation, and it remains so as long as it is included in the SIP. If the 15% ridership increase provision in TCM 2 were not binding, then the measure would not truly have been in enforceable form, and it would thus have been in violation of the Clean Air Act.

The majority suggests that the 15% ridership increase figure is a mere aspiration, or that it is similar to a “statement of opinion,” or a “prediction as to future events.” The majority also acknowledges, however, that TCMs must be submitted in enforceable form, and that “aims and…