Recognizing that many areas of the country had failed to achieve the Clean Air Act's ambitious air quality goals, Congress in 1977 ordered major revisions in state implementation plans (SIPs) to incorporate more stringent regulatory requirements for polluting activities in those regions. As a necessary first step in this program, the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1977 directed the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to designate those areas in which national ambient air quality standards had not been attained.

Instead of the smooth preliminary stage in the SIP revision process that Congress envisioned, the Agency's designation of non-attainment areas was quickly challenged by industry and has since become entangled in a messy disagreement among the federal courts of appeals. Two circuits have ruled that EPA violated the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) by acting without prior notice and comment and have invalidated certain designations. A third has held, on the contrary, that the Agency properly invoked the "good cause" exemption to the APA's procedural requirements given the short statutory timetable provided for the SIP revision process and the detrimental effects of any further delay in attaining the national air quality standards.