Opinion ID: 186575
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: UMA's Arguments

Text: 39 Petitioner UMA, in addition to endorsing the broad criticisms of the final rule, argues that the agency acted arbitrarily and capriciously in issuing a rule that applied uniformly to the trucking and motor coach industries. According to UMA, evidence that the motor coach industry has a superior safety record, coupled with the motor coach industry's economic vulnerability, makes uniform treatment unfair and irrational.
40 FMCSA maintains that three of UMA's arguments — (1) that the industry should be given an opportunity to work with the agency to develop a better training program, (2) that insurance carriers might require training of all drivers rather than just entry-level drivers, and (3) that motor coach operators will be exposed to liability — are waived because they were not raised before the agency prior to the promulgation of the final rule. UMA responds that, in light of Sims v. Apfel, 530 U.S. 103, 120 S.Ct. 2080, 147 L.Ed.2d 80 (2000), there can be no waiver. 41 The agency correctly asserts that, as a general proposition, the applicable case law emphasizes the need for parties seeking judicial review of agency action to raise their issues before the agency during the administrative process in order to preserve those issues for judicial review. See, e.g., United States v. L.A. Tucker Truck Lines, Inc., 344 U.S. 33, 37, 73 S.Ct. 67, 97 L.Ed. 54 (1952) (Simple fairness to those who are engaged in the tasks of administration, and to litigants, requires as a general rule that courts should not topple over administrative decisions unless the administrative body not only has erred but has erred against objection made at the time appropriate under its practice.). However, Sims indicates that this administrative-waiver doctrine does not represent an ironclad rule. And, as a general matter, a party's presentation of issues during a rulemaking proceeding is not a jurisdictional prerequisite to judicial review. See Avocados Plus Inc. v. Veneman, 370 F.3d 1243, 1248 (D.C.Cir. 2004) (Courts presume exhaustion is non-jurisdictional unless `Congress states in clear, unequivocal terms that the judiciary is barred from hearing an action until the administrative agency has come to a decision.') (quoting I.A.M. Nat'l Pension Fund Benefit Plan C v. Stockton Tri Indus., 727 F.2d 1204, 1208 (D.C.Cir. 1984)) (emphasis added). 42 UMA relies on Sims to argue that it is inappropriate to apply the general principles of issue waiver to administrative rulemaking. Sims involved a Social Security claimant who was denied disability benefits and then requested that the Social Security Appeals Council (Council) review her claims. Sims, 530 U.S. at 105, 120 S.Ct. 2080. After the Council denied review, Sims filed suit in federal district court. She lost and, on appeal, the Fifth Circuit held that two of the three arguments she pressed were not reviewable on the merits, because she had not raised them before the Council. Id. at 106, 120 S.Ct. 2080. The Supreme Court reversed. The Court began its analysis by noting that requirements of administrative issue exhaustion are largely creatures of statute, and that most of the Court's cases refusing to consider arguments initiated in litigation involved specific statutory directives. Id. at 107-08, 120 S.Ct. 2080. The Court noted that when neither statute nor regulation required issue exhaustion, the Court has occasionally imposed its own exhaustion hurdle. But in those cases, the administrative context was critical: The basis for a judicially imposed issue-exhaustion requirement is an analogy to the rule that appellate courts will not consider arguments not raised before trial courts. Id. at 108-09, 120 S.Ct. 2080. The application of issue exhaustion depends on the degree to which the analogy to normal adversarial litigation applies in a particular administrative proceeding. Id. at 109, 120 S.Ct. 2080. Where the parties must present and develop issues, the adjudicative model is apt and issue exhaustion is appropriate. Where, by contrast, an administrative proceeding is not adversarial, ... the reasons for a court to require exhaustion are much weaker. Id. at 110, 120 S.Ct. 2080. A four-justice plurality in Sims pointed out that Social Security proceedings are inquisitorial rather than adversarial, that they are highly informal, and that many claimants are not represented by attorneys, thus making issue exhaustion inapposite. Id. at 110-12, 120 S.Ct. 2080. 