Justia Government & Administrative Law Opinion Summaries

Plaintiffs and their companies filed suit alleging that the contraceptive mandate in the Affordable Care Act, 42 U.S.C. 300gg-13(a)(4), violated their rights under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA), 42 U.S.C. 2000bb et seq., the Free Exercise Clause, the Free Speech Clause, and the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), 5 U.S.C. 500 et seq. The court concluded that, even if the government had a compelling interest - from safeguarding the public health to protecting a woman's compelling interest in autonomy and promoting gender equality, the mandate was not the most restrictive means of furthering that interest. The court concluded that the district court erred in denying a preliminary injunction for plaintiffs on the grounds that their case was unlikely to succeed on the merits; the court reversed the district court's denial of a preliminary injunction for the individual owners; because the district court premised its decision entirely on a question of law, the court must remand for consideration of the other preliminary-injunction factors; and the court affirmed the district court's denial of preliminary injunction with respect to the companies. View "Gilardi, et al. v. HHS, et al." on Justia Law

Petitioner sought review of the Board's decision rejecting his application for a certificate authorizing the acquisition and operation of a small length of industrial railroad track because his application refused any obligation to transport "toxic inhalation hazard" products. While the court concluded that petitioner did not forfeit his argument on appeal, the court found petitioner's arguments unpersuasive on the merits. Because the Board had permissibly determined the scope of a freight railroad's common carrier obligation under 49 U.S.C. 11101(a), and the Board's rejection of petitioner's application was reasonable, the court denied the petition for review. View "Riffin v. Surface Transportation Board" on Justia Law

The EPA promulgated an interim final rule (IFR) authorizing it to issue certificates of conformity to diesel truck engines manufacturers for 2012 and 2013 model-year engines notwithstanding the engines did not conform to EPA's emission standard for nitrogen oxides promulgated under section 202(a) of the Clean Air Act (CAA), 42 U.S.C. 7521(a) - provided the manufacturer paid the government a non-conformance penalty (NCP) as established in the IFR. After notice and comment, EPA replaced the IFR with a final NCP rule establishing new and higher NCPs. Daimler petitioned for review of the IFR on both procedural and substantive grounds, as well as EPA's issuance to manufacturer Navistar four 2012 model year certificates of conformity. The court concluded that, with the publication of the Final NCP Rule, Daimler's challenge to the certificates was moot and dismissed the petition for review. View "Daimler Trucks North America, et al. v. EPA" on Justia Law

This case arose when Judicial Watch filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), 5 U.S.C. 552, request with the Secret Service, seeking records of every visitor to the White House Complex over a period of seven months. The district court ordered the agency to release the records or assert specific FOIA exemptions on a document-by-document basis. The court held that, both in the 1974 FOIA Amendments and the 1978 Presidential Records Act (PRA), 44 U.S.C. 2201 et seq., Congress made clear that it did not want documents like the appointment calendars of the President and his closest advisors to be subject to disclosure under FOIA. Granting Judicial Watch's request for certain visitor records would effectively disclose the contents of those calendars. Therefore, the court concluded that such records were not "agency records" within the meaning of FOIA. The White House Complex also housed components that Congress did intend to subject to FOIA. The court concluded that these records of visits were "agency records" subject to disclosure under FOIA. Accordingly, the court affirmed in part and reversed in part. View "Judicial Watch, Inc. v. United States Secret Service" on Justia Law

Petitioners challenged the EPA's final rule establishing emission standards for sewage sludge incinerators under section 129 of the Clean Air Act, 42 U.S.C. 7429. The court remanded to the EPA portions of the rule for further explanation without vacating the current maximum achievable control technology (MACT) standards. Specifically, the court directed the EPA to clarify why its Clean Water Act Part 503, 40 C.F.R. pt. 503, regulations controlled for other non-technology factors; to clarify issues related to its upper prediction limit and variability analysis; and to elaborate on how it could use a statistical method to determine whether a limited dataset was representative of incinerators for which it had no data, and to explain why it chose the variables it did for that statistical analysis. In all other respects, the court upheld the EPA's rule against petitioners' challenges. View "Nat'l Assoc. of Clean Water Agencies v. EPA, et al." on Justia Law

Petitioners and intervenors petitioned for review of FERC's orders (1) approving PJM's method of disbursing a monetary surplus that resulted from the way it operated its markets, and (2) requiring PJM to recoup money refunded to the virtual marketers in connection with the administrative dispute over the surplus. The court held that FERC gave the virtual marketers reasonable notice that their refunds were under reconsideration, but that FERC's orders were arbitrary and capricious because they were insufficiently justified. Accordingly, the court denied the petition for review of the Surplus Orders and granted the petition for review of the Recoupment Orders, remanding for further proceedings. View "Black Oak Energy, LLC v. FERC" on Justia Law

This case concerned challenges to the 2011 Hours of Service (HOS) rule issued by the FMCSA. In Case No. 12-1092, ATA asserted that the new safety-oriented provisions in the final HOS rule were overly restrictive and costly. In Case No., 12-1113, Public Citizen claimed that the rule was insufficiently protective of public safety. The court concluded that what remains of the 2003 Final Rule after two remands and three rulemakings were highly technical points best left to the agency. Therefore, the court generally affirmed the rule and vacated only the agency's application of the 30-minute break to short-haul drivers where the agency failed to explain its decision under the requirements of Motor Vehicle Manufacturers Ass'n of the United States v. State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Co. View "American Trucking Ass'ns v. FMCSA, et al." on Justia Law

This appeal concerned plaintiff's filing of an administrative complaint with the FEC alleging that various organizations violated election laws during their efforts to keep him off the ballot. The FEC dismissed the complaint and the district court subsequently granted summary judgment against plaintiff, later denying his motion to alter or amend its judgment. Plaintiff appealed. The court rejected plaintiff's claim of competitor standing where he sought to compel FEC enforcement against his opponents years after the campaign had run its course, and claim of informational standing where he asserted an injury that was not sufficiently concrete to confer standing. Accordingly, the court dismissed the appeal and concluded that the district court lacked jurisdiction to hear the suit because plaintiff lacked standing. View "Nadar v. FEC" on Justia Law

These appeals challenged the EPA's promulgation of rules in response to the Supreme Court's holding that greenhouse gases unambiguously qualify as an "air pollutant" under the Clean Air Act, 42 U.S.C. 7401. At issue was implementation of Part C of Title I of the Act permitting requirements in several States without implementation plans for greenhouse gases as of January 2, 2011, when the emission standards in the Tailpipe Rule took effect. The court held that under the plain text of sections 165(a) and 167, the permitting requirements were self-executing without regard to previously approved state implementation plans. The court concluded that petitioners lacked Article III standing to challenge the rules because industry petitioners failed to show how they have been injured in fact by rules enabling issuance of the necessary permits and state petitioners failed to show how vacating the rules would redress their purported injuries. Accordingly, the court dismissed the petitions for lack of jurisdiction. View "State of Texas, et al. v. EPA" on Justia Law

Plaintiff, an employee of the GSA, sued her supervisor for defamation and interference with her attempts to secure alternative employment. Under the Westfall Act, 28 U.S.C. 2679, the U.S. Attorney General certified that the supervisor's conduct was within the scope of his employment and removed the case to federal district court, substituting the United States as the defendant. The court affirmed the district court's dismissal for lack of subject matter jurisdiction, concluding that the supervisor acted within the scope of his employment and plaintiff's suit was jurisdictionally barred by the Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA), 28 U.S.C. 2671 et seq. View "Jacobs v. Vrobel" on Justia Law