Opinion ID: 528395
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: National Defense Authorization Act of 1987.

Text: 53 Appellants also assert standing under section 1223(b) of the 1987 DoD Authorization Act, 10 U.S.C. Sec. 2304 note. That section requires the Secretary of Defense to ensure that all costs considered [in a contracting out decision] ... are realistic and fair. See supra note 6. Appellants contend that the legislative history of the Act, which prohibits contracting out of federal firefighter and DoD security guard positions, evidences congressional intent to provide employee standing because at least some government jobs are protected. Additionally they point out that advocates for federal employees defeated attempts by private contractors to eliminate built-in bias in the contracting out process favoring federal employees, such as the addition of a ten percent conversion differential which must be added to each contractor's bid. We find appellants' arguments unconvincing and, after reviewing the legislative history of section 1223(b), conclude that appellants' interest is inconsistent with the statutory requirement of a realistic and fair cost comparison. 54 From our review of the legislative history, the phrase realistic and fair was added to the Authorization Act to protect the private government contractor in the contracting out process against undue built-in bias favoring in-house performance of services. In fact, the phrase was added at the behest of government contractors in protest against the ten percent conversion differential. Appellees point to, and we find convincing, the following explanation of the realistic and fair language found in the Senate Report on the Authorization Act. Realistic and Fair Cost Comparisons 55 DOD handicaps contractors' bidding on services and supplies during cost comparisons against retaining these functions in-house. In addition to the existing 10% [conversion] bias used to date, other handicaps are: 56  Contract Administration Cost--The cost for the government to administer the contract if awarded to a private concern is added to the vendor's bid. 57  Quality and Technical Assurance Cost--Quality and technical supervision and assurance are costs added to the vendor's bid when contracting out work. 58  Excessive liability coverage required and unrealistically low costs for government agencies. 59  Overhead costs computed for the government bid. 60 Agency cost comparison must be made more equal for determination of contracting out. Some DOD organizations have used these handicaps to their advantage in determining the cost comparison outcome. In addition to opening the door for more competition, the competitions must be conducted on an apples to apples basis. 61 S.REP. No. 331, 99th Cong., 2d Sess. 278, reprinted in 1986 U.S. U.S.CODE CONG. & ADMIN.NEWS 6413, 6472. Thus the legislative history shows that the provision for a realistic and fair cost comparison was designed to protect the integrity of the contracting out process by resolving handicaps against government contractors--the apparent intended beneficiaries of section 1223(b). 62 Obedient to the teachings of Clarke, we must determine whether the interests of the in-house employees are only marginally related to or inconsistent with the purpose of the statute. See Clarke, 479 U.S. at 399, 107 S.Ct. at 757. As discussed above, appellants' real interest in a decision to contract out is the protection of the jobs of their members. Private contractors competing to perform the same services that appellants' members now perform are the central threat to these government union members' jobs. The interests of the in-house federal employees are therefore antithetical to the interests of the private contractors because federal employees present an 'either-or' situation in relation to private contractors. American Federation of Government Employees, Local 1668 v. Dunn, 561 F.2d 1310, 1313 (9th Cir.1977) (federal employees lack standing to contest a contracting out of an Air Force food service facility). Thus appellants' interest is inconsistent with the purpose of the section 1223(b) which provides for contracting out where that is the most cost-efficient alternative. It follows that appellants' interests are not within the zone of interests of the Authorization Act of 1987. 63 As we noted in footnote 22, supra, the dissent correctly points out our holding in HWTC that [i]n the absence of apparent congressional intent to benefit, however, there may still be standing if some factor--some indicator that plaintiff is a peculiarly suitable challenger of administrative neglect--supports an inference that Congress would have intended eligibility. 861 F.2d at 283. In the present case the dissent would find that factor in the absence of another potential plaintiff. Dissent at p. 1058. Assuming--and it is only an assumption 26 --that there is no other potential plaintiff, this is simply not the sort of factor necessary to confer standing. Indeed, the Supreme Court teaching is directly to the contrary. The assumption that if respondents have no standing to sue, no one would have standing, is not a reason to find standing. Schlesinger v. Reservist Comm. to Stop the War, 418 U.S. at 227, 94 S.Ct. at 2935 (citing United States v. Richardson, 418 U.S. at 179, 94 S.Ct. at 2947-48). 64 In Schlesinger, the Supreme Court actually indicated that the absence of other plaintiffs is not a relevant factor, rejecting the District Court's observation that it was not irrelevant that if respondents could not obtain judicial review of petitioners' action, 'then as a practical matter no one can.'  418 U.S. at 227, 94 S.Ct. at 2935. The Supreme Court went on to state [o]ur system of government leaves many crucial decisions to the political processes. Id. 65 Arguably, the discussion in Schlesinger occurred in the context of determining Article III rather than zone of interest standing, 27 but logically the same analysis applies in the zone of interest context of the present case. Indeed, we cited and relied on the Schlesinger analysis in our zone of interest decision in Haitian Refugee Center, 809 F.2d at 813, and HWTC, in turn, cites and relies on the relevant portion of Haitian Refugee Center, 861 F.2d at 283. The reasoning is equally applicable here. The interests of appellants in lawful and economic conduct of the contracting-out process is no more distinguishable from the interest of the citizenry-at-large than was the interest of the Reservist Committee in Schlesinger in preventing members of Congress from holding Reserve military commissions. Insofar as appellants assert an interest different from the citizenry-at-large, that interest--the protection of government employees whose job opportunities would be impaired because of contracting out--is close to the very bureaucratic interest, in expansion of government, that Congress sought to restrain in all of these statutes. 28 Congress has indicated no intention to rely on the bureaucracy as a plaintiff class, and, indeed, all evidence is to the contrary. The bureaucratic interest functions internally, as it did in this case in the extensive review conducted by the Evaluation Board, the Administrative Appeals Review Board, and the General Accounting Office. See supra, pp. 1040-41. 66 In this connection, we note that the dissent turns the intent to rely analysis on its head, stating that the federal employees, and therefore the Union plaintiff here, do have standing unless the statutes or their legislative histories reveal a congressional intent to preclude reliance on this particular class of plaintiffs. Dissent at 1058. But Supreme Court precedent requires an affirmative not a negative test: the essential inquiry is whether Congress 'intended for [a particular] class [of plaintiffs] to be relied upon to challenge agency disregard of the law.'  Clarke, 479 U.S. at 399, 107 S.Ct. at 757 (quoting Block, 467 U.S. at 347, 104 S.Ct. at 2454) (other citation omitted). Nothing in Clarke or any other authority cited by the dissent or the parties suggests that the assumed unavailability of other plaintiffs is any more relevant to the intent of Congress in the present context than it was to the determination of the lack of citizen standing in Schlesinger. 67