43 UMA contends that, in light of the Court's holding in Sims, FMCSA's waiver argument is misplaced. Pet'r Reply Br. at 21 (Rulemakings are classic examples of non-adversarial administrative proceedings.). This argument is not unreasonable, because there appears to be no statute or regulation compelling exhaustion in advance of judicial review, and no argument has been made analogizing the agency's rulemaking to adjudication. 44 The difficulty that UMA faces, however, is that the case law post-dating Sims gives little support to its position. For example, in Appalachian Power Co. v. EPA, 251 F.3d 1026 (D.C.Cir. 2001), the court considered a host of challenges to an Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) emissions regulation. The court noted: It is black-letter administrative law that `[a]bsent special circumstances, a party must initially present its comments to the agency during the rulemaking in order for the court to consider the issue.' Id. at 1036 (quoting Tex Tin Corp. v. EPA, 935 F.2d 1321, 1323 (D.C.Cir. 1991)) (alterations in Appalachian Power ). Similarly, in National Wildlife Federation v. EPA, 286 F.3d 554 (D.C.Cir. 2002) (per curiam), the court upheld a final rule regulating the bleaching process used by paper mills. Among the many challenges brought by the petitioner and rejected by the court was one that neither [petitioner] nor any other party before the agency raised ... during the administrative phase of the rulemaking process. Id. at 562. Citing the well established principle that issues not raised before the agency are waived and this Court will not consider them, the court refused to transgress the near absolute bar against raising new issues — factual or legal — on appeal in the administrative context. Id. 45 Neither Appalachian Power nor National Wildlife Federation mentions Sims or seeks to determine whether the rulemaking proceedings in those cases were analogous to adversarial litigation. Sims was addressed, however, in National Mining Ass'n v. Department of Labor, 292 F.3d 849 (D.C.Cir. 2002). There the court declined to consider a challenge to the Department of Labor's regulations under the Black Lung Benefit Act, because the petitioner failed to raise it during the notice-and-comment period. Id. at 874 (citing Nat'l Wildlife Fed'n, 286 F.3d at 562). The court found Sims inapplicable, for it addresses issue exhaustion, not issue waiver. Id. 46 The distinction between issue exhaustion and issue waiver is illusive, to say the least. Indeed, both terms appear in the case law without apparent distinction, and they are sometimes treated as if synonymous. Compare Nuclear Energy Inst., Inc. v. EPA, 373 F.3d 1251, 1297 (D.C.Cir. 2004) (per curiam) (It is a hard and fast rule of administrative law, rooted in simple fairness, that issues not raised before an agency are waived and will not be considered by a court on review.) (citing L.A. Tucker Truck Lines, 344 U.S. at 37, 73 S.Ct. 67), with Petroleum Commc'ns, Inc. v. FCC, 22 F.3d 1164, 1169 (D.C.Cir. 1994) (discussing the judicially-created requirement of exhaustion, which holds that `courts should not topple over administrative decisions unless the administrative body not only has erred but has erred against objection made at the time appropriate under its practice.') (quoting L.A. Tucker Truck Lines, 344 U.S. at 37, 73 S.Ct. 67). At least one of our sister circuits has explicitly recognized the interchangeability of the two terms. See Coal. for Gov't Procurement v. Fed. Prison Indus., Inc., 365 F.3d 435, 461-62 (6th Cir. 2004) (The administrative waiver doctrine, commonly referred to as issue exhaustion, provides that it is inappropriate for courts reviewing agency decisions to consider arguments not raised before the administrative agency involved.). Indeed, in Sims itself, the Court stated the question presented in terms of waiver. Sims, 530 U.S. at 105, 120 S.Ct. 2080 (The question is whether a claimant pursuing judicial review has waived any issues that he did not include in that request.) (emphasis added); see also id. at 115, 120 S.Ct. 2080 (No one claims that any established exception to this ordinary `exhaustion' or `waiver' rule applies.) (Breyer, J., dissenting). 