Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-caDC-94-01540/USCOURTS-caDC-94-01540-1/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
American Petroleum Institute
Petitioner
Carol M. Browner
Respondent
Environmental Protection Agency
Respondent
National Petroleum Refiners Association
Petitioner

Document Text:

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United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

-

Filed January 9, 1996

No. 94-1502

AMERICAN PETROLEUM INSTITUTE AND 

NATIONAL PETROLEUM REFINERS ASSOCIATION,

PETITIONERS 

v.

UNITED STATES ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY AND 

CAROL M. BROWNER, ADMINISTRATOR,

UNITED STATES ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY,

RESPONDENTS 

RENEWABLE FUELS ASSOCIATION,

INTERVENOR 

-

And consolidated case Nos. 94-1540, 94-1590, and 94-1654 

-

On Motion for Award of Attorneys' Fees

-

Michael F. McBride and Rita M. Theisen for petitioners, with whom

G. William Frick, David T. Deal, John E. Reese, and Maurice H.

McBride were on the motion for award of attorneys' fees.

Lois J. Schiffer, Assistant Attorney General, and Timothy Burns,

Trial Attorney, Environmental Defense Section, United States

Department of Justice, for respondents.

Before WILLIAMS, SENTELLE, and RANDOLPH, Circuit Judges.

Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge SENTELLE.

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SENTELLE, Circuit Judge: American Petroleum Institute and

National Petroleum Refiners Association (hereinafter "petitioners"

or "API") move for an award in the amount of $334,755 for

attorneys' fees incurred in connection with their successful

petition for review of an Environmental Protection Agency ("EPA")

regulation. See American Petroleum Inst. v. EPA, 52 F.3d 1113

(D.C. Cir. 1995). After considering petitioners' motion, we find

that they are entitled to an award of reasonable attorneys' fees

but that they have not carried their burden with respect to the

full amount for which they seek reimbursement. For reasons that we

will discuss in detail below, we conclude that petitioners are

entitled to attorneys' fees in the amount of $237,997.03.

I. BACKGROUND

In the underlying litigation, petitioners challenged EPA's

regulations implementing the Reformulated Gasoline ("RFG") program

established by Congress in § 211(k), (42 U.S.C. § 7545(k)), of the

Clean Air Act ("CAA"), 42 U.S.C. § 7401, et seq. (1988 & Supp. V

1993). That program mandated the promulgation of regulations to

achieve clean air goals through reformulation of conventional

gasolines and specified minimum percentages of oxygen for such

fuels, thus requiring the use of oxygenates. 42 U.S.C. §

7545(k)(1), (2). The EPA regulations at issue required, inter

alia, that 30 percent of the oxygen required to be used in RFG

comes from renewable oxygenates, as opposed to non-renewable

oxygenates such as those produced by petitioners. Regulation of

Fuels and Fuel Additives: Renewable Oxygenate Requirement in

Reformulated Gasoline, 59 Fed. Reg. 39,258 (1994).

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Petitioners sought review in the proceeding which underlies

the present fee petition. The facts and decision are set forth in

our prior opinion, American Petroleum Institute v. EPA, 52 F.3d at

1115-21. Petitioners argued the invalidity of the regulations on

five bases. In the end, we needed to reach only one of them:

under the plain meaning of section 7545(k), EPA had no power to

adopt the rules in question as they were not directed toward the

reduction of volatile organic compounds and toxic emissions and EPA

improperly interpreted the statute as giving it broader power to

adopt the Renewable Oxygenate Rule ("ROR"), which would not provide

for additional reductions in those emissions. Id. at 1119.

