Opinion ID: 186689
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: DHS's Attempt to Regulate FLRA

Text: 152 The Government appeals the District Court's finding that DHS exceeded its statutory authority by assigning new protocols to FLRA. The District Court was convinced that [DHS] cannot commandeer the resources of an independent agency and thereby fundamentally transform its functions, absent a clearer indication of congressional intent. Chertoff I, 385 F.Supp.2d at 32. We agree. 153 As explained above, the Final Rule quite clearly intends to impose a novel procedural scheme on FLRA, even though nothing in the HSA authorizes DHS to regulate the work of the Authority or alter its statutory jurisdiction. The Authority is an independent agency operating pursuant to its organic statute under Chapter 71. See 5 U.S.C. § 7104 (2000). Chapter 71 prescribes FLRA's functions and authority. The Authority is empowered to make a host of determinations related to labor negotiations and disputes, including resolv[ing] issues relating to the duty to bargain in good faith, conduct[ing] hearings and resolv[ing] complaints of unfair labor practices, and resolv[ing] exceptions to arbitrator's awards under Chapter 71. Id. § 7105(a)(2)(E) & (G)-(H). DHS's Final Rule attempts to conscript FLRA into reviewing a narrowly defined area of cases under an intensely deferential standard of review. See 5 C.F.R. § 9701.508(h) (2006). Whereas FLRA's statutory function involves the exercise of judgment and significant authority, the Final Rule shrinks the Authority's role, using it only to guard against substantial adjudicative failures by HSLRB. Indeed, under the Final Rule, FLRA's role with respect to any matter relating to a DHS employee would evaporate if HSLRB determines that the matter affects homeland security. Id. § 9701.509(a)(7); see also id. § 9701.510(b). The role of FLRA under the HR system bears no resemblance to its normal statutory role, and conforming to the regulations would therefore require FLRA to substantially change its operating functions. 154 The Government fruitlessly searches 5 U.S.C. § 9701 for the authority necessary to rearrange FLRA's operations. To justify its purported exercise of authority over FLRA, the Government relies, first, on § 9701(a)'s mandate to establish a new human resources scheme notwithstanding any other provision of this part. But this language does not justify DHS's attempt to regulate FLRA, because the cited provision applies only to regulations relating to a human resources management system for some or all of the organizational units of the Department of Homeland Security. 5 U.S.C. § 9701(a) (Supp. II 2002). FLRA, quite obviously, is not an organizational unit of DHS. Consequently, the notwithstanding clause is not relevant. The notwithstanding clause does nothing more than establish DHS's freedom to design its own internal human resources scheme. It does not serve as a license for DHS to draft an independent agency to do its bidding pursuant to terms prescribed by the Department. 155 The Department's second defense of its intrusion into FLRA's internal operations is similarly farfetched. Citing the enumeration of certain non-waivable provisions of law, DHS urges us to draw a sweeping negative implication, claiming authority to modify any unenumerated legal provision. We refuse to negatively infer, from a restriction of authority, a broad grant of power that would authorize DHS to prescribe procedures for independent agencies. See Ry. Labor Executives' Ass'n v. Nat'l Mediation Bd., 29 F.3d 655, 671 (D.C.Cir.1994) (en banc) (Were courts to presume a delegation of power absent an express withholding of such power, agencies would enjoy virtually limitless hegemony, a result plainly out of keeping with Chevron and quite likely with the Constitution as well.). Extended to its logical limit, the Government's interpretation of the statute would allow the Department to overtake any agency to achieve its own ends—indeed, it could even claim to revise the standards of review in federal courts. Such a sweeping grant of authority exists nowhere in the HSA.