Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-caDC-97-01680/USCOURTS-caDC-97-01680-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Federal Highway Administration
Respondent
Truckers United for Safety
Petitioner
United States of America
Respondent

Document Text:

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United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

Argued September 3, 1998 Decided February 12, 1999

No. 97-1668

American Trucking Associations, Inc., et al.,

Petitioners

v.

United States Department of Transportation,

Federal Highway Administration, and

United States of America,

Respondents

Petroleum Marketers Association of America,

Intervenor

Consolidated with

No. 97-1680

On Petitions for Review of an Order of the

United States Department of Transportation

Erika Z. Jones argued the cause for petitioners American

Trucking Associations, et al. With her on the briefs were

Daniel R. Barney, Lynda S. Mounts and Harold S. Reeves.

Anthony J. McMahon argued the cause and filed the briefs

for petitioner Truckers United for Safety. Mary Beth L.

Jackson entered an appearance.

Edward R. Cohen, Attorney, U.S. Department of Justice,

argued the cause for respondents. With him on the brief

were Frank W. Hunger, Assistant Attorney General, and

Robert S. Greenspan, Attorney. E. Roy Hawkens, Attorney,

entered an appearance.

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Robert S. Bassman and Alphonse M. Alfano were on the

brief for intervenor Petroleum Marketers Association of

America.

Before: Wald, Williams and Tatel, Circuit Judges.

Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge Williams.

Williams, Circuit Judge: The petitioners in this case, the

American Trucking Associations ("ATA") and Truckers United for Safety ("TUFS"), challenge a rule promulgated by the

Federal Highway Administration ("FHWA") amending the

regulations governing the assignment of safety fitness ratings

to motor carriers. The ATA claims that the amended regulations are contrary to law, are arbitrary and capricious, and

were adopted without adequate consideration of comments.

TUFS claims that the rule is invalid because it fails to

discharge all the duties assigned the agency by the governing

statute. Intervenor Petroleum Marketers Association of

America raises still further complaints. We reject all these

challenges. In addition, TUFS petitions us to vacate all

existing safety fitness ratings. We find that TUFS lacks

standing to pursue this claim. We thus deny the petitions on

all counts.

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I. Background

The Motor Carrier Safety Act of 1984, as amended,

instructs the Secretary of Transportation to prescribe regulations establishing a procedure for determining the safety

fitness of owners and operators of commercial motor vehicles.

See 49 U.S.C. s 31144(a)(1). The Secretary has delegated

responsibility under this provision to the FHWA, which exercised it in 1988 by adopting Safety Fitness Procedures. See

53 Fed. Reg. 50,961 (1988).

In MST Express v. Department of Transportation, 108

F.3d 401 (D.C. Cir. 1997), we held that the FHWA's 1988

action had failed to meet the statute's requirement of establishing its safety fitness rating methodology by regulation.

Too much of its methodology was stated in its Safety Fitness

Rating Methodology ("SFRM"), which was merely part of its

Motor Carrier Training Manual and had not been adopted by

notice-and-comment rulemaking. Id. at 406. The FHWA

responded by issuing the rule challenged in this case, incorporating a nearly identical SFRM as an appendix to the Safety

Fitness Procedures. 62 Fed. Reg. 28,826, 28,826 (1997). The

alleged inadequacy of the SFRM is the gravamen of most of

the petitioners' challenges.

The SFRM states a procedure for assigning a motor carrier a safety rating of "satisfactory," "conditional," or "unsatisfactory." The rating depends on the carrier's ratings in six

specific "factors."

Five of these factor ratings are based on compliance with

safety regulations in various areas--"general," "driver," "operational," "vehicle," and "hazardous materials." 49 CFR

App. B, 62 Fed. Reg. 60,035, 60,045 (1997). The ratings for

four of these--all but the vehicle factor--are determined by a

"compliance review" of the carrier's documents by FHWA

inspectors. Id. at 60,044-45. The rating for the vehicle factor

is based at least in part on document review, and can also be

affected by the results of roadside inspections. Id. at 60,044.

