Opinion ID: 1938909
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Fitness of the Issues

Text: In deciding whether the issues raised on this appeal are fit for judicial review, we look first to see if they are legal or factual in nature. If the only question presented for review is a purely legal one, we assume its threshold suitability for judicial determination. Eagle-Picher Industries, Inc. v. Environmental Protection Agency, 245 U.S.App.D.C. 179, 189, 759 F.2d 905, 915 (1985). The primary issue on this appeal concerns the doctrine of federal preemption, a question which the Supreme Court has deemed a predominantly legal one. Pacific Gas & Electric Co. v. State Energy Resources Conservation & Development Commission, 461 U.S. 190, 201, 103 S.Ct. 1713, 1720, 75 L.Ed.2d 752 (1983). Because no facts relating to the issue of preemption are in dispute, we may go one step further and call it a purely legal issue in the context of this case. Thus we assume its threshold suitability for judicial determination. Eagle-Picher Industries, supra, 245 U.S.App.D.C. at 189, 759 F.2d at 915. Of course, we must also consider the finality of the agency action, and whether the agency or the court will benefit from deferring review until the agency's policies have crystallized and the `question arises in some more concrete and final form.' Id. (footnote omitted). As the court explained in Continental Air Lines: The interest in postponing review is strong if the agency position whose validity is in issue is not in fact the agency's final position. If the position is likely to be abandoned or modified before it is actually put into effect, then its review wastes the court's time and interferes with the process by which the agency is attempting to reach a final decision. 173 U.S.App.D.C. at 19, 522 F.2d at 125. The record in this case makes plain that the rule established in Order No. 8005 is the Commission's final position. The order provides that in all future ratemaking proceedings, if WGL proposes to charge District of Columbia ratepayers more than twenty-five percent of its total GRI expenses, the burden of proof will shift to WGL to state the perfected benefit with specific supporting evidence in any application seeking a rate increase or adjustment. Order No. 8005 at 54. Because the Commission's rule was issued as a Final Opinion and Order, WGL has no practical choice but to challenge it on this appeal. See D.C. Code § 43-905(a) (1981). If we were to hold this controversy not ripe for review, WGL would have to wait and contest the rule in an appeal from the final order in the next rate proceeding, and in the meantime it would be compelled to spend considerable time and resources attempting to prove in the rate proceeding that District of Columbia ratepayers specifically benefit from the GRI surcharges. Moreover, this court will have to confront the issues raised by WGL sooner or later, and our understanding of those issues is not likely to be enhanced by the development of a more specific factual background. Eagle-Picher Industries, supra, 245 U.S.App.D.C. at 191, 759 F.2d at 917; see also Continental Air Lines, supra, 173 U.S.App.D.C. at 20, 522 F.2d at 126 (Since we will be confronted by this same question whether we grant review now or later, we conclude that the challenged Board policy is, in the appropriate sense, final). In Metropolitan Washington Board of Trade, supra, this court specifically ruled that in the context of protracted ratemaking proceedings, an agency order establishing basic ratemaking principles may satisfy the requirements of finality and ripeness although the agency formulates the actual rates in a later, related proceeding. 432 A.2d at 348. We held in that case that a challenge to basic ratemaking policies adopted by the Commission for certain electric utility customers, even without reference to specific rates, was ripe for judicial review. In so holding, we said: We are not abandoning the requirements of finality and ripeness which generally permit review of only those Commission decisions that are accompanied by specific and concrete rate schedules.... We are simply acknowledging that ... where the Commission has made threshold ratemaking policy decisions and has denominated them as final decisions, and where the court can understand and evaluate these decisions outside the context of a specific rate structure, postponing review would serve no purpose. Id. at 349-350. Applying the holding of Metropolitan Washington Board of Trade to the instant case, we note that the rule established by the Commission in Order No. 8005 is a threshold ratemaking policy decision which the Commission itself has characterized as a final order. There is no reason why this court cannot decide the validity of that rule outside the context of a specific rate structure, especially since the primary challenge on appeal is to the Commission's authority to promulgate the rule in the first place. Thus we conclude that postponing review would serve no purpose.