Opinion ID: 678781
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Does the Board of Review Exercise Federal Power?

Text: 41 In order to determine the nature of the power exercised by the new Board, it is necessary to understand the practical consequences of its ability to delay actions that are contemplated by the Authority. Under the Transfer Act, the Board has the longer of 30 days or 10 legislative days within which to review certain actions proposed by the Directors. 49 U.S.C.App. Sec. 2456(f)(4)(C); see also id. Sec. 2456(f)(4)(B) (listing actions). The Board may let the proposal go into effect by allowing the waiting period to lapse, may decide[ ] it will not make a recommendation on an action (thereby allowing it to go into effect immediately), or may make recommendations regarding the action, including one that it not take effect. Id. Sec. 2456(f)(4)(C). If recommendations are made and the Directors adopt them, the proposal may go into effect immediately, id. Sec. 2456(f)(4)(D)(i); if the recommendations are not adopted, they must be transmitted, along with a detailed description of the action ... and the evaluation and response of the board of directors to [the Board of Review's] recommendation[s], to Congress for a 60-legislative-day review period. Id. Sec. 2456(f)(4)(D)(ii). 42 The Authority argues that because the Board has lost its right of veto and may only make recommendations, it has been stripped of power and serves solely in an advisory capacity. Yet the Board's loss of its veto power does not necessarily mean that it has lost the effective control over the Authority that the Supreme Court found to be an unconstitutional exercise of federal power. See CAAN, 501 U.S. at 268-70, 275-77, 111 S.Ct. at 2308, 2312. We must therefore examine the potential impact of the Board's remaining authority on the Directors' decisionmaking. To this end, we examine the various ways in which the Board is able to affect the substance of the Authority's actions. 43 First, the Board may request the Authority to consider and vote, or to report, on any matter related to the two airports; and the Authority must do so as promptly as feasible. Id. Sec. 2456(f)(6). The Board thus has the ability to force any issue it wishes onto the Authority's agenda for priority consideration. 44 Second, members of the Board may participate as non-voting members in meetings of the Directors. Id. Sec. 2456(f)(7). To paraphrase our comment in Federal Election Comm'n v. NRA Political Victory Fund, 6 F.3d 821 (D.C.Cir.1993), cert. granted, --- U.S. ----, 114 S.Ct. 2703, 129 L.Ed.2d 832 (June 20, 1994), in which we invalidated an arrangement whereby Congress appointed two of its agents as non-voting ex officio members of the Federal Election Commission, we cannot conceive why Congress would wish [members of the Board of Review to participate in meetings of the Directors] if not to exercise some influence. See id. at 826 (emphasis in original). Even if the members were to remain completely silent during all deliberations (a rather unlikely scenario), their mere presence as agents of Congress [would] convey [ ] a tacit message to the [Directors]. Id. at 826. We held, in that case, that the mere presence of agents of Congress on an entity with executive powers offends the Constitution. Id. at 827. Although members of the Board may not vote at meetings of the Directors, they may attend them; they may place items on the agenda for the Directors' priority consideration; and they are free to express their views on proposed actions before the Directors have made the formal decisions that must then be submitted to the Board for its consideration. This arrangement raises the same concerns that underpinned our decision in NRA Political Victory Fund: Advice ... surely implies influence, and Congress must limit the exercise of its influence, whether in the form of advice or not, to its legislative role. Id. 45 Finally, and most significantly, the Board has the discretion to accelerate the implementation of a Directors' decision by promptly approving it or consigning it to the delays and uncertainties of a congressional review. The Authority argues that the Transfer Act's review requirements are nothing more than variations on legitimate report-and-wait provisions to be found in other statutes. These typically require that a federal agency's proposed actions be referred to Congress for a period that is long enough to permit them to be studied and, if found wanting, to allow for the passage of a joint resolution of disapproval. See, e.g., Sibbach v. Wilson & Co., Inc., 312 U.S. 1, 15, 61 S.Ct. 422, 427, 85 L.Ed. 479 (1941) (report-and-wait provision allowing Congress to review the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure and veto their going into effect if contrary to the policy of the legislature); Alaska Airlines, Inc. v. Brock, 480 U.S. 678, 689-90, 107 S.Ct. 1476, 1482-83, 94 L.Ed.2d 661 (1987) (provision requiring Secretary of Labor to refer certain proposed regulations to transportation committees of both Houses of Congress). 46 Hechinger concedes that Congress could have constitutionally required that all the Directors' proposed actions be submitted to Congress for a period of review before taking effect. But Congress has vested the Board with a substantive role that distinguishes this case from the report-and-wait cases on which the Authority relies. The provisions in those cases require automatic referral of particular decisions to Congress; thus their effect on the referring party's decisionmaking is neutral. Here, by contrast, the Board has the ability to decide whether action taken by the Directors will be allowed to take immediate effect or be subjected to a 60-statutory-day congressional review. It is this discretion that provides the Board its leverage. 