Opinion ID: 390180
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 9

Heading: lia's motion to supplement the administrative record

Text: 131 In addition to reviewing petitioners' substantive and procedural challenges to the air quality standards for lead promulgated by EPA, we are also asked to rule on a motion filed by petitioner LIA for leave to supplement the index to the administrative record compiled by the Agency. LIA seeks to include in the record 38 documents 37 of them internal EPA memoranda and the other a letter from a third party which it claims bear directly on the questions of the fairness and rationality of the Agency's decisionmaking process and procedures. 156 The motion raises an issue of first impression concerning the proper scope of an administrative record assembled under Section 307(d) of the Act. 132 For many years courts reviewing agency decisions have struggled with the problem of large and unwieldly administrative records, particularly in reviewing informal rulemaking. More often than not the agencies did not begin to assemble the administrative record until after the regulations were challenged, with the result that courts were forced to review historical records consisting of after-the-fact attempts to reconstruct the agency's decisionmaking process. A major defect of this approach was that the court was often unable to determine which of the large number of documents that were dumped into the record played a significant role in the agency's decision. Moreover, the agency could attempt to shore up inadequately justified positions by adding post hoc rationalizations to the record. Finally, participants in the rulemaking were not afforded an opportunity to comment on the materials that the agency considered relevant to the decision. In 1975 an EPA attorney published an article detailing these and other shortcomings of the historical approach to compiling the record. Pederson, Formal Records and Informal Rulemaking, 85 Yale L.J. 38 (1975). He recommended that this approach be replaced by a procedural approach to recordmaking, whereby the agency would compile the record as the rulemaking progressed and the record would be closed when the final rule was promulgated. This record would then be the exclusive record for the agency's decision and judicial review. Id. at 78-82. Congress, in enacting Section 307(d), adopted these recommendations, 157 and required EPA to include in the record all data, information, and documents on which the rule relies. 158 In this case EPA compiled a record in the manner required by the statute, and certified the index to the record. 133 After the final standards were promulgated LIA filed a request under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), 5 U.S.C. § 552 (1976), for all documents in EPA's possession relating to the lead standards. After reviewing the documents it received, LIA concluded that it wished to include 38 documents in the administrative record, and it filed a request with EPA to this end. EPA denied the request, and thereafter LIA filed the instant motion. The documents involved can be divided into three groups. The first group, Nos. 6, 9, 12, 15, 21-26, 33-38 (the Hawkins documents) are all supposed to show the role played by EPA Assistant Administrator Hawkins in the lead standards rulemaking. LIA argues that they are relevant to its claim that Hawkins should have been disqualified from participating in the rulemaking. The second set of documents, Nos. 8, 16-20, 30-33 (the economic evaluation documents), discuss the economic effects of the proposed standards. LIA contends that these documents show that EPA examined the economic impact of the lead standards, and it maintains that they should be included in the record because they are relevant to its arguments concerning the economic effects of the standards on the lead industry. The third set of documents, Nos. 1-5, 7, 10, 11, 13, 14, 27-29 (the staff opinions) are intra-agency memoranda 159 which LIA claims bear directly on the questions of the fairness and rationality of the Agency's decisionmaking process. 134 LIA rightly points out that the legislative history of Section 307(d) cautions the Agency against attempting to create a one-sided record by excluding from it material unfavorable to the Agency's position. H.R.Rep.No.95-294, supra, at 319-320. And it notes, again correctly, that the legislative history acknowledges that parties have used the FOIA as an informal discovery device in rulemaking proceedings. Id. at 320. LIA then argues that its attempt to supplement the record with documents uncovered through a FOIA request is precisely what Congress intended should happen. 135 LIA's reasoning is correct, so far as it goes, but it does not go far enough. Its FOIA request was not filed until after the final rule was promulgated, and by this time the record was closed. Nothing in the statute or its legislative history indicates that a party or the agency may reopen the record by placing additional materials (other than those required by the statute and wrongfully omitted by EPA) in the docket after promulgation of the rule. See American Petroleum Institute v. Costle, 609 F.2d 20, 22-23 (D.C.Cir.1979). The passage in the legislative history of Section 307(d) on which LIA relies merely directs EPA to coordinate its procedures for dealing with FOIA requests with the recordmaking provisions of the statute. H.R.Rep.No.95-294, supra, at 320. And it suggests that LIA should have filed its FOIA request during the interval between publication of the proposed and the final rules. Not having done so, it cannot now attempt to supplement the administrative record on appeal. Section 307(d)(7)(A), 42 U.S.C. § 7607(d)(7)(A). 160 136 The Hawkins documents may, however present a special case. Since LIA claims that it only became aware of the grounds for Hawkins' disqualification after the final regulations were promulgated, it obviously could not have filed a FOIA request for these documents before then. EPA agrees with LIA that these documents should be before the court, and it proposed a solution whereby these documents would be lodged with the court as part of a supplemental court record, separate from the administrative record. In this manner the documents would be available to the court in passing on the issue of Hawkins' disqualification, and at the same time the recordmaking scheme established by the Act would be preserved. LIA has no objection to this proposal. Although we see no need for creating a separate record, we agree that the Hawkins documents are properly before the court for the sole purpose of ruling on LIA's challenge to Hawkins' participation in the rulemaking proceedings. 161 Accordingly, we affirm EPA's decision to exclude all 38 documents from the administrative record and, in addition, direct that Documents 6, 9, 12, 15, 21-26, 33-38 (the Hawkins documents) be lodged with the court. 162