II. DISCUSSION

A. Petitioners' Eligibility for a Fee Award

Petitioners now move for attorneys' fees under 42 U.S.C. §

7607(f), which provides that for judicial proceedings on petitions

for review of EPA's regulations under the CAA "the court may award

costs of litigation (including reasonable attorney and expert

witness fees) whenever it determines that such award is

appropriate." There are two primary tests for determining when an

award of attorneys' fees is "appropriate" under section 7607(f):

1) whether the party prevailed on the merits; and 2) whether the

party's litigation furthered the purposes of the statute and the

proper implementation and interpretation of the Act. See Sierra

Club v. EPA, 769 F.2d 796, 799-800 (D.C. Cir. 1985). It is clear

and the government concedes that petitioners meet this test and are

entitled to an award of reasonable attorneys' fees under § 7607(f).

The government, however, challenges the reasonableness of

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portions of the award prayed. Though some of the government's

arguments are without merit, some correctly suggest grounds on

which we should disallow portions of the fees sought. 

B. The "Distinctly Different Claims"

The government argues that we should disallow a portion of the

fees prayed because petitioners argued five grounds for the

invalidity of the regulations and the court based its decision on

only one of them. In the government's view, this means that we

should eliminate fees attributable to the other arguments under the

theory that where a party raises "distinctly different claims for

relief that are based on different facts and legal theories," in

seeking fees the party must establish an entitlement to fees for

each subset of claims separately. See Hensley v. Eckerhart, 461

U.S. 424, 434-35 (1983). That is of course an accurate statement

of law. It simply has no applicability to the present case.

Petitioners did not raise any claims distinct and separate

from the one on which they prevailed. They pursued only one claim

for reliefthe invalidity of the regulation at issue. They argued

five defensible bases for that invalidity. Even the government

concedes that the merits panel accepted the soundness of not only

the principal argument upon which we based our holding, but also,

in dicta, of the second and third arguments raised by petitioners.

See 52 F.3d at 1119-21. The government does argue that the "fourth

and fifth claims" were fundamentally different from the others.

But there were no fourth and fifth claims. There were only fourth

and fifth arguments for the one claim. Specifically, those

arguments were that EPA acted arbitrarily and capriciously in

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promulgating the rule, an obviously defensible argument in a case

in which EPA was acting beyond its statutory authority. It is not

necessary that a fee-petitioning client and its attorney have acted

with the 20/20 acuity of hindsight in developing their arguments in

order to collect attorneys' fees. As there are no "separate

claims" but only separate arguments in support of the same claim,

Hensley v. Eckerhart has no applicability. See Sierra Club, 769

F.2d at 801-04; Kennecott Corp. v. EPA, 804 F.2d 763, 765-66 (D.C.

Cir. 1986) (per curiam). We do not suggest the implausibility of

an argument in some case that some issue might be so frivolous that

all time spent on it was unreasonable, but that is not the

government's argument in this case. The argument the government

does make is inapposite.

C. Reasonableness

We state at the outset that in evaluating the reasonableness

of all the elements of billing, items of expense or fees that may

not be "unreasonable between a first class law firm and a solvent

client, are not [always] supported by indicia of reasonableness

sufficient to allow us justly to tax the same against the United

States." In re North (Shultz Fee Application), 8 F.3d 847, 852

(D.C. Cir. 1993) (per curiam). While we do "not "pass judgment on

the propriety' of professional decisions of counsel or the wisdom

of their client's decision in its contract, ... we are duty bound

to recall that Congress required us to exercise our independent

judgment on the reasonableness of fees requested before taxing them

against the United States." In re Donovan, 877 F.2d 982, 996 (D.C.

Cir. 1989) (per curiam). We also note that petitioners bear the

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burden of demonstrating the reasonableness of each element of their

fee request. In re North (Bush Fee Application), 59 F.3d 184, 189

(D.C. Cir. 1995) (per curiam). We conduct our review of

petitioners' fee request with those principles in mind.

