Justia U.S. D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals Opinion Summaries

Pacific Networks Corp. and ComNet (USA) LLC, which are companies owned by the People’s Republic of China, held authorizations to operate communication lines in the United States. The Federal Communications Commission revoked these authorizations based on concerns that the carriers posed national security risks and had proven themselves untrustworthy. The carriers argue that the FCC’s reasoning was substantively arbitrary and was rendered with inadequate process.   The DC Circuit denied the petition for review. The court held that the FCC adequately explained its decision to revoke Pacific Networks’ and ComNet’s authorizations, and it afforded adequate process to the carriers. The court explained that the carriers do not seriously contest the FCC’s factual determinations. Instead, they object that the Commission had never revoked a Section 214 authorization based solely on misrepresentations. The carriers cite past cases where concerns about candor or trustworthiness produced only a fine. But those cases did not involve national security risks, which plainly heighten any trustworthiness concerns. Moreover, the court wrote that the FCC reasonably explained why no realistic agreement could have worked given the carriers’ proven lack of trustworthiness. View "Pacific Networks Corp. v. FCC" on Justia Law

Vistra Corporation, joined by several other electricity suppliers, petitioned the DC Circuit to review three underlying orders of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. These orders involve the sale of electricity in capacity markets. In response to periodic concerns, the Commission has adjusted the market’s features to ensure that it remains competitive.   Vistra and accompanying suppliers (collectively, Petitioners) brought three arguments challenging the discontinuance of the default offer cap. The court explained that the Commission adequately explained its choice to rely on unit-specific review rather than a default offer cap, including that Petitioners’ recalibrated alternative would not have sufficiently mitigated anti-competition concerns. The court explained that the Commission also addressed its accounting of the risks associated with acquiring a capacity commitment, risks that it explained are limited to participation in a capacity market. Finally, Petitioners’ Section 205 rights remain intact. The Commission reasonably interpreted supplier offers in capacity markets to be merely input into obtaining the market-clearing price. These inputs are not the ultimate rates that come out of the market, which are, in turn, subject to Section 205. View "Vistra Corp. v. FERC" on Justia Law

The United States Maritime Administration (“MARAD”) approved a shipping company’s request to replace two vessels operating in the Pacific trade within the Maritime Security Program. Matson Navigation Co., a competitor in the Pacific, petitions for review of the replacements. As a source of jurisdiction, Matson points to the Hobbs Act, under which the DC Circuit had original jurisdiction over some acts of MARAD.   The DC Circuit reversed two orders of the district court, consolidated with these petitions, that held jurisdiction over Matson’s claims under the Administrative Procedure Act (“APA”) and was exclusive in the court of appeals. The court wrote that Matson was not a “party” to the replacement proceedings for either vessel, therefore, the court denied the petitions for direct review. The court explained that whether a case begins in district court or is eligible for direct review in the court is a policy decision that is for “Congress rather than us to determine.” The court wrote that as Matson’s counsel stated at oral argument, the company is just “trying to get review.” Because sending limited comments based on limited information to an informal agency proceeding does not confer “party” status under the Hobbs Act, that review starts in the district court. View "Matson Navigation Company, Inc. v. DOT" on Justia Law

For over four decades, immigration judges employed by the Executive Office for Immigration Review have collectively bargained through a certified union. Four years ago, that office asked the Federal Labor Relations Authority to determine that immigration judges are management officials barred from inclusion in a bargaining unit. The Authority agreed. Following an unsuccessful reconsideration motion, and with a second reconsideration motion still pending before the Authority, the union petitioned this court for review of both the Authority’s initial decision and its decision denying reconsideration. The union contends that, in issuing those decisions, the Authority violated the union’s substantive and procedural due process rights.   The DC Circuit dismissed the petition. The court explained that the Union’s petition for review was incurably premature—including with respect to the Initial Order—even though the Union’s second reconsideration motion sought reconsideration of only the First Reconsideration Order, not the Initial Order. The court wrote that a contrary conclusion would disserve the central purpose of the incurable prematurity doctrine. “There is good reason to prohibit any litigant from pressing its cause concurrently upon both the judicial and the administrative fronts: a favorable decision from the agency might yet obviate the need for review by the court.” And here, as in Tennessee Gas, a favorable agency decision on the second reconsideration motion pending before it could have obviated the need for judicial review of both the order initially denying reconsideration and the underlying order. View "National Association of Immigration Judges v. FLRA" on Justia Law

