Opinion ID: 446520
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: motion for a limited remand

Text: 111 Petitioner State Farm has filed what it terms a Motion in the Alternative for a Limited Remand Pursuant to 15 U.S.C. § 1913(b). 23 Petitioner requests that, if we find (as we have done) that the 2.5 mph standard should not be overturned, we remand the case to NHTSA to consider evidence which has surfaced since the conclusion of the rulemaking proceeding, demonstrating that NHTSA vastly underestimated the increase in insurance repair and overhead costs resulting from a change to a 2.5 mph bumper standard and did not correctly consider the effects on safety of side marker lamps. 24 Assuming that this evidence is material and that there were reasonable grounds for failure to adduce it in the agency proceeding, we nonetheless decline to grant a remand. 112 Section 1913(b) provides that, if the two conditions noted above are satisfied, this court may order such additional evidence ... to be taken before the Secretary .... (Emphasis added.) This is not an appropriate case in which to exercise that discretion, since a remand would simply produce judicial interference in an ongoing agency review. Federal bumper standards have been subject to review, revision, and proposed revision from the moment they were first promulgated, and the process will not end with this decision. NHTSA has indicated in its denial of petitions for reconsideration that if petitioners submit their data, the agency will consider them as part of its ongoing review of the Bumper Standard. 47 Fed.Reg. 56,650. Indeed, one of the effects of the new rule will be to generate real-world data on the effects of a 2.5 mph standard for use in future proceedings. 47 Fed.Reg. 21,827. Since nothing prevents petitioners from submitting their new evidence to the agency as part of the continuing review process, [243 U.S.App.D.C. 151] a remand at this juncture would be ill-timed and ill-considered. 113 Other factors potentially relevant to disposition of motions such as this one similarly militate against remand: the length of the rulemaking process that would be reopened and the cost to the public of delay in implementation of the rule. See American Optometric Ass'n v. FTC, 626 F.2d 896, 907 (D.C.Cir.1980). 114