Justia Government & Administrative Law Opinion Summaries

Environmental groups petitioned for review of the EPA's "Deferral Rule," which deferred regulation of biogenic carbon dioxide for three years. The EPA justified this Deferral Rule on the basis of the de minimis, one-step-at-a-time, and administrative necessity doctrine. Concluding that the dispute was ripe for review, the court rejected the EPA's use of the de minimus doctrine where EPA expressly disavowed this doctrine, explaining that the Deferral Rule had a three-year sunset provision whereas the de minimis doctrine was used to establish permanent exemptions; the EPA's invocation of the one-step-at-a-time doctrine was arbitrary and capricious where the EPA failed to explain in the Deferral Rule what "full compliance" with the "statutory mandate" means; the court rejected the administrative necessity doctrine where the EPA rejected a proposed middle-ground option; and the court rejected the absurd results doctrine that the EPA raised for the first time in its brief. Accordingly, the court granted the petition for review. View "Center for Biological Diversity v. EPA" on Justia Law

Section 207 of the Passenger Rail Investment and Improvement Act of 2008, 49 U.S.C. 24101, empowers Amtrak and the FRA to jointly develop performance measures to enhance enforcement of the statutory priority Amtrak's passenger rail service has over trains. AAR challenged the statutory scheme as unconstitutional. The court concluded that section 207 impermissibly delegated regulatory authority to Amtrak. The court need not reach AAR's separate argument that Amtrak's involvement in developing the metrics and standards deprived its members of due process. Accordingly, the court reversed the judgment of the district court. View "Assoc. of American Railroads v. U.S. Dept. of Transp., et al." on Justia Law

In 2006, DOL issued an opinion letter concluding that mortgage loan officers with archetypal job duties fell within the administrative exemption. In 2010, DOL issued an "Administrator's Interpretation" declaring that "employees who perform the typical job duties" of the hypothetical mortgage loan officer "do not qualify as bona fide administrative employees." Petitioner challenged DOL's decision to change their "definitive interpretation" without first undergoing notice-and-comment rulemaking as a violation of the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), 5 U.S.C. 500 et seq. Having conceded the existence of two definitive - and conflicting - agency interpretations, the government acknowledged that petitioner prevailed if the only reason courts look to reliance was to find out if there was a definitive interpretation. The court held that there was no discrete reliance element and that reliance was just one part of the definitiveness calculus. Therefore, the court reversed the district court's order denying petitioner's motion for summary judgment and remanded with instructions to vacate DOL's 2010 Administrative Interpretation. View "Mortgage Bankers Assoc. v. Solis, et al." on Justia Law

The Conference Group challenged the Commission's decision that the audio bridging services provided by InterCall were properly classified as "telecommunications" under the Communications Act of 1934, as amended, and thereby obligated it and "similarly situated" providers to contribute directly to the Universal Service Fund (USF), 47 U.S.C. 254(d). The court concluded that the Conference Group had standing to challenge the Commission's decision as procedurally unlawful rulemaking; on the merits, the Commission's decision involved a statutory interpretation that could be rendered in the form of an adjudication, not only in a rulemaking; because the decision was an adjudication and The Conference Group was not a party, it lacked standing to challenge the merits of the adjudication; and, therefore, the court dismissed in part and denied in part The Conference Group's petition for review. View "The Conference Group, LLC v. FCC, et al." on Justia Law

Plaintiff filed suit against her former employer, the Chief Administrative Officer (OCAO), of the United States House of Representatives, for alleged racial discrimination and retaliation in violation of the Congressional Accountability Act (CAA), 2 U.S.C. 1301-1438. The court concluded that the Speech or Debate Clause did not require the dismissal of this action; plaintiff could proceed with all of her claims under the CAA, subject to the applicable strictures of the Speech or Debate Clause; and, accordingly, the court affirmed the district court's judgment in part, reversed in part, and remanded for further proceedings. View "Howard v. Chief Admin. Officer of the U.S." on Justia Law

