Opinion ID: 380737
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The Adequacy of the Secretary's Submission.

Text: 41 Our opinion in Hispanic I made clear that the timetable of 29 U.S.C. § 655(b) (1)-(4) is not mandatory. But it also made clear that El Congreso was entitled to some timetable for the development of a field sanitation standard. Where the Secretary deems a problem significant enough to warrant initiation of the standard setting process, the Act requires that he have a plan to shepherd through the development of the standard that he take pains, regardless of the press of other priorities, to ensure that the standard is not inadvertently lost in the process. 42 It is not enough for the Secretary merely to state that the standard will not be issued over the next 18 months. If other priorities preclude promulgation of a field sanitation standard within that frame, then the Secretary must provide a timetable at least for the standard in question which covers a larger period. 43 Upon remand to the district court, the Secretary should be granted leeway to reconsider the timetable submitted on January 22, 1979, since it was developed without input from the official charged with responsibility for this area. In constructing the timetable, the Secretary need not be constrained, as he would have been under the district court order, to rearrange priorities that were rationally set. But, the Secretary must give due regard to the principle, presumed in the timetable of 29 U.S.C. § 655(b)(1)-(4) and developed here, that once the process of developing a standard begins, a good faith effort must be made to complete it. 44 It is for the district court to review the timetable submitted not with regard to the Secretary's setting of priorities, which we have held in this instance to be a rational exercise of his discretionary powers, but with regard to the narrower concerns we have just delineated.