The rating for the sixth factor, accidents, is determined by

the carrier's accident rate. Id. Each factor is rated on the

same scale as the overall rating (satisfactory, conditional, or

unsatisfactory), and the six individual factor ratings are combined into an overall safety rating according to the following

table:

MOTOR CARRIER SAFETY RATING TABLE

______________________________________________________________________________

Factor ratings Overall safety

rating

________________________________________________

Unsatisfactory Conditional

______________________________________________________________________________

0 2 or less Satisfactory

0 more than 2 Conditional

1 2 or less Conditional

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1 more than 2 Unsatisfactory

2 or more0 or moreUnsatisfactory

______________________________________________________________________________

49 CFR 385 App. B.

We describe specific aspects of the SFRM in more detail in

the discussion of each challenge.

II. ATA's Claims

A.Consistency with Statute

The ATA's first claim is that the rule fails to comply with

the statute, principally for want of what ATA regards as

statutorily mandated specificity. When the present rule was

issued, and when this action was brought, the relevant statutory provision was contained in 49 U.S.C. s 31144(a)(1), which

instructed the Secretary to "prescribe regulations establishing a procedure to decide on the safety fitness" of carriers,

including a "means of deciding whether [carriers] meet the

safety fitness requirements under clause (A)," which in turn

called for "specific initial and continuing" safety requirements. Id. Although none of the parties mentioned it in

briefing or oral argument, 49 U.S.C. s 31144 was amended by

the Transportation Equity Act for the 21st Century ("1998

Act"), s 4009(a), Pub. L. No. 105-178, 112 Stat. 107, 405-07.

The requirement at stake here is reformulated as s 31144(b)

and now demands that the Secretary "maintain by regulation

a procedure for determining the safety fitness" of carriers,

which must include "specific initial and continuing" safety

fitness requirements and a "methodology the Secretary will

use to determine" whether carriers are fit. Id. As we

develop below, the change has no effect on the outcome.

In its specificity claim, ATA points out that the SFRM

decrees neither how many documents a Safety Investigator is

to examine nor how the investigator is to select the documents he or she does review. ATA reads MST Express as

saying that the statute requires that all procedures used in

assessing safety fitness be "completely contained" in the

regulations, so as to enable carriers to "predict," "ascertain in

advance," or "determine from looking at the current regulations," the safety ratings they will receive if inspected.

Whether the FHWA's regulations satisfy the statutory

directive is a question of statutory interpretation, one the

FHWA has answered by adopting the regulations in question.

Under the familiar test of Chevron U.S.A. Inc. v. NRDC, 467

U.S. 837 (1984), assuming Congress has not "directly spoken

to the precise question at issue," id. at 842-43, we defer to the

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struction of the statute," id. at 843. The Chevron test applies

to issues of how specifically an agency must frame its regulations. New Mexico v. EPA, 114 F.3d 290, 293 (D.C. Cir.

1997).

Here neither the 1984 Act's term, "means of deciding," nor

that of the 1998 Act, "methodology," could possibly be said to

speak directly to the necessary degree of specificity (at least

in any sense adequate to condemn the present regulations).

Nor does the statutory mandate that requirements be "specific" illuminate the degree of specificity required. Thus, we

turn to the question of whether it is reasonable to call the

procedures a "means of deciding" whether carriers meet

"specific" safety fitness requirements (1984 Act) or a "methodology for determining the safety fitness" of carriers (1998

Act), again with reference to "specific" requirements. In a

series of cases we have explicitly accorded agencies very

broad deference in selecting the level of generality at which

they will articulate rules. See New Mexico v. EPA, 114 F.3d

at 294; Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority Professional Fire Fighters Ass'n v. United States, 959 F.2d 297, 300

(D.C. Cir. 1992); NRDC v. EPA, 907 F.2d 1146, 1165 n.16

(D.C. Cir. 1990).

In fact the SFRM is highly specific, as we noted in MST

Express. There, contrasting it with the far more limited

treatment of the method for assigning ratings in the Safety

Fitness Procedures, we said that the SFRM "provides

FHWA inspectors with detailed guidelines for deriving a

motor carrier's safety rating." 108 F.3d at 403. It enumerates the specific safety regulations that are considered in a

compliance review, divides them into "acute" and "critical"

categories,1 notifies the carrier of the types of records that

are reviewed for compliance, and explains exactly how detected violations of acute and critical regulations are combined

into an overall safety rating.

Yet ATA is certainly correct in claiming that the SFRM

fails to specify how many documents are examined for compliance or how the documents that are reviewed are selected.

