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

In 2017, MSHA promulgated a safety standard that requires mine operators to examine all areas before miners begin work and to record all conditions that may adversely affect safety or health discovered during the examination. In 2018, MSHA amended the requirements, allowing examinations to occur before or as miners begin work and allowing mine operators to exclude from their records adverse conditions that are promptly corrected. At issue was whether MSHA explained adequately how the amendments to the 2017 Standard comply with the no-less-protection standard.The DC Circuit held that MSHA failed to offer a reasoned explanation as to why the examination and recordkeeping requirements of the 2018 Amendment satisfied the no-less-protection standard. Therefore, the 2018 Amendment was ultra vires and uneforceable. The court vacated the 2018 Amendment and ordered the 2017 Standard reinstated. View "United Steel v. MSHA" on Justia Law

The Medicare statute precludes judicial review of estimates used to make certain payments to hospitals for treating low-income patients. At issue was whether this preclusion provision barred challenges to the methodology used to make the estimates.The DC Circuit held that it could not review the Secretary's method of estimation without also reviewing the estimate. Therefore, the two were inextricably intertwined and 42 U.S.C. 1395ww(r)(3)(A) precludes review of both. The court held that Florida Health Sciences Center, Inc. v. Secretary of HHS, 830 F.3d 515 (D.C. Cir. 2016), -- not ParkView Medical Associates v. Shalala, 158 F.3d 146 (D.C. Cir. 1998) -- was controlling in this case. In Florida Health, the court held that section 1395ww(r)(3) barred review because the plaintiff was simply trying to undo the Secretary's estimate of the hospital's uncompensated care by recasting its challenge to the Secretary's choice of data as an attack on the general rules leading to her estimate. Here, DCH was simply trying to undo the Secretary's estimate of its uncompensated care by recasting its challenge to that estimate as an attack on the underlying methodology. View "DCH Regional Medical Center v. Azar" on Justia Law

Petitioners sought review of FERC's decision authorizing the construction and operation of a new natural gas compression facility in Davidson County. The DC Circuit denied the petition and held that FERC did not violate the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) by failing to adequately assess alternatives to the proposed action. In this case, the environmental assessment reflected that the Commission considered twelve alternatives and evaluated each with respect to eighteen different environmental factors.Despite the court's misgivings regarding the Commission's decidedly less-than-dogged efforts to obtain the information it says it would need to determine that downstream greenhouse gas emissions qualify as a reasonably foreseeable indirect effect of the project, the court held that petitioners failed to raise this record-development issue in the proceedings before the Commission. Accordingly, the court lacked jurisdiction to decide whether the Commission acted arbitrarily or capriciously and violated NEPA by failing to further develop the record in this case. View "Birckhead v. FERC" on Justia Law

Sierra Club challenged the EPA's adoption of a final rule modifying its regulations for air monitoring networks. The DC Circuit held that Sierra Club was barred from seeking review of the claimed legal requirement that monitoring plans be assessed under the same procedures as state implemented plans (SIPS) because the new rule and EPA's preamble did no more than echo a prior EPA regulation; Sierra Club lacked standing to attack the sampling frequency changes; and Sierra Club failed to make a showing that the asserted non-response on quality assurance issues manifested any failure to consider factors relevant to the changes. Accordingly, the court dismissed Sierra Club's first two claims and denied the third. View "Sierra Club v. EPA" on Justia Law

After the press reported that White House personnel were communicating over messaging apps that, unlike standard text messaging platforms that preserve conversations, automatically delete messages once read, CREW sought a writ of mandamus prohibiting the use of such apps and requiring the White House to issue guidelines to ensure compliance with the Presidential Records Act (PRA). As press attention to the messaging practice spread and before this lawsuit commenced, White House Counsel circulated an internal memo describing the staff's PRA obligations (the February 2017 Memo).The DC Circuit affirmed the district court's denial of the writ and held that CREW failed to establish a clear and indisputable right to relief. The court held that, by issuing the February 2017 Memo, the White House has instructed its staff to comply with the PRA, and it has done so by prohibiting the use of message-deleting apps and restricting electronic communications to official email accounts that automatically preserve records. Furthermore, under the law of this circuit, the court would have no jurisdiction to order the correction of any defects in the White House's day-to-day compliance with the Memo's records-preservation policy. View "Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington v. Trump" on Justia Law

