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

BGE petitioned for review of FERC's orders arising out of its efforts to apply its "matching" principles to divergences between the timing of deductions for tax purposes and timing for purposes of allocating costs to ratepayers. BGE filed a new rate proposal seeking a net recovery of $38 million and FERC denied BGE's request. FERC concluded that BGE had breached the requirements of Order No. 144 by failing to file for recovery in its "next rate case," which, according to FERC, was BGE's 2005 rate filing. BGE countered that FERC's application of Order No. 144 was arbitrary and capricious under the Administrative Procedure Act.The DC Circuit denied the petition for review, holding that FERC's orders were not arbitrary and capricious. The court held that FERC reasonably interpreted its regulations and the settlement agreement to mean that BGE simply failed to comply with 18 C.F.R. 35.24 by its next rate case, as required by Order No. 144. The court rejected BGE's argument that, notwithstanding the requirements of Order No. 144, FERC has been more permissive with four "similarly situated" utilities and fails to explain its disparate treatment of BGE's filing. Therefore, FERC's rejection of BGE's tariff filing is a reasonable and reasonably explained application of Order No. 144. View "Baltimore Gas and Electric Co. v. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission" on Justia Law

The DC Circuit denied Union Pacific's petition for review of the Administration's regulation governing disclosures made by railroads that are transporting hazardous materials. Union Pacific alleged that the regulation was insufficiently protecting the railroad's data and thus failed to meet the requirement in section 7302 of the Fixing America's Surface Transportation Act (FAST) to establish security and confidentiality protections to prevent access to the information by unauthorized parties.The court held that FAST 7302 is neither dependent on a misreading of the statute nor arbitrary and capricious. In this case, the agency developed a mechanism to prevent inadvertent disclosure. Furthermore, Union Pacific failed to provide evidence to controvert the agency's express finding that this rule will satisfy security and confidentiality concerns as mandated by the statute. View "Union Pacific Railroad Co. v. Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration" on Justia Law

Petitioner, a Guantanamo detainee, sought a writ of mandamus asking the court to prevent the government from proceeding with destruction of a particular detention center ("Site A"). The DC Circuit denied relief, finding that the government has produced digital and photographic representations of Site A and that petitioner cannot show, as he must, that it is clear and indisputable that those representations are so insufficient as to warrant the extraordinary remedy of mandamus. After reviewing the classified record, the court held that the government took steps fully consistent with the district court's order. View "In re: Ammar Al-Baluchi" on Justia Law

The DC Circuit affirmed the dismissal of the petition for review challenging the Commission's order approving the continued use of admittedly outdated accounting rules for an ever-dwindling number of telephone companies whose pricing is governed by those rules.The court held that the individual petitioners lacked Article III standing to challenge the Commission's orders, because they have presented no evidence that the continuing application of the frozen rules has harmed them or is likely to harm them. In this case, the individuals do not purchase telephone service from a provider whose rates are directly affected by the rules and thus they have not shown how the rules distort the market to their disadvantage or otherwise harm them indirectly. View "Irregulators v. FCC" on Justia Law

The DC Circuit affirmed the Commission's dismissal of three administrative complaints alleging violations of the Federal Election Campaign Act's disclosure requirements. After determining that plaintiffs had Article III standing, the court held that the Commission provided a reasonable basis for the dismissals. In this case, the Commission (through the statement of the controlling commissioners) provided a sufficiently reasonable basis for its decision not to investigate plaintiffs' straw donor allegations. Furthermore, the Commission provided a reasonable basis for its decision not to investigate plaintiffs' political committee allegations. View "Campaign Legal Center v. Federal Election Commission" on Justia Law