But that gap hardly compels a finding that it fails to meet the

specificity requirement of the statute as construed in MST

Express. Indeed, that case implied that the SFRM did

satisfy the statutory mandate, observing that "it is not apparent from the regulations--as opposed to the SFRM--under

what circumstances a carrier should expect to receive a

conditional or an unsatisfactory rating." 108 F.3d at 406. At

the time of this accolade the SFRM did not contain the

prescription of sampling procedures that ATA now claims is

indispensable. In fact, the SFRM's specificity has not in any

way been degraded since MST Express.

__________

1 We discuss the grouping of the safety regulations into "acute"

and "critical" categories in more detail at II.B., infra. The calculation of safety ratings for individual factor areas is covered at II.C.,

infra.

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The ATA cites MST Express's statement that "[a] motor

carrier or operator looking at the current regulations cannot

determine ... what safety fitness rating it will receive." Id.

But the regulations condemned in MST Express gave no

guidance at all as to when inspectors would give a poor safety

rating, providing only that a satisfactory rating would be

awarded if a carrier had "adequate" safety management

controls. Id. at 403. "Adequate" was defined in turn as

"appropriate for the size and type of operation of the particular motor carrier." Id. Thus the case can hardly be read to

support the ATA's theory that it required specificity to the

point of laying out a totally deterministic process. A better

reading is that it merely reflects a rule, suggested in New

Mexico v. EPA, that when a regulation intended to apply a

standard "contribute[s] no extra specificity or clarity" to the

standard it implements, the agency has failed "[to do] the

intended job." 114 F.3d at 293.

As a practical matter, ATA points to no way in which the

overall purpose of the Act--promoting motor carrier safety,

subject of course to protecting carriers' rights--calls for a

promulgation of every detail of the sampling process by

regulation. It is easy to imagine an affirmative reason for

the agency's decision not to subject the sampling procedure to

notice and comment rulemaking--the desire to be able to

vary these technical elements of the process without excessive

delay as experience accrues.

Although the FHWA did not defend the decision not to

incorporate sampling procedures into the regulations on those

grounds in the rulemaking proceedings, neither the ATA nor

TUFS argued that it must place the sampling procedures

there. The ATA did "urge FHWA to include random record

sampling as a component of the final rule establishing a new

safety rating methodology." But ATA was arguing that

FHWA should use random sampling instead of the "focused

sampling" technique the agency ultimately adopted, not that

the statute required the selected technique to be described in

a regulation rather than in the Field Operations Training

Manual, where it in fact appeared. Since the petitioners did

not say why the agency was required to put its sampling

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method into the regulation, we cannot fault the agency for

failing to explain its decision. "[A] zero argument deserves a

zero response." ParkView Medical Assocs. v. Shalala, 158

F.3d 146, 149 (D.C. Cir. 1998).

In New Mexico v. EPA, in rejecting a demand for greater

detail, we said that "[e]verything else being equal, the better

a petitioner can demonstrate the feasibility of greater specificity the more convincing its attack on agency vagueness,"

and that "where the agency itself has adopted highly specific

internal guidelines governing the same subject, it cannot very

plausibly deny feasibility." 114 F.3d at 294 (emphasis omitted). There we cited MST Express, where, of course, the

detail in the SFRM showed that the agency could handily

achieve far greater specificity than the Safety Fitness Procedures contained. Here, as the FHWA's manual does contain

procedures almost as detailed as those the ATA would require, see Federal Highway Administration, Field Operations

Training Manual, ch. 3 (1997), naturally the FHWA's exclusion of the sampling procedures from the notice-and-comment

regulations cannot be grounded in infeasibility. But it need

not be. The agency's broad discretion and the reasonableness of its choice are enough.

B.Failure to Require a Statistically Significant Sample

The ATA's second claim is that the FHWA arbitrarily

failed to require random selection of a statistically significant

sample of records for review. Instead, the FHWA chose to

use a "focused sampling" technique, set forth in its publicly

available Field Operations Training Manual. The Manual

instructs investigators to "[i]dentify and list drivers and vehicles that have been involved in accidents and drivers and

vehicles found in violation during roadside inspections. These

drivers and vehicles will be used to focus the review...."

Federal Highway Administration, Field Operations Training

Manual, ch. 3, at 4. Investigators are also to focus on

drivers cited for hours-of-service violations when determining

the level of compliance with those regulations. Id. at 10. It

is undisputed that the records and vehicles examined first

under the agency's "focused sampling" procedure are more

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suspect--that is, more likely to exhibit violations than randomly selected records and vehicles. It follows that the

agency will find a higher violation rate using focused sampling than it would if it used the random method petitioners

favor.

