Opinion ID: 185756
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Constitution and the Executive Order

Text: 11 The President's authority to act must stem either from an act of Congress or from the Constitution itself. Youngstown, 343 U.S. at 585, 72 S.Ct. 863. In this case the district court assumed without deciding (because the plaintiffs had not argued to the contrary) that § 1 of the Executive Order, which section involves contracting by federal agencies, ... is arguably authorized by the Procurement Act, 172 F.Supp.2d at 159 & n. 9, but the court went on to invalidate § 3 of EO 13202 as an action beyond the scope of the President's authority, id. at 162. The Government contends on appeal that in so ruling, the district court fundamentally misunderstood the President's authority as head of the executive branch. The first question before us, therefore, is whether the President had constitutional authority to issue § 3 of the Executive Order, which section applies to any agency issuing grants, providing financial assistance, or entering into cooperative agreements for construction projects. 12 Article II, § 1 of the Constitution provides that the executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America. As the Government observes, the President's power necessarily encompasses general administrative control of those executing the laws, Myers v. United States, 272 U.S. 52, 164, 47 S.Ct. 21, 71 L.Ed. 160 (1926), throughout the Executive Branch of government, of which he is the head. The authority of the President is not without limits, of course: the President's power [under Article II, § 3] to see that the laws are faithfully executed refutes the idea that he is to be a lawmaker. Youngstown, 343 U.S. at 587, 72 S.Ct. 863. His faithful execution of the laws enacted by the Congress, however, ordinarily allows and frequently requires the President to provide guidance and supervision to his subordinates. As we previously have had occasion to observe: 13 The ordinary duties of officers prescribed by statute come under the general administrative control of the President by virtue of the general grant to him of the executive power, and he may properly supervise and guide their construction of the statutes under which they act in order to secure that unitary and uniform execution of the law which Article II of the Constitution evidently contemplated in vesting general executive power in the President alone. 14 Sierra Club v. Costle, 657 F.2d 298, 406 n. 524 (D.C.Cir.1981). Those officers are duty-bound to give effect to the policies embodied in the President's direction, to the extent allowed by the law. See THE FEDERALIST NO. 72, at 463 (Alexander Hamilton) (Benjamin F. Wright ed., 1961) (The persons, therefore, to whose immediate management these different matters are committed, ought to be considered as the assistants or deputies of the chief magistrate ... and ought to be subject to his superintendence). 15 Section 3 of Executive Order No. 13,202 is such an exercise of the President's supervisory authority over the Executive Branch. In the Executive Order, the President directs his subordinates how to proceed in administering federally funded projects, but only [t]o the extent permitted by law. Thus, if an executive agency, such as the FEMA, may lawfully implement the Executive Order, then it must do so; if the agency is prohibited, by statute or other law, from implementing the Executive Order, then the Executive Order itself instructs the agency to follow the law. 16 The district court's comparison of Executive Order No. 13,202 to the executive order by which President Truman purported to seize privately owned steel mills, and which the Supreme Court declared unlawful in Youngstown, is misplaced because the present Executive Order is not selfexecuting. As the Government says, the question in the earlier case was whether the President had constitutional authority to seize the mills and not, as here, whether he could direct Executive Branch officials in their implementation of statutory authority. Indeed, had President Truman merely instructed the Secretary of Commerce to secure the Government's access to steel [t]o the extent permitted by law, Youngstown would have been a rather mundane dispute over whether the Secretary had statutory authority to act as he did. 17 The plaintiffs raise the prospect that, notwithstanding the President's instruction that the Executive Order be applied only [t]o the extent permitted by law, a particular agency may try to give effect to the Executive Order when to do so is inconsistent with the relevant funding statute. We express no opinion upon whether this may come to pass. The mere possibility that some agency might make a legally suspect decision to award a contract or to deny funding for a project does not justify an injunction against enforcement of a policy that, so far as the present record reveals, is above suspicion in the ordinary course of administration. See Reno v. Flores, 507 U.S. 292, 301, 113 S.Ct. 1439, 123 L.Ed.2d 1 (1993) (to prevail in facial attack, complainant must establish that no set of circumstances exists under which the [regulation] would be valid) (brackets in original). In the event that an agency does contravene the law in a particular instance, an aggrieved party may seek redress through any of the procedures ordinarily available to it: a bid protest, a motion for administrative reconsideration, or an action in the district court challenging that specific decision. 18 Nonetheless, the plaintiffs complain that it is untenable to require each federal grantee or other potential party to a PLA to challenge a threatened denial of funds based on the Executive Order because projects are planned and conducted on tight and critical timeframes. That concern, however, provides us with no warrant to relieve the plaintiffs of their burden in this facial challenge to show that § 3 of the Order is without any valid application. See Flores, 507 U.S. at 301, 113 S.Ct. 1439. Nor is there reason to be concerned for each federal grantee; a single judicial determination that an agency lacks authority to implement the Executive Order in its administration of a particular statute is likely to settle any questions about the application of the Executive Order to later grants of federal funds pursuant to that statute. Insofar as the plaintiffs are concerned that there is rarely time to litigate an agency's rejection of a bid specification, or to challenge a threat that funding will be withheld, the Government correctly points out that the plaintiffs offer no reason to think that the usual mechanisms for seeking expedited review would be inadequate to provide redress where appropriate. See, e.g., 4 C.F.R. § 21.10 (2002) (Comptroller General may resolve dispute using an express option or other flexible alternative procedures).