The DC Circuit affirmed the district court's grant of summary judgment in favor of Eagle, in an action brought by Eagle, alleging that the Orphan Drug Act's (ODA), 21 U.S.C. 360aa–360ee, plain language required the FDA to automatically grant Eagle marketing exclusivity upon designating its drug as an orphan drug and approving it for marketing. The court held that the district court correctly determined at Chevron step one that the FDA's post-approval clinical superiority requirement was forbidden and that Eagle was automatically entitled to a seven-year period of exclusive approval when it approved Bendeka for marketing. View "Eagle Pharmaceuticals, Inc. v. Azar" on Justia Law

In these consolidated actions, petitioners challenged the EPA's 2014 final rule, which exempted coal- and oil-burning power plant utility boilers' startup periods from numerical limits on hazardous air pollutants. EPA instead imposed qualitative "work practice" standards during these periods.The DC Circuit held that EPA erred in denying the petition for reconsideration and granted the petition in No. 16-1349 because it was impracticable for petitioners to raise their two objections during the notice-and-comment period and the objections were of central relevance to the final rule. Consequently, the court did not reach the merits of the arguments in No. 15-1015. View "Chesapeake Climate Action Network v. EPA" on Justia Law

The Committee seeks to obtain the redacted grand jury materials referenced in the Special Counsel's Report in connection with its impeachment investigation of President Trump. The Committee requested three categories of grand jury materials: (1) all portions of the Mueller Report that were redacted pursuant to Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 6(e); (2) any portions of grand jury transcripts or exhibits referenced in those redactions; and (3) any underlying grand jury testimony and exhibits that relate directly to certain individuals and events described in the Mueller Report. The district court authorized disclosure of the first two categories of requested information and stated that the Committee could file additional requests articulating its particularized need for the third category of information.The DC Circuit affirmed the district court's decision authorizing disclosure of the grand jury materials under the "judicial proceeding" exception in Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 6(e)(3)(E)(i). The court held that a Senate impeachment trial qualifies as a "judicial proceeding" under the rule. The court also held that the Committee has established a "particularized need" for the grand jury materials. The court wrote that Counsel Mueller prepared his Report with the expectation that Congress would review it; the district court released only those materials that the Special Counsel found sufficiently relevant to discuss or cite in his Report; the Department has already released information in the Report that was redacted to avoid harm to peripheral third parties and to ongoing investigations, thereby reducing the need for continued secrecy; and the Committee's particularized need for the grand jury materials remains unchanged. In this case, the Committee has repeatedly stated that if the grand jury materials reveal new evidence of impeachable offenses, the Committee may recommend new articles of impeachment. View "Committee on the Judiciary v. United States Department of Justice" on Justia Law

Plaintiff filed suit under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) seeking to compel the release of records related to an incident in which plaintiff was stabbed from behind with a screwdriver in prison.The DC Circuit affirmed the district court's grant of summary judgment insofar as it pertains to the Bureau's response to plaintiff's request for records related to the screwdriver. In this case, nothing in the record refutes the Bureau's repeated assertions that it knows nothing about the screwdriver and has no records responsive to plaintiff's demands. The court vacated and remanded the judgment to the district court in regard to the Bureau's withholding of surveillance footage under Exemptions (b)(7)(C) and (b)(7)(E), holding that the agency's declaration was too unspecific on its own to establish that withholding the footage was justified. View "Evans v. Bureau of Prisons" on Justia Law

The DC Circuit dismissed the State's petition challenging the FAA's amended flight paths to Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport as untimely. Although the State acknowledged that its petition was filed well after the statutory sixty-day review window, it claimed reasonable grounds for the delay.The court held, however, that the State's delay was extreme and it lacked reasonable grounds for missing the statutory deadline. The court explained that the key distinction between this case and City of Phoenix v. Huerta, 869 F.3d 963 (D.C. Cir. 2017), is the FAA's near constant engagement with petitioner City of Phoenix throughout the period between the new flight paths' implementation and the City's late petition. In this case, throughout the more than two and one-half years during which the State delayed filing its petitioner, its communications with the FAA were almost entirely self-initiated, sporadic and primarily through the Working Group. The court also denied the State's motion to amend as moot. View "Maryland v. Federal Aviation Administration" on Justia Law