Opinion ID: 482000
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Does CICA Authorize The Comptroller General To Execute The Procurement Laws?

Text: 75 There is, of course, another delegation of power to the executive at issue here: that is the delegation of authority to operate the procurement process, i.e. to buy goods and services on behalf of the government. The Army argues that CICA impermissibly gives the Comptroller General power over the procurement process because the Comptroller General's power to determine when--and, by virtue of his power to extend the stay, if--an acquisition takes place, effectively enables him to determine what is bought and on what terms. This panel rejected that proposition when the case was first before us, and we do so again today. 10 76 Execution of the procurement laws as they are currently structured requires decisions about what ought to be bought when, at what price, and from whom. In deciding whether or not to extend the stay CICA does not authorize the Comptroller General to consider any of these factors. Rather, in deciding whether to extend a stay or terminate it before ninety days have passed, the Comptroller General is authorized to consider only the length of time needed to decide the merits of the bid protest. CICA gives the Comptroller General no power to assess the importance of the acquisition or the wisdom of the purchase decision made by the procurement officer. And of course, the Army does not contend that CICA empowers the Comptroller General to initiate any purchase decisions. Rather, like a court, the Comptroller General is authorized to act only in those cases which other parties submit for decision. 77 Further, CICA authorizes the executive to override the stay under limited circumstances. Before a purchase decision has been made the statute permits override of the stay if urgent and compelling circumstances which significantly affect interests of the United States will not permit waiting for the decision of the Comptroller General. 31 U.S.C. Sec. 3552(c)(2)(A). When a bid protest is filed within ten days after a purchase decision has been made, the stay may be overriden if performance of the contract is in the best interests of the United States or if the urgent and compelling circumstances test set out above is satisfied. Id. at Sec. 3552(d)(2)(A). 78 Those circumstances are limited, and if the words used by the statute have meaning we assume there would be times when the specified circumstances would be absent, and when the executive would therefore be bound to obey the stay and an extension imposed by the Comptroller General. The Army's decision to override a stay could conceivably even be subject to judicial review, although we do not decide that question today. Even with these limitations on an agency's authority, however, the statutory ability to override the stay provides the Army with significant power to assert its independence and to minimize any abuse of the Comptroller General's limited authority to delay or expedite a procurement decision to the extent necessary to complete an investigation. 79 Finally, CICA leaves procuring agencies free to refuse to implement any and all of the Comptroller General's recommendation. If agencies choose not to implement the Comptroller General's recommendations, they are bound only to report their reasons. 31 U.S.C. Sec. 3554(e)(1). 80 As we have discussed above in Part IV A, Congress has the authority to investigate, and to publish its opinion, in an attempt to influence the manner in which the laws are executed. In upholding the exercises of similar kinds of authority, courts have recognized that the issuance of a subpoena to the executive, the mandate of a report and wait provision, the expression of disapprobation or the focusing of public attention on executive action do not themselves constitute control of executive decisionmaking. McGrain v. Dougherty, 273 U.S. 135, 47 S.Ct. 319, 71 L.Ed. 580 (1927); United States v. Nixon, 418 U.S. 683, 94 S.Ct. 3090, 41 L.Ed.2d 1039 (1974); Chadha, 462 U.S. at 935 n. 9, 103 S.Ct. at 2776 n. 9; Merck, 460 U.S. 824, 103 S.Ct. 1587. We similarly do not find such control here. 81 To summarize, we believe that CICA does not give the Comptroller General control over the procurement process for three reasons. First, in deciding whether to extend or shorten a stay the Comptroller General cannot consider anything except the length of time necessary to resolve a bid protest. Second, even if the Comptroller General decides that more time is necessary, the executive need not always obey the Comptroller General's extension of the stay. Third, the executive is free to ignore the Comptroller General's recommendation on the merits of the protest. CICA therefore does not authorize the Comptroller General to execute the procurement laws. 82 C. Does CICA Authorize the Comptroller General to Interfere Impermissibly with the Executive's Performance of its Procurement Duties? 83 Finally, the Army argues that even if CICA does not authorize the Comptroller General to execute the procurement laws, it does empower him to do things that will interfere excessively in the executive's execution of those laws. According to the Army, this interference does not arise from the Comptroller General's investigation, from the Comptroller's recommendation, or even from the existence of a fixed stay provision. Rather, the Army claims that the Comptroller's discretion to shorten the stay if he finds a complaint frivolous or if he completes the investigation early, or to lengthen the stay if the investigator needs more time, will alter the decisionmaking of procurement officials. The Army claims that the Comptroller's discretion will encourage procurement officials to make the kinds of decisions that, through experience, they will come to know minimize the likelihood of lengthy investigations. 