Opinion ID: 472568
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: discussion: the legitimacy of the regulation

Text: 24 The Secretary's regulation will be sustained so long as it is 'reasonably related to the purposes of the enabling legislation.'  Mourning v. Family Publications Service, Inc., 411 U.S. 356, 369, 93 S.Ct. 1652, 1661, 36 L.Ed.2d 318 (1973), quoting Thorpe v. Housing Authority of the City of Durham, 393 U.S. 268, 280-281, 89 S.Ct. 518, 525, 21 L.Ed.2d 474 (1969); see also Wheeler v. Heckler, 787 F.2d 101 (1986, 3d Cir.). However, the role of agencies remains basically to execute legislative policy; they are no more authorized than are the courts to rewrite acts of Congress. Talley v. Mathews, 550 F.2d 911, 919 (4th Cir.1977). Williamson argues that the Secretary did, in effect, rewrite the statute. It contends that the plain meaning of coal dust is dust emanating directly from coal, and that regulation Sec. 725.202(a) simply runs roughshod over the 1977 Act by expanding this term to include other dusts. 25 The flaw in Williamson's argument is that Congress has never understood coal dust to have the plain meaning that Williamson attributes to it. Although the text of the 1969 Act does not include the words coal dust or coal mine dust, as we have noted, see supra pp. 867-868, Congress understood the terms as interchangeable and as referring to the various dusts around a coal mine. When in 1977 Congress extended coverage to coal mine construction workers who were exposed for one year to coal dust, it gave no indication that it understood the term differently from the way it did in 1969. Thus, the Secretary's interpretation of the 1977 Act is supported by canons of statutory construction under which the legislature is presumed to know the prior construction of the original act, and if words or provisions in the act or section amended that had been previously construed are repeated in the amendment, it is held that the legislature adopted the prior construction of the word or provision. Sands, Sutherland Statutory Construction, Volume 1A, Sec. 22.33 p. 288 (4th ed. 1985). Although coal dust was not in the text of the 1969 Act, the legislative history reveals what Congress understood it to mean. Therefore, this rule of statutory interpretation is applicable. Thus, absent evidence to the contrary, we must assume that 20 C.F.R. Sec. 725.202(a) correctly clarifies what Congress meant in enacting the 1977 Act. 26 The burden, then, is on Williamson to demonstrate that the Secretary's regulation, providing that coal mine construction and transportation workers are eligible for benefits if exposed for a year to coal mine dust, contravenes Congress' intent. Williamson attempts to meet this burden by focusing on Congress' substantive aims in passing the 1969 and 1977 Acts. Williamson agrees that in 1969 Congress sought to provide coverage for miners who contracted pneumoconiosis from exposure to all dusts in the coal mine environment. It contends, however, that in passing the 1977 Act Congress did not intend to provide equally broad protection to coal mine construction workers and transportation workers. Rather, Williamson contends, Congress intended coal mine construction and transportation workers to be eligible for benefits only if they contracted pneumoconiosis from direct exposure to coal. 27 Williamson supports this contention by reference to the legislative history of the 1977 Act. However, the legislative history is too scant on this point to enable Williamson to establish that Congress understood the term coal dust differently in 1977 from the way it understood the term in 1969. The support for Williamson's position is a statement in the Senate Report of the 1977 Act that coal mine construction workers are miners when they work in conditions substantially similar to conditions in underground coal mines, S.Rep. No. 95-209, 95th Cong., 1st Sess. (1977), reprinted in Committee on Education and Labor, House of Representatives, 96th Cong., Black Lung Benefits Reform Act and Black Lung Benefits Revenue Act of 1977 at 624 (1979). Williamson interprets this statement to mean that construction workers are considered miners only to the extent that they work in underground mines. However, it is equally plausible that the term substantially similar conditions refers to conditions in which a worker inhales a similar quantity of dust from the coal mine environment as do miners. Under the latter reading, coal mine construction workers labor in conditions substantially similar to those of miners when they spend extended periods of time exposed to dusts in the coal mine environment. 28 The ambiguous statement in the Senate Report does not establish that in 1977 Congress understood the term coal dust differently from the way it understood the term in 1969. We conclude that Williamson has not carried the burden of demonstrating that the Secretary's regulation contravenes Congress' intent. At most, it has established some doubt as to Congress' usage of coal dust. Even if the congressional intent is unclear, the deference we owe the Secretary's interpretation requires us to uphold the regulation 20 C.F.R. Sec. 725.202(a). See Chevron U.S.A., Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Counsel, Inc., 467 U.S. 837, 843 & n. 11, 104 S.Ct. 2778, 2782 & n. 11, 81 L.Ed.2d 694 (1984) ([I]f the statute is silent or ambiguous with respect to the specific issue, the question for the court is whether the agency's answer is based on a permissible construction of the statute.... The court need not conclude that the agency construction was the only one it permissibly could have adopted to uphold the construction.) 29 Our conclusion is supported further by congressional acquiescence in the regulation (which was promulgated 8 years ago and has been upheld by the Board, see supra p. 868). Congress, which has amended other sections of the Black Lung legislation and is presumably aware of the regulation, has not declared that the disputed regulation expands the intended meaning of coal dust. See Saxbe v. Bustos, 419 U.S. 65, 74, 95 S.Ct. 272, 279, 42 L.Ed.2d 231 (1974) (This longstanding administrative construction is entitled to great weight, particularly when, as here, Congress has revisited the Act and left the practice untouched.); Beshaw v. Fenton, 635 F.2d 239, 245 n. 6 (3d Cir.1980).