According to the ATA, compliance reviews under the rule

do not produce a "representative picture of a carrier's safety

fitness." Because random sampling is not required, the ATA

argues, a "skewed sample" may produce a "skewed understanding of a carrier's safety management controls." In the

ATA view the FHWA therefore fails to achieve its avowed

purpose, the creation of "a reasonable approach for assigning

a safety rating which best describes the current safety fitness

posture of a motor carrier as required by the safety fitness

regulations." 62 Fed. Reg. 60,035, 60,045 (1997).

ATA appears to assume that any rational system must

estimate the proportion of violations to be found in the total

population of a carrier's documents. We agree, of course,

that if everything else were equal, information about this

proportion would be useful. But other measures are also

useful, and the agency may--if it has some reason--rationally

prefer them.

The data yielded by the FHWA method have value, certainly for ranking carriers. It is true that a 15% violation rate in

a sample composed partly or wholly of suspect documents

does not support the inference that the violation rate for the

entire document population is 15%. But the fact that the

suspect-document population rate is not equal to the overall

violation rate and does not mean the two rates are not

correlated. GDP and personal consumption are correlated,

though hardly equal. It seems reasonable to believe that

carriers with higher observed violation rates under FHWA's

system--drawing a sample of suspect documents first, with

(for many factors) minimum sample numbers based on size of

carrier--will generally have higher overall violation rates.

It is true that some carriers will have a higher proportion

of suspect documents than others. But this does not destroy

the value of FHWA's method. Consider two carriers of equal

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size, X and Y, where the sample from X has the higher

observed violation rate. It is reasonable to infer that X's

overall violation rate is higher regardless of which carrier has

more suspect documents. To illustrate, we present two limiting cases: In Case 1, X has so many suspect documents that

the X sample is entirely made up such records, while Y has

no suspect documents. In this case, the carrier with more

suspect documents (i.e., more roadside violations, accidents,

etc.) unsurprisingly has a higher violation rate. In Case 2 we

assume the reverse--that X's sampled documents are all nonsuspect and Y's are all suspect. X's non-suspect documents

show a higher violation rate than Y's suspect documents.

The result is a little surprising, but all it means is that is that

in this particular instance "suspectness" turned out not to

have been a good proxy for violation rate for those two

carriers. The inference that X was the worse violator is not

impaired.

Part of ATA's problem arises from a misreading of the

rules. The SFRM says that "[w]hen a number of documents

are reviewed, the number of violations required to meet a

pattern must be equal to 10 percent of those examined." 62

Fed. Reg. 60,035, 60,044 (1997). ATA acts as if this meant

that an overall 10 percent rate of noncompliance with a

critical regulation is satisfactory. If that were true, it would

follow that only a sampling procedure aimed at estimating the

total rate of noncompliance would be rational. But the total

rate is not the standard. Rather than setting the acceptable

noncompliance rate at 10 percent of what all documents would

show, the SFRM sets it at 10 percent among examined

documents.

As we said, the agency must of course have some reason

for preferring focused over random sampling. It did. In the

statement accompanying promulgation of the final rule, the

FHWA defended its decision on the grounds that "it is in the

best interest of public safety to continue to focus its limited

resources on drivers and vehicles most likely to be in violation

of the regulations." 62 Fed. Reg. 60,035, 60,039 (1997).

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To understand the FHWA's rationale, it is helpful to understand the distinction that the agency draws between "acute"

and "critical" regulatory violations, a distinction unchallenged

here. The FHWA defines acute regulations as those with

respect to which "noncompliance is so severe as to require

immediate corrective actions by a motor carrier regardless of

the overall safety posture of the motor carrier." 49 CFR 385

App. B, II(b), 62 Fed. Reg. at 60,044. An example is 49 CFR

s 382.201, which (motorists may be cheered to read) prohibits

knowing use of a driver with a blood alcohol concentration of

0.04% or greater. 49 CFR 385 App. B, VII, 62 Fed. Reg. at

60,045. Each instance of an acute violation affects the relevant factor rating. 49 CFR 385 App. B, II(g), 62 Fed. Reg. at

60,044. Critical regulations are defined as those with respect

to which "noncompliance relates to management and/or operational controls. These are indicative of breakdowns in a

carrier's management controls." 49 CFR 385 App. B, II, 62

Fed. Reg. at 60,044. An example is 49 CFR s 391.45(b),

which prohibits carriers from using a driver who has not been

medically examined and certified during the past 24 months.