1. Questions of Reasonableness of Specific Items

Petitioners' request employs the familiar formula of

professional hours expended multiplied by the hourly rate of the

billing professional, which is often called the lodestar. See,

e.g., National Ass'n of Concerned Veterans v. Secretary of Defense,

675 F.2d 1319, 1323 (D.C. Cir. 1982) (per curiam). They state that

their attorneys' hourly rates ($300 for partner Michael McBride,

$250 for partner Rita Theisen, $200 for associates, $30-$80 for

paralegals, and $100 for a law clerk ) are based on reasonable

hourly rates that are consistent with the market rate "prevailing

in the community for similar work." Copeland v. Marshall, 641 F.2d

880, 892 (D.C. Cir. 1980). Petitioners have provided support for

the reasonableness of their rates through affidavits and a survey

of rates and we hold that these rates are reasonable.

In the second step of lodestar analysis, we must determine

whether petitioners have carried their burden of demonstrating that

each time block billed at the reasonable rates was itself a

reasonable expenditure of time. We first note that the petition

reflects an apparent arithmetic error of $1,000. The fee request

seeks fees of $287,370 for representation from June, 1994, to

February, 1995. Monthly billing statements for that time period

document only $286,370. We therefore first deduct $1,000 to

correct the apparent error in calculation.

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Next, we will make adjustments in the petition for several

items as to which petitioners have not carried their burden of

establishing sufficient reasonableness to warrant taxing fees

against the United States. See Bush Fee Application, 59 F.3d at

189. First, as the government points out, there are numerous

instances in which billing professionals describe their work as

preparing and "filing" certain documents. Petitioners explain that

most of these instances refer to the attorney having the documents

actually filed by someone else, and we accept this explanation.

There are a few billing entries, however, where it is clear that

the attorney himself delivered the documents. For example, H.S.

Berger, who bills at $200 per hour, logged 8 hours on July 21,

1994, for "finalizing motions for submission to D.C. Court of

Appeals; going to courthouse to file," 3.5 hours on July 25, 1994,

for "delivering petition to supplement our motion for a stay," and

2 hours on August 5, 1994, for "delivering petition for review and

reply to RFA's motion." Also, McBride logged 1.5 hours on November

18, 1994, to "make D.C. Circuit filing, discuss collateral

litigations with client." Likewise, there are several billing

entries for paralegals delivering documents. While petitioners

state that they requested this level of service to ensure that

certain sealed documents were handled properly, they have not

established that it is reasonable to charge the public fisc for the

service of professionals in these instances. See Bush Fee

Application, 59 F.3d at 194 (deducting professional time billed for

delivery of documents as task that could have been performed by a

non-billing non-professional); In re Meese, 907 F.2d 1192, 1202-03

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(D.C. Cir. 1990) (per curiam) (deducting charges by paralegals for

delivering documents). Accordingly, we will deduct 7.5 hours of

Berger's time and 1 hour of McBride's time and also subtract the

$130 billed for paralegals delivering documents.

Second, McBride bills for attending a press conference on July

13, 1994. Costs associated with media relations, however, are not

"costs of litigation" under 42 U.S.C. § 7607(f), and we therefore

cannot authorize their reimbursement. Cf. Meese, 907 F.2d at 1203

(deducting fees for media-related activity as not reasonably

related to defense of an independent counsel investigation).

Petitioners state that McBride spent one hour attending the press

conference, and we will deduct the fee for this hour.

Third, the government argues that petitioners should not be

reimbursed for their attorney's attendance at a congressional

hearing that took place on June 24, 1994, which was before the ROR

even issued. The government notes that McBride billed five hours

for attending the hearing, and it argues that it was unnecessary

for the lead partner in the case to spend this much time as a

spectator at the hearing, especially since petitioners merely cited

the transcript of that hearing in a footnote in their briefs.

Likewise, the government objects to petitioners' claims for fees

billed by McBride for attending the oral argument and discussing

extensively a separate, unrelated case filed with this court, Ethyl

Corp. v. EPA, 51 F.3d 1053 (D.C. Cir. 1995). Petitioners respond

that attendance at the congressional hearing and at the oral

argument for Ethyl Corp. v. EPA was directly related to their

success on the merits and that the fees should be covered in the

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fee award. See Delaware Valley Citizens' Council for Clean Air v.

