Opinion ID: 411728
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Validity of the Inspection Program

Text: 21 Wollaston claims that the inspection program itself is invalid because the Secretary failed to publish it in the Federal Register. It contends that the inspection program is a rule as defined by 5 U.S.C. Sec. 551(4) (1976), and thus its publication is required by 5 U.S.C. Sec. 552(a)(1) (1976). This statute states that a person may not in any manner be required to resort to, or be adversely affected by, a matter required to be published in the Federal Register and not so published. 5 U.S.C. Sec. 552(a)(1) (1976). The agency information it requires to be published includes statements of the general course and methods by which [the agency's] functions are channelled and determined, including the nature and requirements of all formal and informal procedures available, and substantive rules of general applicability adopted as authorized by law, and statements of general policy or interpretations of general applicability formulated and adopted by the agency .... Id. 22 We have previously recognized that the failure to publish in the Federal Register does not automatically invalidate a regulation. Pitts v. United States, 599 F.2d 1103, 1107-08 (1st Cir.1979). Courts have held that under this section the requirement for publication attaches only to matters which if not published would adversely affect a member of the public. Hogg v. United States, 428 F.2d 274, 280 (6th Cir.1970), cert. denied, 401 U.S. 910, 91 S.Ct. 871, 27 L.Ed.2d 805 (1971), cited in United States v. Fitch Oil Co., 676 F.2d 673, 678 (Em.App.1982); Pasco, Inc. v. Federal Energy Administration, 525 F.2d 1391, 1404-05 (Em.App.1975). We fail to see how Wollaston could have been adversely affected by OSHA's failure to publish the inspection program in the Federal Register, and in fact Wollaston has never claimed that it was adversely affected. There is no alternative course of action that Wollaston might have taken had the program been published, and the company would have been selected for inspection in any event. Cf. Stoddard Lumber, 627 F.2d at 986-88 (holding that the publication requirements of 5 U.S.C. Sec. 553 do not apply to an OSHA inspection program in part because the absence of notice and comment procedures very likely will not prejudice owners). 23 In addition, the statute requires an agency merely to make available to the public--rather than publish--those statements of policy and interpretations which have been adopted by the agency and are not published in the Federal Register, 5 U.S.C. Sec. 552(a)(2)(B) (1976), and administrative staff manuals and instructions to staff that affect a member of the public, id. Sec. 552(a)(2)(C). The inspection program was an internal procedure for selecting establishments to be inspected and was typical of the type of information provided in agency staff manuals; thus, it falls within subsection (a)(2) of section 552 and not subsection (a)(1). The program did not have a significant impact on the substantive rights of employers such that it was required by the statute to be published in the Federal Register. In this sense, the inspection program is distinguishable from the Secretary of Agriculture's instruction in Anderson v. Butz, 550 F.2d 459, 463 (9th Cir.1977), which increased the cost of food stamps to recipients. 24 There is a question of whether this issue is properly before us on appeal because Wollaston never raised it at the district court; Wollaston contends that it has never had an opportunity to raise it. In any event, it is clear that OSHA's failure to publish the inspection program in the Federal Register does not render that program invalid. 25 Affirmed.