49 CFR 385 App. B, VII, 62 Fed. Reg. at 60,046. Violations

of critical regulations do not affect the safety rating in the

relevant factor unless a "pattern of noncompliance" is observed. There is no "pattern of noncompliance" unless 10%

of reviewed documents, and at least two documents, show

violations. 49 CFR 385 App. B., II(g), 62 Fed. Reg. at 60,044

(1997). For acute violations the reasonableness of choosing

focused over random sampling is clear. Even a single acute

violation is serious enough to require "immediate corrective

actions" and to affect the carrier's safety rating for the

relevant factor.2 Thus it is eminently reasonable for the

FHWA to adopt a method designed to miss as few such

violations as possible. Examining the documents and vehicles

most likely to exhibit violations does so.

The FHWA's rationale is less obvious for critical violations,

because the agency has decided that a violation rate below

__________

2 The procedure for calculating the safety ratings in each factor

area is described in II.C., infra.

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10% will not affect the safety rating. Why not require

random sampling but impose a lower tolerance threshold?

The agency's answer is that by using a technique likely to

detect as many violations as possible, it can most effectively

discover areas requiring carriers' attention so that carriers

can improve compliance and thus, presumably, safety. Random sampling is less effective in accomplishing this goal.

Although this reasoning does not emerge with limpid clarity

from the relevant pages of the Federal Register, the agency's

concern with husbanding resources for maximum safety effect

and fostering full compliance is evident. See 62 Fed. Reg. at

60,039. The ATA says that trying to locate problems is

justifiable only for enforcement activities, not for assigning

safety ratings. But even in choosing among safety rating

methods it makes sense for the agency to look to the overall

goal of the statute, namely safety.

ATA can make no claim that the agency's methodology

makes the resulting ratings unsuitable for their ultimate use.

They are made "available to other federal agencies and to the

public," MST Express, 108 F.3d at 403, and, as we have said,

there is no showing that the system produces skewed rankings. The direct legal effects have been limited. In the past,

the only apparent legal consequence has been that the recipient of an "unsatisfactory" rating has been prohibited from

"operating a commercial motor vehicle to transport ... [h]azardous materials ... or [m]ore than 15 passengers." 49 CFR

s 385.13(a). The 1998 Act expands the effect, prohibiting any

unfit owner or operator from operating motor vehicles in

interstate commerce starting 60 days after the determination.

See Pub. L. No. 105-478, s 4009(a), 112 Stat. 107, 405-06

(1998) (to be codified at 49 U.S.C. s 31144(c)(1)). ATA has

not shown that the system will produce an unfitness rating

that is arbitrary.

Part of ATA's objection on the sampling issue is that the

SFRM fails to specify how far inspectors are to go in plowing

through a carrier's documents. This flexibility produces the

possibility that an inspector could manipulate the process.

Consider two carriers, each with 1000 documents, which the

inspector attacks worst first, with violations (in each case)

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showing in the first ten but not beyond. If the inspector

looks at 100 for carrier A and 106 for carrier B, that choice

alone (assuming ordinary rounding practices) puts A but not

B on the wrong side of the 10 percent divide.

To some extent the Manual addresses this problem by

setting minimum levels of document review for specific types

of rules. See Federal Highway Administration, Field Operations Training Manual, ch. 3 (1997), at 5-6 (driver factor

regulations), 7-9 (operational factor regulations), 9-10 (operational factor regulations). For these categories of records,

the minimum levels get at the most troubling aspect of the

problem--the chance that an inspector who had it in for a

particular carrier might condemn it to an unsatisfactory

rating by stopping at a very low number of documents.

The Manual does not prescribe an upper limit on the

number of documents to be reviewed. But it does guide the

inspector's decision to expand the review, stating that additional driver files are to be reviewed "if the focused review

indicates substantial noncompliance," id. at 6, and that "increased attention may be required in certain areas of a

carrier's operation that have revealed noncompliance." Id. at

10. Since inspections that include extra documents focus on

problem areas, they are unlikely to yield systematically better

ratings for more extensively scrutinized operators. In the

terms of the Carrier A/Carrier B hypothetical, the six additional Carrier B documents reviewed will be in problem areas,

so there is little reason to believe they are less likely to show

violations than the first 100. It was reasonable for FHWA to

suppose that a system that imposes a rigid constraint on the

extent of the review would yield less accurate ratings than

one that allows inspectors to probe areas that they judge

suspicious.