84 As we noted in Part IV A, CICA is an exercise of Congress's power to investigate and its power to publicize and criticize the President's execution of existing legislation. But the fact that Congress has some right to do what it has done does not end our inquiry. Instead, this case presents a potential conflict between the legitimate exercise by Congress of its powers, on the one hand, and the executive's legitimate exercise on the other hand of the procurement powers which Congress has delegated to the President and which he has in turn delegated to his subordinates in the various procuring agencies. 85 United States v. Nixon, 418 U.S. 683, 94 S.Ct. 3090, 41 L.Ed.2d 1039 (1974), and Nixon v. Administrator of General Services, 433 U.S. 425, 97 S.Ct. 2777, 53 L.Ed.2d 867 (1977), provide the standard we must apply in a case such as this one. In United States v. Nixon President Nixon claimed, inter alia, that he had a qualified privilege to withhold documents sought by the prosecution in a criminal trial. The Supreme Court recognized that the doctrine of separation of powers required that the President have some ability to maintain the confidentiality of his conversations and correspondence. 418 U.S. at 708, 94 S.Ct. at 3107. 86 Opposed to this Constitutionally-based claim of confidentiality, however, was the claim of a court in a criminal trial to enforce the public['s] ... right to every man's evidence. Id. at 709, 94 S.Ct. at 3108. That claim is equally based in the Constitution, in both the Sixth Amendment's guarantee of the right to confront and cross-examine witnesses and in the Fifth Amendment's guarantee that liberty will not be taken without due process. See 418 U.S. at 711, 94 S.Ct. at 3109. Moreover, the Court noted that [i]t is the manifest duty of the courts to vindicate those guarantees. Id. 87 Facing a conflict between the executive's power to control the secrecy of his work with the courts' power to command the presentation of evidence, the Supreme Court balanced the interests against one another. The Court explained that we must weigh the importance of the general privilege of confidentiality of Presidential communications in performance of the President's responsibilities against the inroads of such a privilege on the fair administration of criminal justice. 418 U.S. at 711-12, 94 S.Ct. at 3109 (footnote omitted). In Nixon v. Administrator of General Services, 433 U.S. 425, 97 S.Ct. 2777, 53 L.Ed.2d 867 (1977), the Supreme Court elaborated upon this approach to a conflict between the exercise by two branches of their constitutionally assigned functions. There President Nixon challenged the constitutionality of the Presidential Recordings and Materials Preservation Act, which gave the Administrator of General Services control over documents and tape recordings generated by President Nixon and his administration during Nixon's time in office. The former President argued that, because it delegat[ed] to a subordinate officer of the Executive Branch the power to decide whether to disclose Presidential materials, the statute was an impermissible interference by the Legislative Branch into matters inherently the business solely of the Executive Branch. 433 U.S. at 440, 97 S.Ct. at 2788. 88 To evaluate this claim the Supreme Court set out a two-part test: 89 [I]n determining whether the Act disrupts the proper balance between the coordinate branches, the proper inquiry focuses on the extent to which it prevents the Executive Branch from accomplishing its constitutionally assigned function. United States v. Nixon, 418 U.S., at 711-712 [94 S.Ct. at 3109-3110]. Only where the potential for disruption is present must we then determine whether that impact is justified by an overriding need to promote objectives within the constitutional authority of Congress. Ibid. 90 Nixon v. GSA, 433 U.S. at 443, 97 S.Ct. at 2790. We apply these teachings to the case before us. 91 First, we acknowledge that procurement officials will go about their business differently after CICA than they did before it. Indeed, that was in part Congress' intention: in passing CICA Congress sought to change practices then prevalent, which Congress believed were wasteful, inefficient, and inconsistent with existing procurement policy. Even apart from the elimination of improper procurement practices, however, we also acknowledge that, because of CICA, procurement officials may sometimes exercise their discretion in ways which are not required by the procurement laws, and which they would not otherwise have chosen, in order to minimize conflict with the Comptroller General. 92 Even if we were to consider this impact on executive decision making to be a potential disruption of the proper balance of power, Nixon v. G.S.A., 433 U.S. at 443, 97 S.Ct. at 2790, we believe that a balancing of legislative and executive interests demonstrates that this interference is entirely justified. In United States v. Nixon the Supreme Court noted that the disclosure of the President's private papers and conversations might indeed interfere with the President's execution of the law. But the Court deemed this interference justified by the need for such documents in a simple criminal trial, the greater political significance of which played no part in the Court's analysis. In contrast to the intrusion in that case, the intrusion occasioned here by the Comptroller General's discretion to lengthen or shorten the stay is far more limited, and we are certain that the legislative interests underlying CICA prevail. Indeed, for three reasons, we believe that any potential disruption of the executive function is minimal: 93 1. The initial stay is short. Even if the acquiring agency were to change a procurement decision in order to avoid or to cut short a bid protest, it would not stand to gain so much time that the temptation to do so would have a significant impact on the agency's purchase decision. 