Justia Government & Administrative Law Opinion Summaries

At issue in this case are the ramifications of a utility filing more than one rate with FERC during the time in which the utility negotiates an agreement with a prospective customer. The DC Circuit denied the petition for review and upheld FERC's determination that the governing rate was the rate in effect at the time the agreement was completed. Because the court found that FERC properly considered the court's findings on remand, adequately explained its decision, and properly considered the evidence, FERC did not act arbitrarily and capriciously in interpreting the new rate. View "ESI Energy, LLC v. FERC" on Justia Law

The DC Circuit denied the Arkansas Commission's petition for review of a final FERC order. The FERC order held that an operating company withdrawing from a multi-state energy system must continue to share the proceeds of a pre-departure settlement with the other member companies. The court held that FERC had a lawful basis to order the sharing of the benefits of the settlement and was reasoned in its allocation methodology. Therefore, FERC's order for Entergy Arkansas to share the Union Pacific Settlement benefits and its method for allocating the settlement was not arbitrary, capricious, or contrary to law. View "Arkansas Public Service Comm. v. FERC" on Justia Law

The DC Circuit denied the Arkansas Commission's petition for review of a final FERC order. The FERC order held that an operating company withdrawing from a multi-state energy system must continue to share the proceeds of a pre-departure settlement with the other member companies. The court held that FERC had a lawful basis to order the sharing of the benefits of the settlement and was reasoned in its allocation methodology. Therefore, FERC's order for Entergy Arkansas to share the Union Pacific Settlement benefits and its method for allocating the settlement was not arbitrary, capricious, or contrary to law. View "Arkansas Public Service Comm. v. FERC" on Justia Law

The DC Circuit held that two Federal Trade Commission attorneys were immune from suit for their conduct during an enforcement action against a medical-records company after the company's CEO publicly criticized the FTC about their investigation, where the company's data-security practices made patient records available over public file-sharing. The court held that qualified immunity protected all but the plainly incompetent or those who knowingly violate the law and, even if the attorneys sought to retaliate for the public criticism, their actions did not violate any clearly established right absent plausible allegations that their motive was the but-for cause of the Commission's enforcement action. Therefore, the court reversed the district court's denial of qualified immunity to the attorneys. View "Daugherty v. Sheer" on Justia Law

The DC Circuit denied petitions for review of the Commission's two orders directing the Postal Service to include among the "costs attributable" to competitive products those costs that would disappear were the Postal Service to stop offering those products for sale. Petitioner, UPS, argued that the cost attribution methodology the Commission used was both inconsistent with the statute that gives the Commission its regulatory authority and arbitrary and capricious. The court held that the orders did not conflict with the 2006 Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act, because the Commission's reading of "institutional costs" was reasonable; UPS failed to show that the Accountability Act unambiguously compelled a reading of "indirect postal costs" that included only those costs that were shared across products; and Chevron deference was appropriate in this case. The court also held that the orders were not arbitrary, capricious, nor an abuse of discretion, because the Commission properly recognized that its role was to carry out the particulars of the scheme Congress created, not to engineer specific market outcomes. Finally, the Commission's adoption of an incremental-cost approach to attribution was not arbitrary nor capricious. View "United Parcel Service, Inc. v. PRC" on Justia Law

The DC Circuit granted a petition for review of the differential treatment by Galveston Port to petitioners, who operate shuttle buses, as compared to taxis and limos. The court held that the FMC's decision accepting that shuttle buses were treated differently than taxis and limos was not sustainable. In this case, petitioners were plainly injured when they were charged more than the other commercial passenger vehicles and the FMC never determined whether the Port justified the differential treatment based on legitimate transportation factors. The court vacated FMC's orders and remanded for further proceedings. View "Santa Fe Discount Cruise Parking v. FMC" on Justia Law

Appellee, a United States citizen who has been detained by the United States military in Iraq for several months, sought release from military custody in a habeas corpus action. While the habeas petition remained pending, appellee argued that the government could not forcibly -- and irrevocably -- transfer him to the custody of another country. The DC Circuit sustained the district court's two orders: the first requiring the government to give 72 hours' notice before transferring appellee to the custody of another country; and the second enjoining the government from effecting a transfer to another country after the government reached an agreement with that country to transfer appellee to its custody. The court held that the government did not possess the authority to forcibly transfer a U.S. citizen to a different foreign country than the one in which she is already present nor to forcibly transfer as long as the receiving country has some legitimate sovereign interest in her (whether or not related to criminal prosecution). View "Doe v. James Mattis" on Justia Law

The DC Circuit affirmed the district court's dismissal of a complaint seeking an injunction and declaratory relief to block the Department from pursuing administrative actions to determine whether Arch was obligated to pay benefits to certain of its former employees under the Black Lung Benefits Act, 30 U.S.C. 901–45 (2012). The court held that Congress intended the Act's statutory scheme to be exclusive with respect to the claims to which the statute applied. In this case, Arch's claims were of the type that Congress intended to be reviewed within the Act's statutory structure. Therefore, the court agreed with the district court's dismissal of the complaint for want of jurisdiction because the Act assigned exclusive jurisdiction over Arch's challenges to the Department's administrative process and then the relevant federal court of appeals. View "Arch Coal, Inc. v. Acosta" on Justia Law

SBA filed suit seeking to enjoin rescission of an informal opinion letter issued by the FTC (the 2016 Letter). The 2016 Letter stated that it was the FTC staff's opinion that telemarketing technology used by SBA's members was subject to the FTC's regulation of so-called "robocalls," and it announced the rescission of a 2009 FTC staff letter that had reached the opposite conclusion. The DC Circuit dismissed the complaint for failure to state claim and held that because the 2016 staff opinion letter did not constitute the consummation of the Commission's decisionmaking process by its own terms and under the FTC's regulations, it was not final agency action. Finally, SBA's speech claims were pleaded as Administrative Procedure claims under 5 U.S.C. 706(2)(B) and could not proceed without final agency action. View "Soundboard Association v. FTC" on Justia Law

The DC Circuit granted a petition for review of FERC's assertion of Natural Gas Act (NGA) jurisdiction over the transportation and sale of natural gas for resale from the City of Clarksville, Tennessee to the City of Guthrie, Kentucky. As a preliminary matter, the court rejected FERC's standing and ripeness challenges to the court's authority to hear the petition for review. On the merits, the court saw no reason to deviate from the clear and unambiguous language of the statute, as well as FERC precedent, and held that Clarksville was a municipality that was exempt from regulation under NGA Section 7. The court also rejected FERC's alternative argument and held that the articulation of the scope of FERC's jurisdiction did not mean that Congress gave FERC jurisdiction over everything within the three areas listed by FERC. Therefore, the court vacated FERC's order. View "City of Clarksville, Tennessee v. FERC" on Justia Law