Furthermore, forcing the agency to specify an upper limit

on the extent of each review runs counter to the general

principle that courts are ill-positioned to scrutinize an agency's allocation of its scarce resources. See, e.g., Heckler v.

Chaney, 470 U.S. 821, 827 (1985).

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The discretion that FHWA's scheme confers on inspectors

can be abused, of course; intentionally and arbitrarily discriminatory enforcement of a statute can be unconstitutional.

See Brandon v. District of Columbia Board of Parole, 823

F.2d 644, 650 (D.C. Cir. 1987). But we can see no basis for

restricting agents' discretion on the mere assumption--completely unsupported by factual allegations--that otherwise

inspectors will act in bad faith.

The ATA also makes a procedural claim here--that the

notice-and-comment rule is defective because it specifies no

sampling procedure at all; only the Manual does so. Insofar

as this is just a repeat of its early claim, our prior discussion

is the answer. Beyond that claim, ATA offers no supporting

reason. Here we review whether the current system for

assigning ratings is arbitrary. If the FHWA changes its

policy, actions under the new policy will be subject to the

same standard of review.

C.Treatment of Hours-of-Service Violations

In its final challenge ATA claims that the FHWA's treatment of violations of its "hours-of-service" regulations is

unduly harsh.

Outside the hours-of-service area, a carrier is assessed one

"point" for each violation of an acute regulation and one for

each pattern of violations of a critical regulation.3 49 CFR

385 App. B, II(g), 62 Fed. Reg. 60,035, 60,044 (1997). But for

the regulations governing drivers' hours of service, 49 CFR

395, a pattern of noncompliance (located within the "operational" safety factor) costs the carrier two points. Id. Each

"point" received with respect to a given factor reduces the

rating in that factor by one level--from satisfactory to conditional or from conditional to unsatisfactory. 49 CFR 385

App. B, II.C(b), 62 Fed. Reg. at 60,045.

The ATA argues that this double assessment is irrational

because it amounts to disparate treatment of "functionally

indistinguishable" violations. Its best claim on this point is

__________

3 The difference between "acute" and "critical" violations is

explained at II.B., supra.

that the FHWA's explanation of the rule merely defends

enforcement of the hours-of-service regulation--without explaining why patterns of violation of that rule deserve to be

treated more harshly than violations of other critical regulations.

What the agency did say, however, was enough. We look

at the decision to assign two points to patterns of violation of

the hours-of-service regulations in the context of the agency's

overall process for turning observed violations into a rating.

First, the types of regulatory default that an inspection turns

up are of widely varying seriousness. This variation is captured to some extent by the critical-acute distinction, but

there is also a good deal of variation among the regulations

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designated critical. For instance, failing to maintain a medical examiner's certificate in a driver's qualification file is a

critical violation. 49 CFR 385 App. B, VII, 62 Fed. Reg. at

60,046 (1997). ATA's theory that all the critical violations are

"functionally indistinguishable" would require us to say that

failing to maintain a medical examiner's certificate is no

different from exceeding the maximum allowable daily driving

time; this is transparently not the case.

Even after rejecting the ATA's argument that all critical

violations are functionally indistinguishable and must be

treated identically, we must consider whether the decision to

assign two points for hours-of-service violations is rational in

the context of the rating system as a whole. The core aspects

of the context are the division of regulations as between acute

and merely critical, the number of regulations governing any

subject matter (such as hours of service), and the distribution

of subject-matter regulations among the six safety factors.

To illustrate the effect of context, we compare the regulations governing fatigue with the regulations governing drug

and alcohol use and testing. There are three substantive and

four recordkeeping hours-of-service regulations that affect

each carrier. The substantive ones are the daily driving rule,

49 CFR s 395.3(a)(1), the daily on-duty rule, id. s 395.3(a)(2),

and the weekly on-duty rule, id. s 395.3(b). The recordkeeping rules require that records of duty status be created, id.