Plaintiff, an ALJ, brought this action alleging that HUD had interfered with his decisional independence and thereby violated the Administrative Procedure Act, 5 U.S.C. 500 et seq. The court concluded that it need not decide whether the district court correctly dismissed plaintiff's claims for lack of standing where the Civil Service Reform Act of 1978, Pub. L. No. 95-454, 92 Stat. 1111, deprived the district court of subject matter jurisdiction over the complaint. View "Mahoney v. Donovan, et al." on Justia Law

Plaintiffs brought this action against the Commission seeking a declaratory judgment that recently adopted regulations of the Commission regarding derivatives trading were unlawfully adopted and invalid, and seeking to vacate and set aside those regulations and to enjoin their enforcement. Plaintiffs contended that the Commission violated the Administrative Procedure Act, 5 U.S.C. 500 et seq., in its rulemaking by: (1) failing to address rationales for broadening Commodity Pool Operators (CPOs) exemptions; (2) failing to comply with the Commodity Exchange Act, 7 U.S.C. 2(a), and offering an inadequate evaluation of the rule's costs and benefits; (3) including swaps in the trading threshold, restricting its definition of bona fide hedging, and failing to justify the five percent threshold; and (4) failing to provide an adequate opportunity for notice and comment. The court concluded, however, that the Commission did not act unlawfully in promulgating the regulations at issue. Accordingly, the court affirmed the district court's grant of summary judgment in favor of the Commission. View "Investment Company Inst., et al. v. CFTC" on Justia Law

Plaintiff challenged the district court's holding affirming the USCIS's denial of several of plaintiff's petitions for Q-1 visas for foreign applicants to its cultural exchange program. USCIS denied the petitions because it interpreted its regulation to require sponsors of a cultural exchange program to pay wages to the participating aliens and plaintiff admittedly did not pay its participants any wages. Given 8 U.S.C. 1101(a)(15)(Q)'s specific references to "employed," "wages," and "workers," the court agreed with USCIS that the statute was best read to require that the foreign citizens receive wages and that those wages be equivalent to the wages of domestic workers. Given 8 C.F.R. 214.2(q)(4)(i)(D)'s references to "employer," "wages," "workers," and "remunerate," the court agreed with USCIS that the regulation was best read to require that foreign citizens receive wages and that those wages be comparable to those of local workers. Finally, when USCIS denied plaintiff's petitions in 2010, the agency did not trigger the notice-and-comment procedures in the Regulatory Flexibility Act, 5 U.S.C. 603(a), 604, 605(b), or the Administrative Procedure Act, 5 U.S.C. 533(b)-(c), because the denials were not rules under either act; rather, they were informal adjudications. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "Int'l Internship Program v. Napolitano, et al." on Justia Law

This case stemmed from appellant's request from the CIA of records related to a certain CIA officer. On appeal, appellant challenged the district court's determination that appellant should not receive attorney's fees as a result of his suit filed under the Freedom of Information Act, 5 U.S.C. 552 et seq. The court vacated and remanded to the district court so that it could apply the four-factor standard, which this circuit had set forth for considering a substantially prevailing party's entitlement to attorney's fees in FOIA cases, in a manner consistent with Davy v. CIA because the district court did not consider the Davy Court's analysis of the public-benefit factor. View "Morley v. CIA" on Justia Law

Appellants, hunters and hunting organizations, challenged the Service's bar against the importation of polar bear trophies under the Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA), 16 U.S.C. 1361 et seq., and the Endangered Species Act (ESA), 16 U.S.C. 1531 et seq. In regard to statutory challenges, the court concluded that Congress intended to extend the protections of sections 101(a)(3)(B) and 102(b)(3) of the MMPA to all depleted species, regardless of their depleted status; although section 104(c)(5) did authorize trophy importation, that provision remained subject to the MMPA's more stringent protections for depleted species; section 102(b)(3) referred not only to mammals taken from species the Secretary had designated as depleted but instead mammals taken from species the Secretary has so designated; and section 101(a)(3)(B) could not permit what section 102(b)(3) expressly prohibited. In regards to procedural challenges, the court concluded that section 115(a) was inapplicable because an ESA listing resulted in a depleted designation under the MMPA but entailed no "determination" to that effect. Finally, the Listing Rule provided adequate notice. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "In re: Polar Bear Endangered Species Act Listing" on Justia Law