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

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission must ensure that the rules for funding new transmission facilities are just and reasonable. A funding regime is not just and reasonable if it makes one party foot the bill for a project with broad benefits. Old Dominion Electric Cooperative v. FERC, 898 F.3d 1254, 1255 (D.C. Cir. 2018). Here, two transmission owners and a utility company say FERC approved an unjust and unreasonable change to the transmission-funding regime in a region managed by Southwest Power Pool. The new regime, the Petitioners say, will likely force transmission owners to pay for projects that benefit the entire power grid. They petitioned for judicial review.   The DC Circuit denied the petitions for judicial review. But the Petitioners oversell the risk that the new regime will foist the costs of new projects on individual owners. For that to happen, the regime’s primary mechanisms for allocating costs would have to fail. In any case, FERC may balance the need to ensure that transmission owners bear perfectly proportional costs and benefits with other policy goals. Consolidated Edison Co. v. FERC, 45 F.4th 265, 286 (D.C. Cir. 2022). It did that here by approving a regime that allows participants in regional transmission zones to collaborate on selecting and funding new projects. View "Evergy Kansas Central, Inc. v. FERC" on Justia Law

Appellant applied for Supplemental Security Income based on disability. While her application was pending, the Social Security Administration promulgated rules with new criteria for demonstrating disability and made them applicable to pending claims like Appellant’s. An Administrative Law Judge subsequently found Appellant ineligible for benefits under those updated criteria. Appellant then filed suit in federal district court, and the court overturned the agency’s decision on the ground that application of the new criteria was impermissibly retroactive. The court ordered the agency to reconsider Appellant’s case under the criteria in place when she first filed her claim. The district court rejected all of Appellant’s other challenges to the agency’s decision. Both parties appealed.   The DC Circuit reversed the district court’s decision and remand for further proceedings. The court held that hat application of the new criteria to Appellant’s pending claim was not retroactive, but that the Administrative Law Judge erred in his analysis of evidence from Appellant’s treating physician. The court remanded with instructions to the district court to remand the matter to the Administration to reconsider Appellant’s claim while either according controlling deference to her treating physician’s opinion or offering a substantively reasonable explanation for not doing so. View "Angela Cox v. Kilolo Kijakazi" on Justia Law

Petitioner Green Development, LLC (Green Development) sought interconnection with the distribution system of Narragansett Electric Company (Narragansett), a public utility. Accommodation of the increased flows of electricity required certain upgrades to the transmission system owned by Respondent-Intervenor New England Power Company d/b/a National Grid (NE Power). NE Power assigned the costs of the transmission system upgrades directly to Narragansett. The newly assigned costs were reflected in a revised transmission service agreement (TSA) that NE Power and Narragansett filed for approval by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (Commission or FERC). Green Development protested the revised TSA. The Commission denied Green Development’s protest.  Green Development petitions for review contending that the Commission (1) erroneously concluded that Green Development’s arguments in the underlying section 205 proceeding operated as a “collateral attack” on the Complaint Order; (2) improperly applied the governing seven-factor test; (3) misinterpreted the Tariff’s definition of “direct assignment facilities”; and (4) erroneously failed to apply the filing procedures of Schedule 21-Local Service of the Tariff.   The DC Circuit denied the petitions. First, the court held that Commission has cured any purportedly erroneous ruling that Green Development’s section 205 protest constituted a collateral attack on the Complaint Order. The court rejected Green Development’s fourth claim. The court wrote that the issue with Green Development’s contention is that it presumes that the procedures in Schedule 21-Local Service are “mandatory processes” that applied to the filing of the TSA. But, the SIS and associated technical arrangements “pertain to initiating transmission service” and “do not demonstrate that Narragansett as an existing transmission customer was required to request new transmission service” under the Tariff. View "Green Development, LLC v. FERC" on Justia Law

Appellant brought an action against the Army in district court, challenging the Secretary’s assignment of a 20% disability rating. According to Appellant the Secretary should have given him a 30% rating, consistent with the rating he had received from the Department of Veterans Affairs in a separate assessment conducted by the VA to determine his eligibility for veterans’ disability benefits. The district court granted summary judgment in favor of the Army.   The DC Circuit vacated the grant of summary judgment to the Army and remanded. The court concluded that the Secretary’s approach when determining Appellant’s disability rating was inconsistent with the applicable statute and regulations. The court explained that to the extent the Physical Disability Board of Review (PDBR) concluded that Appellant’s leg condition rendered him collectively unfit when considered together with his back condition, it was obligated to assign a rating to the leg condition. By extension, the Secretary, in accepting the PDBR’s recommendation to give no rating to Appellant’s leg condition, acted contrary to law insofar as the PDBR concluded that his leg condition was collectively unfitting together with his back condition. The court further explained that the fact that a condition contributes to a soldier’s unfitness is enough, and the Secretary’s apparent addition of a “significantly” criterion naturally raises questions about what degree and manner of contribution is thought to suffice, questions that the terms of the statute and regulations do not make salient. Any assumption that a medical condition, to receive a rating, must contribute “significantly” to unfitness thus is contrary to law. View "Jason Sissel v. Christine Wormuth" on Justia Law

Every five years, the Copyright Royalty Board (the “Board”) issues a statutory license that establishes the terms and rates under which certain entities that stream copyrighted songs over the internet make royalty payments to the songs’ copyright owners. The “webcasters” that are subject to the license are “noninteractive” — i.e., they stream music without letting their listeners choose songs on demand. This appeal challenges on various grounds the Board’s most recent noninteractive webcaster license Final Determination, covering calendar years 2021 through 2025.   The DC Circuit sustained Board’s Final Determination in all respects. The court held that the Board’s decision to set a royalty rate that was slightly below the Willig model’s flawed opportunity-cost measure is neither here nor there. And thus, the court explained, it has no occasion to decide, as SoundExchange urges, whether it would, as a matter of law, violate the willing buyer/willing seller standard for the Board to set a royalty rate below some definitive measure of opportunity cost. View "National Religious Broadcasters Noncommercial Music License Committee v. CRB" on Justia Law