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s 395.8(a), forwarded to the carrier's home office, id.

s 395.8(i), maintained there for six months along with supporting documents, id. s 395.8(k)(1), and not falsified, id.

s 395.8(e). Even an unsatisfactory rating for the "operational" factor (where all these violations are located) would not in

itself lower a carrier's rating below "conditional"; a carrier

can earn a conditional overall rating even with an unsatisfactory rating on a single factor. See Motor Carrier Safety

Rating Table, supra, at I.B. By contrast, drug and alcohol

matters are the subject of no fewer than eight acute (and two

critical) regulations in the "driver" factor, and three more

acute regulations in the operational factor. Because two

separate factors include drug-and-alcohol limits, failure to

comply with them can in itself cause a carrier to receive an

unsatisfactory rating, while failure to comply with hours-ofservice regulations cannot. Furthermore, there are more

than twice as many ways for failure to comply with drug rules

to cause points to be assessed. Finally, because most of

these drug and alcohol rules are designated acute, they have

no 10 percent safe harbor.

Indeed, it would be plausible to argue that the SFRM

treats fatigue too leniently. One study in the record indicates

that fatigue was the "probable primary cause" of 41% of

studied accidents, while alcohol impairment was involved in

only 4% of studied accidents; drug use was apparently not a

factor in any of the studied accidents. See Transportation

Research and Marketing, A Report on the Determination

and Evaluation of the Role of Fatigue in Heavy Truck

Accidents 14 (1985).

The FHWA's decision, then, was not just to assess two

points for patterns of violation of the hours-of-service regulations, but also to label none of those regulations acute and to

confine all of them to the operational factor. In light of the

conditions the FHWA faced in crafting this element of the

SFRM--the importance of controlling fatigue, the fact that

the hours-of-service regulations are the only ones dealing

with fatigue--we find no irrationality. And the agency pointed to each of these factors in justifying its decision. See 62

Fed. Reg. 28,826, 28,829 (1997), 62 Fed. Reg. 60,035, 60,040

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(1997). Although the agency's defense may be of "less than

ideal clarity," its "path may be reasonably discerned." Bowman Transportation, Inc. v. Arkansas-Best Freight System,

Inc., 419 U.S. 281, 286 (1974). Further, the agency's treatment of the issue constituted an adequate response to critical

comments.

The ATA also argues that the FHWA should have considered the weakness of the relationship between hours-ofservice violations and fatigue in determining how much

weight to assign fatigue-related violations. The record indicates that the FHWA did consider this factor and recognized

that the present rules may not target hours of service optimally. 62 Fed. Reg. 60,035, 60,040 (1997) ("[U]ntil the ongoing rulemaking efforts to better regulate fatigue are concluded, the FHWA believes it is important to continue to assign

two points for a pattern of violations of a Part 395 'critical'

regulation.") That there are flaws in the current substantive

regulations does not, given the evidence indicating that long

periods of driving cause accidents, render the agency's treatment of the rules arbitrary and capricious. See Patrick

Hamelin, Surveys about Professional Truck Drivers: Professional Characteristics of Truck Drivers: Situations, Conditions and Duration of Work: Road Safety Effects 4 (1990)

("over-risk of involvement in accidents beyond ten and more

hours of work span"); NTSB, Safety Study: Fatigue, Alcohol, Other Drugs, and Medical Factors in Fatal-to-the-Driver

Heavy Truck Crashes 78 (1990) ("Research evidence indicates

that accident rates for trucks tend to increase dramatically

the longer the driver continues beyond 8 hours of continuous

driving.").

III. TUFS' Claims

A.Failure to Establish Safety Fitness Procedures for

New Carriers

TUFS argues that the FHWA has failed to promulgate

"specific initial and continuing requirements" for motor carriers to prove safety fitness as required by s 31144. Its focus,

in fact, is on the word "initial"; no one could seriously argue

that the FHWA has failed to promulgate "continuing" requirements for carriers already in operation.

Although the Secretary does not raise the issue of standing

it is our duty to do so where it is questionable. See, e.g.,

Catholic Social Service v. Shalala, 12 F.3d 1123, 1125 n.2

(D.C. Cir. 1994). Here, though it is surely questionable,

TUFS passes--if barely. TUFS describes its members as

"various business entities whose operations subject them to

federal regulation of interstate trucking," and complains that

the FHWA's regulations "cannot be used to keep dangerous

trucking companies out of interstate operation." We infer a

claim that TUFS' members are particularly exposed to injury

from unsafe truckers, although TUFS does not itself make

the connection. Such a claim satisfies both the Constitutional

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and prudential standing requirements to bring a suit under a

highway safety statute, as we held in International Brotherhood of Teamsters v. Pea, 17 F.3d 1478, 1482-83 (D.C. Cir.