Pennsylvania, 762 F.2d 272, 277 (3d Cir. 1985) (upholding fee award

for activities that "materially aided" and "contributed" to success

on merits), aff'd in part & rev'd in part on other grounds, 478

U.S. 546 (1986), and rev'd on other grounds, 483 U.S. 711 (1987).

As noted above, section 7607(f) permits reimbursement of the

"costs of litigation ... including reasonable attorney ... fees"

and we would therefore have to find McBride's fees for attendance

at the hearing and the oral argument to be costs of litigation and

reasonable attorney fees in order to award fees under the section.

McBride's attendance at the hearing and the oral argument is akin

to the "defensive monitoring" of other prosecutions that we have

declined to reimburse in various criminal cases seeking attorneys'

fees under 28 U.S.C. § 593(f). See, e.g., In re North (Gardner Fee

Application), 30 F.3d 143, 147 (D.C. Cir. 1994) (per curiam).

While we do not doubt that McBride's attendance at these events may

have been a reasonable expense from petitioners' point of view,

like defensive monitoring, these fees are not sufficiently

connected to the litigation at issue to require the taxpayers to

reimburse them. Id. We will therefore deduct the fees claimed for

McBride's attendance at the hearing (5 hours) and oral argument (2

hours) but will allow the fees for discussion of Ethyl Corp. v. EPA

since the time spent by an attorney in analyzing a relevant

precedent is a traditional cost of litigation.

Fourth, the government raises an objection to petitioners'

claim for fees for the preparation and filing of a petition for

review on behalf of the Oxygenated Fuels Association, another party

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whose petition for review was consolidated with the one filed by

petitioners. Petitioners state that they asked their counsel to

assist the Oxygenated Fuels Association in part because an order

consolidating several petitions for review cautioned the parties in

the consolidated cases to avoid repeating the arguments made by

petitioners, and petitioners interpreted this as extending to

coordinating with the Oxygenated Fuels Association. The billing

statement for petitioners' counsel, however, reveals that they

actually prepared the petition for review filed by the Oxygenated

Fuels Association, not that they merely consulted about the

duplication of arguments. Because these are fees that are properly

attributed to the Oxygenated Fuels Association rather than to

petitioners, we will deduct the 1.5 hours billed by McBride and 5.5

hours billed by Theisen in this matter.

In sum, the deductions applicable for specific items are:

Amount requested $287,370 

Arithmetic error $1,000 

Document deliveries $1,930 

Press conference $300 

Hearing and argument fees $2,100 

Oxy. Fuels Ass'n petition $1,825 

Total specific reductions $7,155 

Subtotal of fee request $280,215

2. General Questions of Reasonableness

The government maintains that petitioners should not recover

any fees for the motion for summary reversal because it was clearly

inappropriate to request summary disposition in a complicated case

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of first impression. See D.C. Circuit Handbook of Practice and

Internal Procedures 75 (1994) ("Parties should avoid requesting

summary disposition of issues of first impression for the Court.").

Petitioners respond that the question raised in the motion for

summary reversal was not of first impression since the issue of

EPA's authority under section 7545(c) of the CAA was previously

litigated in Amoco Oil Co. v. EPA, 501 F.2d 722 (D.C. Cir. 1974),

and that even if it was of first impression, the issue was so clear

as to warrant summary action as evidenced by our straightforward

decision on the merits. They also state that the hours dedicated

to the motion produced valuable work that formed the basis of the

arguments in their successful stay motion and their briefs.

