Opinion ID: 506172
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: the compliance data provisions

Text: 30 The government-wide regulations contain a provision directing agencies to include in their agency-specific regulations a requirement that the recipient [p]rovide to the agency information necessary to determine whether the recipient is in compliance with the Act. 45 C.F.R. Sec. 90.45(a). The corresponding HHS-specific regulation requires recipients to [p]rovide to HHS, upon request, information and reports which HHS determines are necessary to ascertain whether the recipient is complying with the Act and these regulations. 45 C.F.R. Sec. 91.34(b) (emphasis added). The Alliance contends that HHS's addition of the words upon request in its agency-specific rule violates the Act's requirement of consistency with the general regulations. 42 U.S.C. Sec. 6103(a)(4); see also 45 C.F.R. Sec. 90.31(d) (similar requirement in general regulations themselves). We disagree. 31 The problem with the contention is that HHS--the agency that wrote and promulgated the government-wide regulations--has consistently interpreted 45 C.F.R. Sec. 90.45(a) not to require agencies to impose a mandatory periodic reporting requirement on recipients. In the explanatory statement that accompanied the final government-wide regulations, it explained Sec. 90.45 as merely permitting agency requests: 32 To help determine whether a recipient is in compliance with the Act, each Federal agency may require its recipients to make their records reasonably accessible to the agency and to furnish information to the agency (Sec. 90.45). 33 44 Fed.Reg. at 33,770-71 (emphasis added; the parenthetical citation to Sec. 90.45 appears in the original text of the notice). 34 The Alliance's reading of Sec. 90.45 to mandate a regular government-wide collection of data seems, by contrast, farfetched. The section specifies neither the type of data to be collected nor the timing nor frequency of collection. As a self-executing mandate, the section is woefully deficient. 35 Whatever we think of HHS's interpretation, we must defer to it so long as it is not plainly erroneous or inconsistent with the regulation. United States v. Larionoff, 431 U.S. 864, 872, 97 S.Ct. 2150, 2155, 53 L.Ed.2d 48 (1977); National Trust for Historic Preservation v. Dole, 828 F.2d 776, 782 (D.C.Cir.1987); San Luis Obispo Mothers for Peace v. NRC, 789 F.2d 26, 30 (D.C.Cir.1986) (en banc), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 107 S.Ct. 330, 93 L.Ed.2d 302 (1986). As we find it far more plausible than the Alliance's, it handily passes that test. 36 Appellants argue that HHS's interpretation of 45 C.F.R. Sec. 90.45 cannot be correct because on that view Sec. 90.42 would be superfluous. Even assuming that such an overlap could overcome the controlling weight we give to agencies' interpretations of their own regulations, we do not find the redundancy. Quite simply, the two provisions are directed at different actors. Sec. 90.42 provides that, A recipient ... has responsibility to maintain records, provide information, and to afford access to its records to an agency to the extent required to determine whether it is in compliance with the Act. 45 C.F.R. Sec. 90.42(a) (emphasis added). Sec. 90.45 requires agencies to promulgate a regulation asserting the authority to compel the provision of compliance data. The two regulations are distinct enough to accommodate HHS's reading of Sec. 90.45(a). 37 Once we accept the HHS interpretation of Sec. 90.45(a), the alleged inconsistency between that regulation and Sec. 91.34(b) vanishes. The former requires only that agencies include in their agency-specific regulations a provision obligating recipients to furnish compliance information when requested by the agency; the latter, with its upon request clause, fulfills the requirement. 38 Appellants are left with the argument that the Age Discrimination Act itself compels HHS to adopt rules producing annual, government-wide, mandatory collection of information from recipients detailing their compliance with the Act. The argument--so far as we can make it out--goes something like this: (1) 42 U.S.C. Sec. 6106a(a) requires agencies to submit annual reports containing specific data about program participants or beneficiaries, by age, sufficient to permit analysis of how well the agency is carrying out the Act's prohibition of age discrimination; (2) Sec. 90.45 was HHS's regulatory response to the requirement; (3) thus Sec. 90.45 must be read to require annual data collection which is mandatory, uniform, or regular. Appellants' Brief at 30 n. 19. We do not read the Act so broadly. By its own terms Sec. 6106a(a) requires nothing of recipients. Its only stated restriction on the type or amount of data in an agency's report is that it be sufficient to permit analysis of the department's success in defeating age discrimination. This hardly compels the sort of periodic mandatory collection of information the Alliance appears to have in mind. 39 In any event, HHS when it proposed the general regulations made clear that its response to the report requirement of Sec. 6106a was Sec. 90.34, not Sec. 90.45. 43 Fed.Reg. at 56,435-36. Sec. 90.34 reflects what the agency calls a targeted approach to data collection, id. at 56,436/1, and articulates in some detail the required contents of agency reports to HHS under 6106a(a). 8 The targeted approach to data collection relies principally on complaint data, as supplemented by compliance reviews and in-depth investigations, as appropriate. 43 Fed.Reg. 56,436/1. In adopting this approach, HHS stated that it believed it to be more effective than massive reporting systems. Id. The Alliance's construction of Sec. 90.45 would impose on all parties just the massive reporting system that HHS sought to avoid in meeting Sec. 6106a(a) by the means stated in Sec. 90.34. 40 In sum, we conclude that 45 C.F.R. Sec. 91.34 is entirely consistent with the general regulations, and that 42 U.S.C. Sec. 6106a does not compel the mandatory collection of compliance data urged by the Alliance. 41