1994).

The FHWA does have a safety-related requirement in

place to determine whether a carrier's application for new

carrier authority should be approved. Carriers are required

to provide proof of financial responsibility. 49 CFR

s 365.109(a)(5) (1997). This is relevant to safety; indeed,

operating a vehicle without "minimum levels of financial

responsibility" is an acute violation of safety regulations, and

failure to maintain proof of financial responsibility is a critical

violation. See 62 Fed. Reg. 60,035, 60,045 (1997). It is a

modest safety fitness requirement, to say the least, but of

course it is designed for new carriers, which by definition lack

a record on which to base a safety determination. In the

absence of any suggestion from TUFS as to what an adequate

safety rating system for new carriers ought to entail, we are

in no position to hold the FHWA's system insufficient.

TUFS directs none of its fire to the issue of carriers that in

some degree represent continuations of prior carriers, possibly with a bad record, so we need not address it.

TUFS also claims that it is "unconscionable that the government has no legal means to shut down dangerous operaUSCA Case #97-1680 Document #415832 Filed: 02/12/1999 Page 18 of 20
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tions." While this may have been true, it was not because of

the FHWA's regulations. The 1984 Act conferred no such

power on the agency. The 1998 Act does confer it, see Pub.

L. No. 105-178, s 4009(a), 112 Stat. 107, 405-06, to be codified at 49 U.S.C. s 31144(c)(1). As we said earlier, none of

the parties even mentioned the 1998 Act, and in any event a

judgment aimed at pushing the FHWA into action under the

1998 Act would be premature, as the Act is less than eight

months old. In fact the Secretary appears to have been

taking steps to implement his new powers. See 63 Fed. Reg.

49,630, 49,631 (1998) (request for comments on 1998 Act

implementation encouraging "all interested parties to submit

written comments through November 22 on any TEA-21

provision").

B.Invalidation of Existing Safety Ratings

TUFS also argues that this Court's decision in MST Express requires the invalidation of all existing safety ratings.

TUFS lacks standing to raise the issue, however. It asserts

no basis for organizational standing other than that its purposes include promotion of the "just and efficient administration of federal highway safety statutes," a generalized interest

that is plainly inadequate. See Sierra Club v. Morton, 405

U.S. 727, 739 (1972). And it does not claim that any of its

members has suffered or is about to suffer injury because of

the application of the old rating system. Since Article III

prohibits federal courts from recognizing injuries that are

neither "actual" nor "imminent," see Lujan v. Defenders of

Wildlife, 504 U.S. 555, 560 (1992), we have no authority to

reach the claim.

IV. Claims of Intervenor

Intervenor Petroleum Marketers Association of America

("PMAA") argues that the FHWA was arbitrary and capricious in deciding to use "preventable or recordable" accidents.

In its view the agency can only reasonably rely on accidents

where the driver has been found to be at fault before a "fair

and impartial tribunal." We need not address PMAA's arguments with respect to "preventable" accidents, since FHWA

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is no longer using that criterion to assign the initial safety

rating. See 62 Fed. Reg. 28,826, 28,827 (1997). And we

think it reasonable to use all accidents rather than just those

in which the operator's driver is found at fault, in light of the

uncertainty as to whether determinations of fault will be

made with respect to every accident and the infirmities of the

fault-determination process.

The PMAA also describes itself as an organization of small

haulers which are obligated to drive under adverse conditions

(e.g., to deliver heating oil in winter), and argues that FHWA

did not take its industry's character into account sufficiently

in formulating the rule. But the FHWA explicitly took the

effect of the accident factor on small carriers into account by

providing that a safety rating will not be reduced because of a

single accident during each one-year period. 49 CFR 385

App. B, II.B(d), 62 Fed. Reg. 60,035, 60,044 (1997). Nor do

we think the agency irrational in failing to make special

accommodations for the oil delivery industry, in light of the

relatively high acceptable accident rate and the existence of

an appeals process in which carriers can make a case that

"the recordable rate is not a fair means of evaluating its

accident factor." 49 CFR 385, II.B(e), 62 Fed. Reg. at 60,044.

Conclusion

The petitions for review and the claims of the intervenor

are denied.

So ordered.

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