Despite petitioners' assertion, however, it is clear that the

issue of the legality of the ROR, which petitioners challenged

immediately upon its promulgation, was one of first impression and

was not appropriate for summary disposition, as it required an

extensive review of the RFG program, the ROR, and the requirements

of the CAA. In fact, petitioners themselves in their reply to the

government's partial opposition to their motion for attorneys' fees

state that "this was a complex case." As noted in the Handbook of

Practice and Internal Procedures at 75, "[m]otions for summary

reversal are rarely granted, and only where the merits are "so

clear, plenary briefing, oral argument, and the traditional

collegiality of the decisional process would not affect [the

Court's] decision.' " (quoting Sills v. Federal Bureau of Prisons,

761 F.2d 792, 793-94 (D.C. Cir. 1985)). Attorneys with the skill

and experience of petitioners' counsel in this case should have

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known that there was zero chance of this court allowing a motion

for summary reversal in a matter of this novelty and complexity.

Petitioners have not cited nor have we found any case remotely

approaching the magnitude of this one in which we have granted a

motion for summary reversal. Accordingly, we will deduct the fees

incurred in connection with the motion. Because the motion for

summary reversal was part of the successful motion for a stay,

however, and petitioners' attorneys did not disclose how they

allocated their time among the motions and their issues, we must

estimate the hours spent on the summary reversal arguments. While

the government suggests a twenty-five percent reduction in the fees

for all the motions to account for the summary reversal motion,

this appears too large a reduction and we instead estimate that

fifteen percent of the time spent on motions was spent on the

summary reversal arguments and will deduct accordingly.

The government also takes issue with the number of hours

billed by petitioners' attorneys for certain tasks. Petitioners

reply that the hours spent were reasonable and that once they have

provided documentation of their fee request, the burden falls on

the government to go forward with evidence that the fees are

erroneous. See, e.g., National Ass'n of Concerned Veterans, 675

F.2d at 1326 ("Once the fee applicant has provided support for the

requested rate, the burden falls on the Government to go forward

with evidence that the rate is erroneous.") Petitioners

misconstrue the government's burden, however, since the quoted

phrase from National Association of Concerned Veterans deals only

with the reasonableness of hourly rates, something not at issue in

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this case, and not the reasonableness of the number of hours spent

on various tasks. To satisfy the burden of showing that the hours

claimed were reasonably expended on a case, a petitioner must

submit "sufficiently detailed information about the hours logged

and the work done," and "it is insufficient to provide the ...

Court with very broad summaries of work done and hours logged."

Id. at 1327; see also Kennecott Corp. v. EPA, 804 F.2d 767 (noting

that fee applicants bear the heavy burden of presenting well

documented claims). The bills submitted by petitioners to document

the work done by their attorneys, however, contain mostly broad

summaries of the work done and the hours logged on a daily, rather

than a per task, basis. Thus, it is not clear that petitioners

have met their burden of demonstrating the reasonableness of the

hours expended. See Kennecott Corp., 804 F.2d at 767. Petitioners

argue that they had no incentive to spend excessive sums on

attorneys' fees since they paid the fees without serious

consideration of recovering them from the government. While this

is very likely, the court has a duty to independently assess the

reasonableness of fees sought from the government and "we are not

prepared to hold that the willingness of a private client to pay a

bill necessarily demonstrates that the charge was reasonable under

the statutory definition and can therefore be automatically

assessed against the government." Id. Thus, we now undertake an

evaluation of the reasonableness of the hours spent on various

tasks.