Petitioner Fairless Energy, LLC (Fairless Energy) contends that it pays too much for the transportation of natural gas to fuel its electric power generating plant located in Fairless Hills, Pennsylvania (the Fairless plant). In these consolidated petitions for review of orders of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (the Commission), Fairless Energy maintains that the Commission acted arbitrarily and capriciously, and contrary to reasoned decision-making, when it exercised primary jurisdiction over Fairless Energy’s natural gas transportation rate dispute with intervenor Transcontinental Gas Pipe Line Company, LLC (Transco), and determined that the appropriate rate was the incremental rate for pipeline expansion under Transco’s Tariff.   The DC Circuit denied the petitions for review. The court held that Fairless Energy fails to demonstrate that either the Commission’s exercise of primary jurisdiction over the Transco-Fairless Energy natural gas transportation rate dispute or its decision regarding the appropriate rate was arbitrary and capricious. The court explained that the Commission reasonably started its evaluation with the 2018 Agreement’s Exhibit C and determined that it unambiguously “did not establish a negotiated rate” because it stated “None” in the location for the specification of a negotiated rate. After reaching this decision, the Commission was appropriately able to decline to consider extrinsic evidence. View "Fairless Energy, LLC v. FERC" on Justia Law

The Environmental Protection Agency extended the deadline for compliance with a revised national drinking water regulation, which in turn extended the deadline for states to enforce conforming revisions to their own regulations. Five states seek to challenge the federal extension, which they say will cause them various harms.   The DC Circuit dismissed the petition for review for lack of Article III standing. The court explained that the states’ uncertainty also is not redressable in this litigation. Their harm is not knowing what future obligations they will face, making it difficult to plan. But the Delay Rule gives the states more time to hedge their bets. Setting it aside would worsen any problem of regulatory uncertainty, taking as a given EPA’s unreviewable decision to consider changes to the Revision Rule. View "State of Arizona v. EPA" on Justia Law

Two consolidated cases arise out of the Hungarian government’s confiscation of property owned by Jews during the Holocaust. The questions raised by these appeals bear on whether survivors of the Hungarian Holocaust may hale the Hungarian government and its instrumentalities into United States courts to answer for a subset of the wrongs they committed. The plaintiffs invoked the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act’s expropriation exception as a means to pierce the Hungarian state’s sovereign immunity and assert jurisdiction in federal district court. Defendants object that the exception is inapplicable. The district court dismissed the claims of the plaintiffs asserting statelessness but concluded that most of the plaintiffs asserting Czechoslovakian nationality could proceed.   The DC Circuit largely affirmed. The court concluded that the plaintiffs claiming statelessness—have not made out a recognized claim within a Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act exception. Assuming without deciding that those plaintiffs were de facto stateless at the time of the alleged takings, as they claim, the plaintiffs have nevertheless failed to identify adequate affirmative support in sources of international law for their contention that a state’s taking of a stateless person’s property amounts to a taking “in violation of international law” within the meaning of the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act.   The court affirmed the district court’s denial of Defendants’ motions to dismiss the claims of some of the plaintiffs asserting Czechoslovakian nationality, with a few exceptions. The district court correctly determined that four of those plaintiffs had plausibly alleged they were Czechoslovakian nationals at the time of the takings. The court concluded that as for the five Lebovics sisters, the district court should have dismissed their claims. View "Rosalie Simon v. Republic of Hungary" on Justia Law

