Justia Government & Administrative Law Opinion Summaries

Petitioners, nuclear power plant owners and operators, sought review of a November 2010 determination by the Secretary of Energy finding that there was no basis for suspending, or otherwise adjusting, annual fees collected from them totaling some $750 million a year. The court concluded that the Secretary had failed to perform a valid evaluation, as he was obliged to do under the 1982 Nuclear Waste Policy Act, 42 U.S.C. 10101 et seq., but the court did not think it appropriate to order the suspension of the fee at this time. Instead, the court remanded to the Secretary with directions to comply with the statute within six months.

Shelby County contended that when Congress reauthorized section 5 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, 42 U.S.C. 1973c(a), in 2006, it exceeded its enumerated powers. The district court disagreed and granted summary judgment for the Attorney General. Applying the congruence and proportionality standard of review in Northwest Austin Municipal Utility District No. One v. Holder, the court affirmed the judgment of the district court.

Plaintiffs brought suit challenging the constitutionality of section 5 of the Voting Rights Act (VRA), 42 U.S.C. 1973c, arguing that, as amended by the VRA's 2006 reauthorization, section 5 exceeded the powers granted to Congress by the Reconstruction Amendments and violated the Fifth Amendment's equal protection guarantee. The district court initially dismissed the suit for lack of standing but the court reversed and remanded based on the standing of plaintiff John Nix, who had announced his intention to run for the Kinston City Council in the 2011 elections. On remand, the district court granted summary judgment for the government, holding that section 5 was constitutional. While the appeal was pending before the court, and before oral argument could take place, the Justice Department changed its mind in light of some new evidence that it received in a separate proceeding. The Department subsequently informed the court and the parties that the Attorney General was withdrawing his objection to the proposed change. Three days later, the government filed its merits brief arguing in part that the case had been mooted by the Attorney General's actions. After considering the supplemental briefing from both parties, the court agreed with the government and therefore vacated the judgment and remanded the case to the district court with instructions to dismiss for lack of jurisdiction.

EPIC filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), 5 U.S.C. 552, request with the NSA seeking disclosure of any communications between NSA and Google regarding encryption and cyber security. EPIC's FOIA request arose out of a January 2010 cyber attack on Google that primarily targeted the Gmail accounts of human rights activists. The court held that any response to EPIC's FOIA request might reveal whether NSA did or did not consider a particular cyber security incident, or the security settings in particular commercial technologies, to be a potential threat to U.S. Government information systems. Any such threat assessment, as well as any ensuing action or inaction, implicated an undisputed NSA "function" and thus fell within the broad ambit of Section 6 of the National Security Agency Act, Pub. L. No 86-36, section 6(a), 73 Stat. 63. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment.

States both appealed the district court's grants of summary judgment in favor of HHS, which upheld HHS's disallowance of certain Medicaid claims for Federal Financial Participation (FFP) as ineligible for "medical assistance" under the "Institution for Mental Diseases" (IMD) exclusion set forth in section 1905(a) of 42 U.S.C. 1396 et seq. (Medicaid Statute). Because HHS correctly concluded that the disputed claims were not eligible for FFP under the plain language of the IMD exclusion and the under-21 exception, the court affirmed the judgment of the district court.

Taxpayer appealed a judgment of the Tax Court rejecting two contentions: first, a constitutional claim that certain employees of the IRS's Office of Appeals were "Officers of the United States," so that their appointments must conform to the Constitution's Appointments Clause, art. II, section 2, cl. 2, and second, an argument that the employees in question abused their discretion in rejecting his proposed compromise of the collection of his tax liability. Because the authority exercised by the Appeals Office employees whose status was challenged here appeared insufficient to rank them even as "inferior Officers," the court rejected the constitutional claims. Furthermore, the court found no abuse of discretion in those employee's decision in this case.

This case arose out of an accident in which an 81-year-old truck driver for Bob Orton Trucking Co., was killed by a large pipe that fell off of his truck during a delivery to the Kennecott Utah Copper Mine. Petitioner was an independent contractor hired by the mine's owner, Kennecott to construct a tailings dam; it was responsible for receiving deliveries of materials such as the pipes in question. The MSHA cited petitioner for a violation of the Federal Mine Safety and Health Act of 1977, 30 U.S.C. 801 et seq. On review, the Federal Mine Safety and Health Review Commission upheld the citation, finding that petitioner, though not the principal operator of the mine, "supervised a process, the unloading of pipes," and that as a supervisor of that process it could be liable without fault for violations occurring in the process. Petitioner challenged that conclusion both as a matter of statutory interpretation and on the facts. The court held that, though the statutory structure invited considerable confusion, the Commission's conclusion was consistent with the Act and there was substantial evidence of its necessary findings.

This is an appeal from the denial of attorneys fees under the Equal Access to Justice Act (EAJA), 5 U.S.C. 504(a)(1). After commencing an administrative civil penalties proceeding, the FAA withdrew its complaint and the ALJ before whom the complaint had been pending dismissed the proceedings with prejudice. Nonetheless, the FAA Administrator ruled that the subject of the complaint was not a "prevailing party" as that term had been interpreted in Buckhannon Bd. & Care Home, Inc. v. West Virginia Dep't of Health & Human Res. Because the dismissal with prejudice had res judicata effect and ended the proceedings, the court granted the petition and remanded the case to the Administrator to determine whether the filing of the complaint was substantially justified, and if not, to award fees.

Mobil petitioned for review of the Commission's denial of Mobil's application for permission to charge market-based rates on Pegasus, in light of the competitiveness of the Western Canadian crude oil market and Pegasus's minor role in it. The court concluded that the Commission's decision was unreasonable in light of the record evidence where the record showed that producers and shippers of Western Canadian crude oil have numerous competitive alternatives to Pegasus for transporting and selling their crude oil; Pegasus did not possess market power; and therefore, the court granted Mobil's petition for review, vacated FERC's order, and remanded to the Commission for further proceedings.

This case arose when petitioner, a hotel and casino, contracted with a restaurant corporation, which operated restaurants on petitioner's property. The primary issue raised by petitioner in this case was whether a property owner could bar employees of an onsite contractor from distributing union-related handbills on the property. The court had previously determined that the governing statute and Supreme Court precedent granted the Board discretion over how to treat employees of onsite contractors in circumstances such as this one. Consequently, the Board had exercised its discretion on remand in the prior case and concluded that a property owner generally could not bar employees of an onsite contractor from distributing union-related handbills on the property. Therefore, the court was bound by its prior decision and rejected petitioner's attempt to reopen it. The court also rejected petitioner's remaining arguments and denied the petition for review, granting the Board's cross-application for enforcement of its order.