The government first questions the reasonableness of spending

approximately 550 hours (once the specific task deductions are

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made) on the preparation of the stay petition filed with EPA and

the motions for a stay and for summary reversal or expedited

consideration filed with the court. The motions filed with the

court were each twenty pages long, plus attachments, and the motion

filed with EPA was somewhat shorter. The government argues that it

was unreasonable to devote approximately fourteen weeks worth of

attorney time to these motions and that it was also unreasonable

for most of this time to have been billed by partners rather than

associates. See Delaware Valley Citizens' Council, 762 F.2d at

278-79. Five weeks of work, or 200 hours, would be a reasonable

amount of time to devote to these motions, asserts the government,

and it states that the time should be allocated sixty percent to

associate time and forty percent to partner time. Petitioners

counter that this was a complex case that required close scrutiny

of two complicated rule makings and their voluminous records, that

the motions were hotly contested, and that petitioners carried a

heavy burden in challenging agency actions. See Sierra Club, 769

F.2d at 807 ("[P]etitioners in a case involving direct review of

administrative regulations obviously face the burden of deciding

which provisions to challenge and on what grounds, while the

respondents need only react to those challenges."). As for the

lead partner doing a large majority of the work, petitioners state

that their attorneys were following their wishes because they hired

McBride based on his experience and wanted his personal attention

to the case.

The Supreme Court in Hensley, 461 U.S. at 434, has directed us

to determine whether the claimed fees were reasonably expended and

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states that fee-request hours that are "excessive, redundant, or

otherwise unnecessary" should be excluded. Upon review of the

attorneys' billing statement, which contains primarily broad

descriptions such as "work on motions," we conclude that

petitioners have failed to demonstrate the reasonableness of

expending 550 hours of attorney time, which translates to almost

fourteen person weeks of full-time effort, on the preparation of

their motions. See Environmental Defense Fund, Inc. v. Reilly, 1

F.3d 1254, 1258-60 (D.C. Cir. 1993) (reducing fee award to account

for attorney spending an excessive amount of time on certain

tasks). While the motions involved some scientific information and

a large agency record, in essence, petitioners presented a focused

challenge to EPA's authority to promulgate the ROR under section

7545(k) of the CAA. Deciding what is a reasonable amount of time

to spend on motions is an imprecise undertaking, however, and our

calculations will necessarily be rough. Based on the motions filed

and our familiarity with the issues of the case, we conclude that

petitioners have carried their burden of persuasion only as to

seventy-five percent of the hours spent on motions, and we will

reduce the billing for each timekeeper by one-fourth for the time

spent on the motions. We will make this reduction before we make

the fifteen percent reduction for the inappropriate summary

reversal motion.

As for the distribution of these hours between partner and

associate time, the government contends that petitioners fail to

show the reasonableness of the lead partner billing most of this

time, as they provide no explanation other than their preference

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for having McBride's personal attention to their case. Clearly

this is not an unreasonable practice between a first class law firm

and a solvent client. But we must always require indicia of

reasonableness sufficient for us to justify taxing this against the

United States. Bush Fee Application, 59 F.3d at 189. In Missouri

v. Jenkins, 491 U.S. 274, 288-89 n.10 (1989), the Court stated that

it is appropriate to distinguish between work that may be done by

lawyers and that which may be done by paralegals, and it admonished

that the value of the work which may be done by a non-lawyer is not

enhanced simply because a lawyer does it. By analogy, there is

work that may be ably done by an associate, such as research,

compiling documents, and drafting motions, the value of which is

not enhanced merely because it is done by a senior partner.

But, as petitioners remind us, in Price v. Marshall Erdman &

Assoc., Inc., 966 F.2d 320, 327 (7th Cir. 1992), a sister circuit

held that it is "cutting things too fine" to disallow a partner's

fees for work that could have been done by an associate. It is

true that in that case the court explained that the law firm

involved was quite small, just two partners and two associates, and

that under such circumstances it was not feasible to maintain a

rigid line between partner work and associate work, and

petitioners' attorneys are not part of a small law firm. This does

not mean, however, that the division of work as between partners

and associates is any less fine a cut. This is a complex and

difficult case. The government itself has said as much in arguing,

successfully we might add, against fees for the time spent on

summary reversal motions. Presumably, the clients came to the law

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firm they employed, not because of the skill of the associates but

that of the partners in dealing with such complex and difficult

litigation. We therefore will make no adjustment for the

allocation of time between partners and associates. We note that

this will likely not result in as great an increase in the award as

might at first be supposed. Presumably the skill and experience of

the partners places them further along the learning curve and

enhances their ability to operate efficiently so that the higher

partner rate is likely to be offset, at least in part, by a

reduction in the number of hours multiplying that rate. Also, in

most instances when associates are employed to work under the

supervision of a partner, there is some duplication of time in that

the associate must report and the partner must review, creating new

billable hours not present when the partner does the work directly.

