Opinion ID: 2679706
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: removal of the relief cap for

Text: SIMPLIFIED-SAC CASES CSX argues that the Board’s decision to remove the relief cap on Simplified-SAC cases violates Congress’s clear intent to the contrary. Congress directed the Board to “establish a simplified and expedited method for determining the reasonableness of challenged rail rates in those cases in which a full stand-alone cost presentation is too costly, given the value of the case.” 49 U.S.C. § 10701(d)(3). CSX reads this language as a clear directive from Congress: the Board is to use simplified methods only when a full SAC test is too costly for the case at hand. Otherwise, CSX argues, Congress’s qualifying language—“given the value of the case”—would be mere surplusage. Why would Congress circumscribe the Board’s task if it did not intend for that circumscription to actually limit the Board’s discretion? CSX bolsters its argument by reference to the interpretive canon of expressio unius. According to CSX, the fact that Congress made clear the Board was to use a simplified approach for low-relief cases implies that it is not to use such an approach for highrelief cases. The Board violated this directive, CSX argues, when it allowed Simplified-SAC in any case. We disagree. The Board’s interpretation is perfectly consistent with Congress’s direction in the statute. “[T]he Board is the expert body Congress has designated to weigh 12 the many factors at issue when assessing whether a rate is just and reasonable.” CSX Transp., 568 F.3d at 240. And as a general matter, it enjoys broad discretion to design rate reasonableness tests. See 49 U.S.C. § 10701(d). It is true, as CSX points out, that Congress removed the Board’s discretion with respect to low-relief cases. But Congress made no direction whatsoever for other cases, and no direction can be implied from Congress’s silence. Ultimately, CSX’s position rests on a logical fallacy. “If P then Q” does not imply “If not P then not Q”—yet this is CSX’s entire argument. It infers from the fact that the Board must provide a simplified approach for low-relief cases, that it must not do so for any other case. On the contrary, the statute represents a floor, not a ceiling for the Board’s discretion. Congress required the Board, at a minimum, to develop a simplified approach for low-recovery cases; nothing in that requirement circumscribed the Board’s discretion concerning high-recovery cases. And reading the statute thus—that is according to its own terms—renders no part of it surplusage. We also find the Board’s interpretation reasonable. Since the Board retained discretion to adjudicate high relief cases as it saw fit, we defer to the agency so long as it provided a “reasoned explanation for why it chose” to make those cases eligible for Simplified-SAC. See Vill. of Barrington v. STB, 636 F.3d 650, 660 (D.C. Cir. 2011). The Board satisfied this burden. As it explained in its decision, the Board saw “no reason that Congress would order the agency to prevent captive shippers from using [an] alternative approach” that is “simplified” and “expedited,” so long as it is also “a robust method for determining the reasonableness of challenged rail rates.” Decision, at 17. This is not an unreasoned explanation, and we therefore defer to it. 13 In cursory fashion, CSX also argues that the SimplifiedStand-Alone Cost methodology introduces imprecisions that render its application to high-relief cases arbitrary and capricious. In a Full-SAC case, the parties develop operating costs for the traffic group specific to the stand-alone railroad. Simplified-SAC, on the other hand, uses Uniform-RailCosting-System numbers which do not account for highercost movements—for instance, those transporting highly toxic materials—and could result in significant distortions in highvalue cases. We are not persuaded. The Board responded to CSX’s concerns in its decision. It noted that the Uniform Rail Costing System is its “general purpose costing model” and that “using [Uniform Rail Costing System] system-average costs should provide a reasonable approximation of the total operating expenses of the traffic group.” Id. at 17 (quotations omitted). The Board also concluded that commenters “never explain[ed] what feature of [Uniform Rail Costing System] introduce[d] so much imprecision in Simplified-SAC—as compared to FullSAC . . . —to warrant a limitation on relief.” Id. at 17. “Indeed,” the Board noted, “although a Full-SAC presentation is more ‘precise’ than a Simplified-SAC presentation, it is so only in the sense that, through a highly complex and detailed presentation involving a hypothetical railroad, it ferrets out operating inefficiencies.” Id. at 17. Accordingly, the Board concluded, “[t]here is no basis to permit the railroads to earn excessive profits simply because, unlike the Full-SAC method, the Simplified-SAC method does not detect the inefficiencies in rail operations that may further raise rates.” Id. at 16. Given its thorough treatment of these comments, we find the Board’s decision neither arbitrary nor capricious. Finally, we note that amicus for Petitioner, Association of American Railroads, adds several non-statutory arguments of 14 its own, but because “we ordinarily do not entertain arguments not raised by parties” we decline to address them here. Narragansett Indian Tribe v. Nat’l Indian Gaming Comm’n, 158 F.3d 1335, 1338 (D.C. Cir. 1998).