The Resource Conservation and Recovery Act of 1976 (“RCRA”) governs the treatment, storage, and disposal of hazardous waste. In implementing the RCRA, the Environmental Protection Agency (“EPA”) promulgated a rule under which waste is deemed “hazardous” if it is “corrosive.” A scientist and a public interest group, Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (“PEER”), unsuccessfully petitioned the EPA to expand the definition of “corrosive” wastes so that more wastes would be subject to the RCRA’s most stringent requirements. The question presented in this case is whether the EPA properly declined to revise its corrosivity regulation.The DC Circuit denied the petition for review. The court held that PEER’s arguments concerning the EPA’s erroneous understanding of the ILO encyclopedia analysis and its allegedly improper protection of the commercial use of lime-treated sludge are untimely; the court wrote that, therefore it lacks jurisdiction to consider them. Moreover, the court said it was required to apply a highly deferential standard of review with respect to PEER’s remaining claims and found no basis to disturb the agency’s decisions. View "Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility v. EPA" on Justia Law

the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission granted Algonquin a certificate of public convenience and necessity that allowed it and the owner of the neighboring Maritimes & Northeast pipeline to undertake a series of upgrades. Those upgrades are known collectively as the Atlantic Bridge Project (“Project”). As part of the Project, Algonquin planned to build a new compressor station in Weymouth, Massachusetts. The compressor station would pressurize gas traveling north towards Maine. The Town of Weymouth, as well as several residents and environmental groups, petitioned this court to overturn the Commission’s certification decision for the Project. This court found no relevant error in the Commission’s decision and denied the petition. The entities sought review of two orders that followed the Commission’s issuance of the certificate of public convenience and necessity.   The DC Circuit dismissed the petitions. The court explained that to construe the Commission’s denial of rehearing as a reviewable new “order,” that would not change anything. That is because the statute strictly requires that every single “order” we review be accompanied by an “application to the Commission for rehearing.” The court further wrote that the denial of rehearing is not a reviewable order, so the Fore River Residents may not obtain judicial review under 15 U.S.C. Section 717r(b). And even if it were a reviewable order, their petition would be jurisdictionally deficient because they failed to request rehearing of it. View "Fore River Residents Against the Compressor Station v. FERC" on Justia Law

Under the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act, review of orders issued by the Environmental Protection Agency after a “public hearing” lies exclusively in the courts of appeals. 7 U.S.C. Section 136n(b). For orders issued without a public hearing, review lies in the district courts. Petitioners in this case challenged EPA orders regulating the use of a pesticide named dicamba.   The DC Circuit dismissed the petition for lack of jurisdiction. The court explained that the 2020 Registrations unconditionally approve the dicamba products, whereas the previous orders had granted conditional registrations. And EPA needed to make additional findings to issue an unconditional registration, including that use of the products would “not generally cause unreasonable adverse effects on the environment.” For those reasons, the 2020 and 2022 Registrations, unlike the actions in Costle and National Family Farm Coalition, did not follow a “public hearing” within the meaning of 7 U.S.C. Section 136n(b). View "American Soybean Association v. Michael Regan" on Justia Law

The federal government funds certain expenses incurred by presidential candidates at specific times during their primary campaigns. Jill Stein, who ran for President in 2016, contends that a temporal limit on this funding unconstitutionally discriminates against minor-party candidates. Stein also contests an administrative ruling that she forfeited the right to document certain costs of winding down her campaign, which could have offset a repayment obligation that she owed the government.   The DC Circuit denied her petition. The court explained that FEC regulations required her to reassert the issue in her written submission for administrative review. Further, Stein argued that the Commission should be estopped from claiming forfeiture because its audit report stated that the winding down costs “estimated” for the period between September 2018 and July 2019 “will be compared to actual winding down costs and will be adjusted accordingly.” The court wrote that it does not read this statement to relieve Stein of her duty to address winding down costs in her request for administrative review, which was filed near the end of that period. The court explained that it recognizes that Stein could not predict the exact amount of future winding down costs. But she could have done much more to alert the FEC that she expected those costs to exceed the estimates in the audit report—and to do so by a substantial amount. View "Jill Stein v. FEC" on Justia Law

Appellant and her d her family sued Sudan, seeking compensation for a terrorist attack on their family. The question on appeal is whether we have jurisdiction. Under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act, a state sponsor of terrorism may be sued for personal injury arising from acts of terrorism. But in 2020, Congress enacted the Sudan Claims Resolution Act, which stripped the federal courts of jurisdiction to hear most terrorism-related claims against Sudan. Appellants argued that the Act’s jurisdiction-stripping provision is unconstitutional and therefore, that their claims against Sudan may be heard in federal court. The district court dismissed for lack of jurisdiction.   The DC Circuit affirmed. The court explained that the Supreme Court has long held that citizens have a constitutional right to access the courts. The court wrote that Appellants challenged Congress’ restoration of Sudan’s sovereign immunity, but these claims simply do not implicate the right to access the courts. Moreover, Appellants’ claims are in tension with the government’s power to establish inferior courts and espouse the claims of its citizens. However, the court modified the district court’s judgment to be a dismissal without prejudice. View "Chava Mark v. Republic of the Sudan" on Justia Law