The Affordable Care Act obligates large employers to provide their full-time employees with health insurance coverage meeting certain requirements. If an employer fails to provide coverage or provides noncomplying coverage, it is liable for an exaction under 26 U.S.C. Section 4980H. In 2019, the Internal Revenue Service sent two letters proposing exactions under Section 4980H to appellant Optimal Wireless, a wireless communications company. Optimal then filed an action against the IRS and the Department of Health and Human Services, claiming that the agencies had failed to satisfy certain procedural requirements before imposing the proposed exactions. Optimal sought a declaratory judgment and an injunction barring the IRS from collecting any money without complying with those procedures. The district court dismissed Optimal’s suit for lack of jurisdiction.   The DC Circuit affirmed. The court explained that the Anti-Injunction Act provides that, with certain exceptions, “no suit for the purpose of restraining the assessment or collection of any tax shall be maintained in any court by any person, whether or not such person is the person against whom such tax was assessed.” The court explained that because Congress repeatedly called the Section 4980H exaction a tax, Optimal’s suit is barred by the Anti-Injunction Act. The court further wrote that Congress’s use of the phrase “assessable payment” does not conflict with—or otherwise detract from the import of—its choice to label the Section 4980H exaction a “tax” in multiple provisions. The terms are not mutually exclusive. View "Optimal Wireless LLC v. IRS" on Justia Law

In this consolidated appeal of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s (FERC) orders, two utility companies argue that Attachment Z2 plainly requires utilizing the N-1 Contingency Analysis (N-1) methodology. And they assert that FERC erred in concluding that the Tariff was ambiguous, relying on extrinsic evidence to interpret that the Reservation Stack Analysis (RSA) was the appropriate methodology. Second, they claim that the Regional Operator violated the filed rate doctrine because the filed rate was unclear about how much they would be charged. Finally, Petitioners contend that their charges offend Attachment Z1 because the Regional Operator neither identified the upgrade facilities that would accommodate their requests nor provided them with an estimate of the costs of such upgrades.   The DC Circuit dismiss in part the petitions for review related to the filed rate doctrine because that issue was not exhausted at the rehearing stage below. The court otherwise denied in part the petitions for review. The court explained that FERC appropriately noted that the purpose of Attachment Z1 is to identify new transmission facilities or new upgrades to existing facilities, while Attachment Z2 is designed to calculate a customer’s obligation to pay for its use of existing Creditable Upgrades funded by others. The court explained that because the difference between Attachment Z1 and Attachment Z2 arises out of their plain texts, and FERC’s orders acknowledged that difference, FERC “would clearly have acted on [this] ground even if the other [grounds] were unavailable.” Therefore, denying the petitions for review on this issue is consistent with precedents. View "Xcel Energy Services Inc. v. FERC" on Justia Law

MSHA’s jurisdiction, the Federal Mine Safety and Health Review Commission (“Commission”) held that for the list of items in Section 802(h)(1)(C) to be considered a “mine,” the items had to be located at an extraction site, or the roads appurtenant thereto.  Because neither the trucks nor the facility associated with the citations at issue were located on land covered under subsections (A)–(B), the Commission found they failed to constitute a “mine” and vacated the citations. The Commission also found that, as an independent contractor not engaged in servicing a mine at the time of the citation, KC Transport failed to qualify as an “operator” under Section 802(d) of the Mine Act. The Secretary of Labor (“the Secretary”), acting through MSHA, appealed the Commission’s decision and asked the court to uphold the two citations as an appropriate exercise of the Secretary’s jurisdiction under the Mine Act. In the Secretary’s view, subsection (C) of the “mine” definition covers KC Transport’s facility and trucks because they were “used in” mining activity.   The DC Circuit vacated and remanded the Commission’s decision, allowing the Secretary to interpret the statute’s ambiguous language. The court explained that given the Mine Act’s language, context, and the court’s binding precedent, it finds that the Commission erred in its interpretation of the “mine” and “operator” definitions. And we generally defer to the Secretary’s reasonable interpretation of an ambiguous statute—even when the Commission disagrees. But here, the Secretary’s position treats subsection (C) as 4 unambiguous and makes no meaningful effort to address the numerous practical concerns that would arise under such an interpretation. View "Secretary of Labor v. KC Transport, Inc." on Justia Law