潔淨空氣，如何解釋？從Duke Energy(2007)與Massachusetts v. EPA(2007)論美國行政法中立法目的、行政解釋和司法審查之關係

Interpreting “Clean Air”: Legislative Purpose, Agency Interpretation, and Judicial Review in American Administrative Law through the Lens of Duke Energy (2007) and Massachusetts v. EPA (2007)

自從1984年聯邦最高法院作成Chevron判決後，美國行政法研究的核心議題即為行政機關法律解釋的司法審查。受到文本主義的影響，在探究Chevron第一階審查時，法院是否能夠援引立法史及立法資料作為法律解釋的依據，不無疑問。本文透過聯邦最高法院在2007年針對〈潔淨空氣法〉所作成的兩件重要判決：Duke Energy和Mass. v. EPA，分析行政機關運用目的性解釋方法進行法律解釋的趨勢，以及目的性解釋對於行政機關和司法部門的不同功能。本文進而分析美國行政法學者對於行政機關法律解釋的論述，指出行政機關由於曾經參與法案形成的民主過程，因此在解釋法律時援引立法史資料，更有正當性基礎。在此情形下，除非行政機關的法律解釋已經偏離國會透過法律預設的範圍，否則法院均應予以尊重。質言之，無論何種法律解釋理論，其背後均預設了特定的權力分立理論和民主理論的立場。自權力機關參與民主決策的角度來看，聯邦最高法院對於行政機關法律解釋的審查，從文本主義轉向目的性解釋，即意味著從形式主義的權力分立模式轉向制度動態平衡的權力分立模式。在動態的權力制衡過程中，以法條意義的詮釋為舞台，活化憲政制度的運作。若然，法律解釋即可視為民主政治的競技場。法院得以藉由目的性解釋重塑Chevron判決所蘊含的司法自制原則。

Since the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Chevron U.S.A., Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc. (1984), theories of and debates over statutory interpretation has been blossoming in the past three decades. Step one of Chevron asks the reviewing court to decide whether Congress has expressed its choices through the language of statutes. Therefore, relentless efforts have been made to excavate meanings of statutory language. Textualism has its heyday in the 1980s and the 1990s since Justice Scalia was nominated to the bench. In the view of textualists, purposive interpretation resorting to legislative history gives judges leverage to exert their own preference over policies. A textualist’s reading of statutes would conform to the doctrine of judicial deference mostly compatible with Chevron. However, the Supreme Court has gradually returned to the approach of legislative history in recent years through a series of decisions overruling the executive branch’s overreaching or underreaching reading of statutes. This paper postulates this trend by analysis of two important environmental law cases, Duke Energy and Mass. v EPA. Clean Air Act is said to be the most complicated regulatory law in the United States. Considering the complexity of scientific knowledge and policy discretion in this area, the court rebutted the use of textualist interpretation of statutory language and detailed the history of legislative process to recover the purpose of the legislation. The resurgence of legislative history interpretation represents the court’s changing of its view of separation of powers from the formal one to the structural and functional dynamics of powers.