Thus, the fees awarded for the summary reversal or expedition

and stay motions will be as follows:

Fees requested for motions $139,387.50

Deduction for reasonableness $34,846.88

Subtotal for motions $104,540.62

Deduction summary reversal $15,681.09

Fees awarded for motions $88,859.53

With the deductions we have made, the current subtotal of the fees

requested for the pre-decision litigation is $229,687.03.

The government next challenges the fees expended on writing

the opening brief, asserting that the 79 hours claimed by

petitioners' attorneys, all of it by partners, is excessive,

especially in light of the time already spent on motions that

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included the same arguments. Upon review, it appears to us that

petitioners have carried their burden of establishing the

reasonableness of these hours and we will make no reduction for the

time spent on the opening brief.

The government makes a stronger complaint about the partner

time spent on the reply brief, for which petitioners seek

reimbursement for approximately 120 hours billed by McBride. The

reply brief counters the arguments in EPA's brief by reiterating

petitioners' initial arguments and highlighting the flaws in EPA's

position, and it contains cites to some additional cases.

Petitioners fail, however, to carry their burden as to why it was

necessary to spend substantially more time on the reply brief than

on the opening brief. Based on our review of the reply brief, we

conclude that it would have been reasonable for an experienced

partner to have spent 60 hours preparing the reply brief and

therefore deduct $18,000 for the additional 60 hours of partner

time.

The next point of contention is the 126.25 hours spent in

preparation for oral argument, of which 116.25 hours were billed by

McBride, 2.25 hours were billed by Theisen, and 7.75 hours were

billed by a paralegal. The government notes that petitioners had

fifteen minutes of argument time and asserts that the amount spent

in preparation was excessive, especially since the court observed

in another case that it appeared excessive to spend 93 hours

preparing for oral argument given the substantial amount of time

already spent researching and writing the briefs. Kennecott Corp.,

804 F.2d at 768 n.5. Petitioners make no specific answer to this

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but merely assert that the hours spent on all activities were

reasonable in light of the complexity of the case and that they

provided sufficient documentation of these hours. As we noted

several times above, the generalized work descriptions (116.25

hours described as "prepare for oral argument") do not satisfy

petitioners' burden. See id. at 767 (observing that question of

the reasonableness of the time spent on certain tasks is made more

difficult to resolve as a result of the imprecision of the

documentation). We estimate that, given McBride's obvious

familiarity with the case from his work on motions and briefs, it

would have been reasonable for him to have spent two weeks (80

hours) preparing for oral argument. We will therefore deduct the

fee for those hours exceeding 80 billed by McBride, which is

$10,875 (36.25 hours at $300 per hour). The small number of hours

spent by the other partner and the paralegal seem reasonable and

will be reimbursed in full.

The deductions for the preparation of the briefs and oral

argument are as follows:

Subtotal pre-decision fees $229,687.03

Deduction reply brief $18,000

Deduction oral argument $10,875

Total deductions $28,875

Total pre-decision fees $200,812.03

Accordingly, we will award petitioners $200,812.03 for

attorneys' fees incurred before our decision issued in this case.

D. Post-decision Fees

Petitioners also filed a supplemental motion seeking

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attorneys' fees totaling $47,385 for work done after this court

issued its decision in API. Most of this work involved analysis of

EPA's motion for rehearing and preparation of the motion for

attorneys' fees.