11 94 2. CICA does not authorize the Comptroller General to extend the stay any longer than necessary to decide a bid protest. We cannot envision circumstances, and none have been suggested to us, when this time could be long enough to constitute a significant impediment to the President's execution of the procurement laws. 95 3. If the Comptroller General really does require so much time to decide the protest that the stay interferes with important executive interests, CICA authorizes the executive to override the stay. 12 In light of these factors, we simply do not believe that the executive has shown that CICA creates any significant impediment to the President's execution of the law. In fact, we are persuaded that any intrusion permitted by CICA upon the executive branch can only be termed de minimis. Commodity Futures Trading Comm'n v. Schor, --- U.S. ----, 106 S.Ct. 3245, 3260, 92 L.Ed.2d 675 (1986). 96 Weighing against this limited potential disruption to the executive's activities are the substantial Congressional interests which CICA and its stay provisions effectuate. Congress found that procurement officials' insistence on ignoring the policy in favor of competition in contracting has been a serious problem affecting the way billions of dollars are spent by the government. Congress was not satisfied with the self-policing efforts of the executive branch, and it concluded that the appropriate remedy must include investigation of specific spending decisions. The Comptroller General's discretion to lengthen the stay reflects Congress' determination that the Comptroller be able to finish his investigation while the abuse, if there has been one, is still remediable. The Comptroller's discretion to shorten the stay reflects Congress' desire that procurement activities not be impeded unnecessarily: a desire, essentially, to avoid interfering with the executive. Balanced against the minimal interference, if any, with the executive's activities, we believe the Congressional interest justifies CICA and its stay provisions. 97 More significantly, however, we are convinced CICA effectuates, rather than disrupts, the proper balance of power between the executive and legislative branches. It therefore does not even require the balancing interests which is the second step of the Nixon v. GSA analysis. Id., 433 U.S. at 443, 97 S.Ct. at 2790. Rather than understanding the stay extension provisions as authorizing interference in the executive's domain, we believe that CICA permits exactly that subtle interplay between the branches which the founders hoped for and which the Constitution fosters. In Federalist 47, Madison explained that, at least in Montesquieu's view, separation of powers does not mean that the three branches ought to have no partial agency in, or no controul over the acts of each other. [Montesquieu's] meaning, as his own words import ... can amount to no more than this, that where the whole power of one department is exercised by the same hands which possess the whole power of another department, the fundamental principles of a free constitution are subverted. The Federalist Papers, 302-03 (Mentor ed. 1961) (emphasis in original). 98 Justice Jackson has articulated the same point slightly differently. He observes that 99 [w]hile the Constitution diffuses power the better to secure liberty, it also contemplates that practice will integrate the dispersed powers into a workable government. It enjoins upon its branches separateness but interdependence, autonomy but reciprocity. 100 Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer, 343 U.S. 579, 635, 72 S.Ct. 863, 870, 96 L.Ed. 1153 (1952) (Jackson, J., concurring). See also United States v. Nixon, 418 U.S. at 707, 94 S.Ct. at 3107 ([i]n designing the structure of our Government and dividing and allocating the sovereign power among three co-equal branches, the Framers of the Constitution sought to provide a comprehensive system, but the separate powers were not intended to operate with absolute independence.) 101 Particularly as they concern the two political branches, these words force us to recognize that, although the President may not legislate except by exercise of his veto power, and although the Legislature may not execute the law, neither is it the case that the President may only execute or veto, and the Congress only pass laws. Rather, there is a zone of twilight in which [the President] and Congress may have concurrent authority, or in which its distribution is uncertain. Youngstown, 343 U.S. at 637, 72 S.Ct. at 871 (Jackson, J., concurring). 13 102 Rather than concentrating power in the legislative branch, CICA diffuses and divides power, giving final control over procurement decisions to the executive but permitting meaningful oversight by an agent of Congress. Like other political mechanisms built on the basis of the doctrine of separation of powers, CICA encourages the branches to work together without enabling either branch to bind or compel the other. That is the way a government of divided and separated powers is supposed to work. 103 As we discussed above, 14 the judgment of the district court must be altered to correct the scope of the injunction. That judgment will therefore be modified, and as modified, affirmed.