Opinion ID: 2002136
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Deferral to GSA.

Text: In Order No. 9540, the Commission held that there was no need for it to take corrective action because it is GSA which determines compliance in accordance with its statute, rules and regulations. The Commission viewed its own authority as extending only to determining whether its statute, rules or regulations have been violated and enforcing certain remedies contained in the D.C.Code. The Commission did not identify the remedies to which it was referring, and made no mention of PEPCO I, in which it had assumed independent responsibility for enforcing federal and local proscriptions against discrimination, irrespective of the action taken or not taken by the EEOC or other agencies with civil rights responsibilities. We do not suggest that PEPCO I necessarily controls the present case. There are evident differences between the equal employment opportunity laws and the Small Business Act provisions here at issue. Significantly, the affirmative subcontracting requirements of § 637(c) do not apply to the generality of employers, but only to those who seek to do business with federal agencies and who are otherwise subject to the Act. Section 637(c) essentially governs the relationship between the federal government and its contractors. Many of the Act's provisions are directed to federal agencies and only indirectly to affected private entrepreneurs. The primary role of the federal government in monitoring this relationship can hardly be denied. The request by the GSA that the Commission dismiss Jordan's complaint potentially raises an issue of comity which apparently did not arise in the employment discrimination context. Indeed, in PEPCO I, rather than seeking termination of the Commission's proceedings against PEPCO, the EEOC assisted the Commission in formulating the appropriate affirmative relief. Whether, under these circumstances, the case may and should proceed is, in the first instance, a matter for the Commission. That agency should, however, at least consider its own twenty-two-year-old precedent in PEPCO I, and explain whether and to what extent its reasoning in that case applies here. Cf. Potomac Electric Power Co. v. Public Service Comm'n, 457 A.2d 776, 783-84 (D.C.1983). Whatever the limits of our scope of review in this unusual case may be, our authorityand responsibilityto find out why an agency acts as it does is considerable. Washington Public Interest Organization v. Public Service Comm'n, 393 A.2d 71, 79 (D.C.1978), cert. denied, 444 U.S. 926, 100 S.Ct. 265, 62 L.Ed.2d 182 (1979). We are not persuaded that the Commission has adequately analyzed its own responsibilities under the applicable District of Columbia statute as construed in PEPCO I. According to Jordan, the Commission's all but plenary power under § 43-503 to compel public utilities to comply with all applicable laws applies even in situations generated by PEPCO's status as a federal contractor. GSA's failure to require PEPCO to take affirmative steps to undo the consequences of past noncompliance, says Jordan, does not, under PEPCO I, affect the Commission's independent authority and obligation to enforce the law. PEPCO and the Commission argue, on the other hand, that it is not the Commission's function to review the rulings of a federal agency, and that GSA's finding that PEPCO is now in compliance is conclusive. The Commission must pass on these contentions in the light of PEPCO I, and consider any other relevant precedent of which it is aware. We emphasize that this is not a case in which the Commission recognized that it had the authority to proceed with Jordan's complaint but elected not to do so as a matter of litigation priorities, or in order to avoid duplication of effort with a federal agency. If the dismissal had been based on the exercise of prosecutorial discretion or on the Commission's reasoned allocation of limited resources, the issue before us would be quite different. We recognize, for example, that if the Commission were to take the position that it should assume the primary obligation to enforce federal contracting policies, then the ratepayers of the District of Columbia, rather than the federal taxpayers (who fund the General Services Administration) would have to foot the bill. As we recently reiterated in Simpson v. District of Columbia Office of Human Rights, 597 A.2d 392, 398 (D.C. 1991), [c]ourts are understandably and rightly reluctant to tell an agency when it should institute enforcement proceedings and when it should not, for [t]he agency is far better equipped than the courts to deal with the many variables involved in the proper ordering of its priorities. Heckler v. Chaney, 470 U.S. 821, 831-32, 105 S.Ct. 1649, 1656, 84 L.Ed.2d 714 (1985). In the present case, however, the Commission did not purport to be exercising prosecutorial discretion. Rather, it believed that it had no authority to act. It is this dispositive holding that the Commission must reconsider in the light of its own precedents. If the Commission concludes on remand that it has the statutory authority to entertain Jordan's complaint, then it must determine whether it is obliged to do so, cf. PEPCO I, [11] or whether, as appears more plausible, the decision to proceed or not to proceed is discretionary. If the Commission concludes that this determination is a discretionary one, then the Commission must elect whether to defer to GSA or to act independently.