47 The obvious point of the court's judgment in National Mining Ass'n is that a party will normally forfeit an opportunity to challenge an agency rulemaking on a ground that was not first presented to the agency for its initial consideration. There are two reasons for this. First, the courts are not authorized to second-guess agency rulemaking decisions; rather, the role of the court is to determine whether the agency's decision is arbitrary and capricious for want of reasoned decisionmaking. See State Farm, 463 U.S. at 43, 103 S.Ct. 2856 (The scope of review under the `arbitrary and capricious' standard is narrow and a court is not to substitute its judgment for that of the agency.). Therefore, it is unsurprising that parties rarely are allowed to seek review of a substantive claim that has never even been presented to the agency for its consideration. Second, as noted above, [s]imple fairness... requires as a general rule that courts should not topple over administrative decisions unless the administrative body... has erred against objection made at the time appropriate under its practice. L.A. Tucker Truck Lines, 344 U.S. at 37, 73 S.Ct. 67. 48 The bottom line here is that, no matter how we characterize the result, UMA forfeited the opportunity to seek judicial review of its claims that the industry should be given an opportunity to work with the agency to develop a better training program, that insurance carriers might require training of all drivers rather than just entry-level drivers, and that motor coach operators will be exposed to liability. Because UMA did not raise these contentions during the rulemaking, and because they are not the kind of clear points that an agency must consider sua sponte, see State Farm, 463 U.S. at 51, 103 S.Ct. 2856 (a rulemaking cannot be found wanting simply because an agency fails to address every alternative `thought conceivable by the mind of man') (quoting Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Corp. v. Natural Res. Defense Council, Inc., 435 U.S. 519, 551, 98 S.Ct. 1197, 55 L.Ed.2d 460 (1978)), the FMCSA did not act arbitrarily or capriciously in failing to consider these claims.
49 Four arguments that UMA raised during the rulemaking process and pursued on appeal remain before this court. However, none of these arguments have merit. First, UMA insists that its superior safety record warranted exempting the industry from the final rule. Second, petitioner accuses the agency of arbitrarily ignoring UMA's pleas to integrate the four areas of training identified by the final rule into the CDL curriculum. Third, UMA contends that because the industry lacked specialized training schools, it would suffer a disproportionate cost in complying with the final rule. Fourth, UMA objected to the agency aggregating the estimated crash costs derived from all of the regulated industries. Since the motor coach industry has a superior accident record and contributes less to overall accident-related costs, UMA posits, it was methodologically unsound to calculate the rule's benefits without disaggregating the costs associated with each regulated sector. 50 None of these criticisms demonstrate a failure of decisionmaking sufficient to discard the rule as arbitrary and capricious. Because they are so frail, we devote only brief attention to their specific shortcomings. First, it was not unreasonable for FMCSA to decline the UMA's request for exemption. Though the Adequacy Report did find that the motor coach industry had a better safety record than the heavy truck industry, it still found the industry's training record to be inadequate. See Minimum Training Requirements, 69 Fed.Reg. at 29,389. Next, rejecting UMA's suggestion that the training topics be integrated into the CDL requirement was a permissible policy choice. The agency was free to determine that employers, rather than state administrators, should bear the cost of the final rule. See id. at 29,388. Third, UMA's argument that it cannot afford to implement the final rule because the industry lacks a training infrastructure makes little sense, considering that UMA endorses the broader proposition that adherence to the Adequacy Report will appropriately involve more extensive training requirements than are now imposed by the final rule. Finally, UMA's objection to the agency's aggregation of crash costs seems confused. The agency used the average cost of crashes involving large trucks to estimate the average cost of all crashes affected by its rule. Id. at 29,397. Citing the motor coach industry's lower frequency of accidents, UMA seeks to discredit the agency's focus on the costs per accident generated by the trucking industry. Because UMA has not shown that motor coach accidents are less costly when they occur, the association has not demonstrated a methodological problem with the cost-benefit analysis beyond the ones already identified in this opinion.