Opinion ID: 743054
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: challenge to individual distributions

Text: 28 Plaintiffs' second complaint challenged DOE's distribution of funds received from a settlement for overcharges by Occidental Petroleum. In this complaint plaintiffs requested that the district court order DOE to reallocate the 40% payable to the federal government to the claimants' pool thereby bringing their pool's share up to 60%, i.e., 20%+40%=60%. Their basis for this claim was that even this increased amount was less than plaintiffs would have been entitled to had the Government not settled a potential $1.1 billion claim for a mere $275 million. Plaintiffs cite Mullins v. Department of Energy, 50 F.3d 990 (Fed.Cir.1995) for support, on the theory that since we reached the merits of the claim, we must have implicitly decided that there was standing to challenge the allocation under § 209. 29 We agree with plaintiffs that Mullins decides the fate of this complaint. We disagree, however, as to what that fate is. In Mullins this court reviewed a challenge by several gasoline station owners to a final consent order between DOE and Texaco for alleged overcharges. Texaco's liability was estimated to be in the billions of dollars. Id. at 991. The final settlement, however, set Texaco's liability at $1.2 billion. The settlement fund was to be allocated between two funds: one for restitution for violations regarding sales of crude oil, the other for restitution for violations regarding sales of refined products. Despite an initial estimate that attributed 84% of the overcharges due to crude oil sales and 16% due to the sale of refined products, the final allocation reserved 90% for the crude oil fund and 10% for the refined fund. Plaintiffs in that case challenged this allocation as inequitable and not supported by substantial evidence. Id. at 992. This court held that this allocation is effectively unreviewable on appeal, [m]uch like the decisions of prosecutors regarding who to prosecute and who not. Id. at 993. 30 The same is true in this case. Plaintiffs are challenging the settlement as well as the allocation between various funds of moneys received from an individual violator. This they cannot do under Mullins; the decision regarding the amount to settle for in a given case, in the absence of fraud or collusion, is a decision within the discretion of DOE. Id. As such it is non-justiciable. See Murphy v. United States, 993 F.2d 871, 873 (Fed.Cir.1993) (We have emphasized that judicial review is only appropriate where the Secretary's discretion is limited, and Congress has established 'tests and standards' against which the court can measure his conduct. Unless such a test or standard is provided, courts must abstain. (internal citations omitted)); Voge v. United States, 844 F.2d 776, 780 (Fed.Cir.1988). Accordingly, we affirm the district court's judgment with respect to No. 96-CV-225. 31 In sum, the district court dismissed plaintiffs' complaints for lack of standing. Rather than resting our decision on standing we conclude that, with regard to the 20 % cap, plaintiffs have failed to assert a claim upon which relief can be granted because private claimants have no express or implied cause of action under Section 209 of the ESA or under the PODRA. Plaintiffs' challenge to the distribution of funds received as a result of individual settlements likewise fails because this is a matter committed to the discretion of the agency.