First, the government objects to petitioners' request for

27.25 hours of associate time and 6.25 hours of partner time for

evaluating the rehearing petition filed by EPA. The government

argues that this amount of time is excessive since the court

decided EPA's petition without allowing petitioners to file a

response to it and that only a small amount of time to review EPA's

petition could possibly be justified. Petitioners maintain that

they could not ignore the rehearing petition because it, along with

the involvement of the Solicitor General, strongly suggested that

the government might seek a writ of certiorari. They state that

they reasonably requested that their attorneys assess the strength

of the petition, especially given the real-life implications of the

ROR for their industry and the fact that EPA had issued a notice

implying that it might retroactively enforce the ROR if it

eventually prevailed on the merits. We agree with petitioners that

it was reasonable for them to analyze and be prepared to respond to

EPA's petition for rehearing and we find reasonable the amount of

time spent in this connection.

We finally reach the last area of contention, the number of

hours expended in preparation of the motion for attorneys' fees.

While fees for the preparation of fee motions are not reimbursable

under all fee-shifting statutes, see, e.g., In re North (Gadd Fee

Application), 12 F.3d 252, 257 (D.C. Cir. 1994) (per curiam)

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(holding that "fees for fees" are not reimbursable under 28 U.S.C.

§ 593(f)(1)), fees for fees are permitted under section 7607(f) of

the CAA. See, e.g., Alabama Power Co. v. Gorsuch, 672 F.2d 1, 4

(D.C. Cir. 1982) (per curiam) (awarding fees for the time spent

preparing request for fees under the CAA). Petitioners seek

reimbursement for 90.75 hours of associate time and 43.5 hours

spent by the lead partner, which add up to $31,200 in fees. There

was also some time spent by a paralegal in compiling the billing

statements, to which the government does not object. The

government asserts that this is an unreasonable amount of attorney

time and that it should only have taken about 32 hours to prepare

the fee motion. See Environmental Defense Fund, Inc. v. Reilly, 1

F.3d at 1259 (holding that boilerplate fee motion should have taken

attorney only 8 hours to prepare); Kennecott Corp., 804 F.2d at

768 n.5 (suggesting that 50 hours of attorney time spent preparing

the bill was excessive). Petitioners respond that these cases are

distinguishable because in Environmental Defense Fund, Inc. v.

Reilly, the case was settled before the fee petitioner filed any

briefs, and, in Kennecott, the fee petitioners sought 50 hours for

preparation of the bill, not for the entire fee motion.

Petitioners maintain that the hours claimed are reasonable because

the fee motion involved substantial research on novel issues and

because petitioners had never previously requested attorneys' fees.

First, petitioners' "novel" argument, whether a non-profit

organization with for-profit entities as members can recover

attorneys' fees under the CAA, was a small part of the petition,

appearing only in a footnote in their initial motion. Second, we

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note that it is petitioners' attorneys' familiarity with the law

and procedure for fee petitions, and not petitioners' familiarity,

that is relevant to the number of hours spent by their attorneys

preparing the fee request. Upon review of the fee motion, we

conclude that petitioners have not carried the burden of

demonstrating that over two weeks of associate time and one week of

lead partner time was reasonably expended in preparing the fee

motion. This is especially true in light of the laconic work

descriptions that have been a pervasive problem throughout

petitioners' fee motion. We conclude that it would have been

reasonable to devote 60 hours of associate time and 30 hours of

partner time to the fee motion and thus will deduct $10,200 (30.75

associate hours at $200 per hour and 13.5 lead partner hours at

$300) from the amount claimed.

After deducting $10,200 from the $47,385 in fees incurred

after we issued our decision in API, we will award $37,185 in

post-decision fees.

III. CONCLUSION

For the reasons set forth above, it is ordered that

petitioners be awarded $237,997.11 in reasonable attorneys' fees

they incurred in connection with this court's decision in API and

this fee application.

Judgment accordingly.

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