Coal miners filed suit alleging that mine operators interfered with their rights under Section 103(g) of the Federal Mine Safety and Health Amendments Act of 1977 to raise anonymous complaints with the MSHA regarding health and safety issues. The Commission imposed various remedies, including a $20,000 penalty per violation and an order requiring Robert Murray, the President and CEO of Murray Energy, to personally hold a meeting at each mine and read a statement regarding the violations.The DC Circuit denied a petition for review and declined to decide whether the Commission applied the correct test of interference under Section 105(c)(1) because petitioners failed to raise and preserve the issue during the administrative proceedings before the ALJ and the Commission. The court also found that, even under the legal standard that petitioners would have the court adopt, substantial evidence in the record clearly supports the Commission's finding that petitioners interfered with miners' Section 103(g) rights. Furthermore, the court found no merit in petitioners' challenge to the assessment of monetary penalties. Finally, the court held that petitioners failed to properly raise and preserve, and thus forfeited, their claims challenging the order requiring Murray to read a statement. View "Marshall County Coal Co. v. Federal Mine Safety and Health Review Commission" on Justia Law

The State of Missouri filed suit alleging that the Bureau of Reclamation violated the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) by failing to consider adequately how diverting billions of gallons of Missouri River water pursuant to the Northwest Area Water Supply Project will affect downstream States. The DC Circuit affirmed the district court's dismissal of the complaint and held that, under Massachusetts v. Mellon, 262 U.S. 447, 485–86 (1923), a state does not have standing as parens patriae to bring an action against the federal government. In this case, Missouri lacked Article III standing because it forfeited its direct injury theory of standing, and the Mellon bar has no exception that allows lawsuits against Reclamation to proceed. View "Government of the Province of Manitoba v. Bernhardt" on Justia Law

CREW seeks to compel the DOJ's Office of Legal Counsel to make available all of its formal written opinions, as well as indices of those opinions, under the so-called "reading-room" provision of the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). The DC Circuit affirmed the district court's dismissal of CREW's complaint for failure to state a claim in light of the court's decision in Electronic Frontier Foundation v. United States Department of Justice (EFF), 739 F.3d 1 (D.C. Cir. 2014). In this case, there was no dispute that the formal written opinions the OLC has declined to publish were "withheld" "agency records." The court held that CREW has not plausibly alleged that the OLC's formal written notices have all been adopted by the agencies to which they were addressed, subjecting the opinions to disclosure under FOIA's reading room provision as the"working law" of those agencies. View "Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington v. DOJ" on Justia Law

Petitioners challenged the EPA's 2017 rule establishing a process for updating the inventory of chemicals manufactured or processed in the United States under the Toxic Substances Control Act, alleging that the rule unlawfully shields information from public disclosure. The DC Circuit affirmed the petition for review in part and held that petitioner correctly determined that the EPA's elimination of questions pertaining to reverse engineering was arbitrary and capricious. Accordingly, the court ordered a limited remand, without vacatur, for the EPA to address its arbitrary elimination of substantiation questions regarding reverse engineering. The court otherwise denied the petition. View "Environmental Defense Fund v. EPA" on Justia Law

The DC Circuit denied the States' petition for review of the EPA's decision to refuse to expand the Northeast Ozone Transport Region to include the upwind States of Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, North Carolina, Ohio, Tennessee, West Virginia, and the remaining portions of Virginia.The court held that EPA's denial of the States' petition complied with the Clean Air Act and was a reasonable exercise of the agency's discretion. The court held that many of the States' arguments against EPA's denial derive from a fundamental misunderstanding of the scope of EPA's discretion; even if the States were correct that EPA's other Clean Air Act tools will not on their own completely solve the interstate ozone transport problem, this would not make enlargement of the transport region mandatory; EPA adequately explained the facts and policy concerns it relied on, recounted its historical use of the good-neighbor provision and the ongoing downward trend in ozone pollution, and therefore had a sufficient basis in the record for predicting that improvement would continue under the current regulatory scheme; and, with respect to the Northeast Region, EPA did not find equity irrelevant, as the States contend, but rather determined that any equitable concerns could not alone dictate the disposition of the petition. View "State of New York v. EPA" on Justia Law