47 The Authority nevertheless sees an analogy between the Board's power to delay the effective date of Authority actions and that of the Comptroller General to stay the award of contracts under the Competition in Contracting Act of 1984, 31 U.S.C. Secs. 3551-3556 (1988) (CICA), which two circuit courts have upheld. See Ameron, Inc. v. United States Army Corps of Eng'rs, 809 F.2d 979 (3d Cir.1986); Lear Siegler, Inc., Energy Prods. Div. v. Lehman, 842 F.2d 1102 (1988), irrelevant portion withdrawn en banc, 893 F.2d 205 (9th Cir.1989). CICA authorizes the Comptroller General to investigate complaints that a federal agency has solicited bids or awarded a contract in violation of the law. If the Comptroller General notifies an agency that a rejected bidder has filed a protest, the award of the contract is automatically stayed pending an investigation of the disputed bidder's charges. 31 U.S.C. Sec. 3553(c)(1). The Comptroller General may take up to 90 working days to conduct the investigation but may dismiss the protest before they have expired (thereby lifting the stay) if he finds it to be frivolous or facially invalid. Id. Sec. 3554(a)(1), (3). On the other hand, the stay may be overridden by 48 [t]he head of the procuring activity responsible for award of a contract ... upon a written finding ... that urgent and compelling circumstances that significantly affect interests of the United States will not permit waiting for the decision of the Comptroller General.... 49 Id. Sec. 3553(d)(2)(A)(ii). If the Comptroller General finds a breach of the laws governing the solicitation or award of government contracts, he must make appropriate recommendations to the agency, id. Sec. 3554(b)(1); and if these are not implemented, he must record the pertinent information in a report he is required to submit to Congress on an annual basis. Id. Sec. 3554(e)(2). 50 In Ameron, the Third Circuit concluded that the Comptroller General's ability to shorten the 90-day stay provision might well cause procurement officials to exercise their discretion in ways which are not required by the procurement laws, and which they would not otherwise have chosen, in order to minimize conflict with the Comptroller General. It found, however, that any potential disruption of the executive function [was] minimal. Ameron, 809 F.2d at 997. The Ninth Circuit's analysis was similar: 51 [T]he proper inquiry is not whether a legislative agent can temporarily bind or directly affect parties outside the legislative branch, but rather whether the legislative agent exercises control or ultimate authority in the disposition of a particular issue. It is clear that the stay provisions do not establish such control. As noted above, the stay is temporary, usually 90 working days or less. Because the recommendations of the Comptroller General are non-binding, the stay cannot be used to coerce the procuring agency to make a particular final disposition; rather the stay provisions force nothing more than a dialogue between the procuring agency and the legislature. 52 Lear, 842 F.2d at 1110 (emphasis in original). The Ninth Circuit stressed that the imposition of a stay was initiated by a bid protester, not the Comptroller General, and that the Comptroller General may only consider the length of time necessary to decide the bid protest in varying the length of the stay and is not authorized to consider the importance or wisdom of the purchase decision. Id. at 1111; see also Ameron, 809 F.2d at 997. 53 The authority wielded by the Board under the Transfer Act is significantly greater than that of the Comptroller General under CICA. Unlike CICA, the amended Act does not condition the Board's review authority on third-party complaints; rather, it authorizes the Board to review particular issues considered by the Authority. Second, and more important, the Act does not allow the Authority to override the Board, a safeguard that both Lear and Ameron viewed as vital in concluding that the stay provisions did not vest the Comptroller General with power over persons outside the legislative branch. Lear, 842 F.2d at 1111 (Were the Comptroller General thus able to stay a procurement contract indefinitely, a serious issue of his control over procurement would be raised ... [However, the override] provision lodges ultimate authority over the timing of the contracts with the executive branch and obviates the problem of an indefinite stay.); Ameron, 809 F.2d at 997 (If the Comptroller General really does require so much time to decide the protest that the stay interferes with important executive interests, CICA authorizes the executive to override the stay.) (footnote omitted). 54 By contrast, the Directors' inability to override the Board and forestall congressional review is a serious hindrance to the Authority, because many of the decisions subject to review, such as the adoption of budgets, the letting of contracts, and the issuance of bonds, are time-sensitive. Major airports are complex operations, especially when, as here, significant capital improvement programs are in progress. Any delay in the adoption of an annual budget and any suspension of the authority to let contracts or issue bonds can result in millions of dollars of additional costs and can adversely affect the public safety. See Affidavit of James A. Wilding, General Manager of the Authority (Feb. 14, 1994) at 4, 7-9 (supporting Authority's motion for stay of district court's order). The pressure to avoid such costly interruptions by accommodating the Board is self-evident. 55 The Authority acknowledges that the Board is in a position to influence the Directors, but it maintains that the ways in which the Board may affect their decisions are indistinguishable from those by which Congress is able to advise, coordinate, and even directly influence an executive agency ... through oversight hearings, appropriation and authorization legislation, or direct communication with the [agency]. NRA Political Victory Fund, 6 F.3d at 827. There can be no question that Congress is able to exercise enormous influence over agency decisions in these and other constitutionally permissible ways. But there is a qualitative difference between these channels for congressional influence and the structural relationship between Board and Authority that the Transfer Act has established--the difference between persuasion and coercion. 56 In CAAN, the Court quoted James Madison on the potential that always exists, in democratic societies, for the abuse of legislative power: 57 It will not be denied, that power is of an encroaching nature, and that it ought to be effectually restrained from passing the limits assigned to it. 58