Opinion ID: 494108
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Unreasonable delay of final action

Text: 43 Third, we may review agency inaction that is alleged to work an unreasonable delay of final action. The gravamen of Sierra Club's complaint in this case is that EPA is taking an unreasonably long time to reach a decision on whether to include strip mines in the list. Unlike claims alleging agency recalcitrance in the face of a clear statutory duty, the petitioner alleging unreasonable delay does not contend that agency inaction violates a clear duty to take a particular action by a date certain. Instead, as in those cases involving unacknowledged final action, the claim is that while the agency may have discretion over whether to act at all, it has exercised that discretion by deciding that it would determine what action, if any, to take, and that it must now do so. 74 What differentiates unreasonable delay from unacknowledged final action is that the petitioner who pleads the former concedes that the agency is still analyzing the matter, but complains that the process is taking too long. To phrase it differently, the claim is that the pace of the agency decisional process ... lags unreasonably. 75 44 As we indicated in TRAC, unreasonable delay claims may be further differentiated into two types based upon the harm allegedly inflicted: 45 1. Right to a timely decision. The first type of claim is that agency delay deprives the petitioner of a statutory [r]ight to [t]imely [d]ecisionmaking. 76 It thus resembles to some extent claims involving agency recalcitrance ... in the face of a clear statutory duty, except that the statutory duty involved here does not specify what course of action shall be taken. Rather, regardless of what course it chooses, the agency is under a duty not to delay unreasonably in making that choice. 46 As our previous decisions indicate, agencies most often fall under this duty of timeliness as a result of the APA's broad prohibition against unreasonable delay. 77 In other situations, the substantive statute itself may impose the obligation. This arises either because the statute expressly imposes a deadline 78 or otherwise exhorts timely behavior, 79 or because the statutory scheme implicitly contemplates final action within a reasonable amount of time. 80 In all these situations, a final agency action review provision confers jurisdiction upon this court to review the inaction claim for the same reason that justifies review of action unlawfully withheld--viz. without such review, the agency could effectively evade its statutory duty of timeliness. 81 47 2. Other rights abridged by delay. The second group of unreasonable delay claims presents a different type of harm. The petitioner here does not contend that the agency, in delaying final action, has violated a statutory [r]ight to [t]imely [d]ecisionmaking, 82 but that the delay will work to deprive it of a different right granted it by Congress. The classic example of this latter type of harm is the undue length of rate proceedings conducted by the Federal Communications Commission. In Nader v. FCC, 83 MCI v. FCC, 84 and TRAC itself, we held that the FCC was under a rule of reason as to the length of rate proceedings. This rule of reason was, in part, implicit in the statute itself, which required only that rates be just and reasonable, not that they be perfect. 85 In addition to this implicit duty of timeliness, however, we found that unreasonable delay by the FCC in setting just and reasonable rates would effectively deprive ratepayers of their statutory right to such rates, because the refund remedy established by the statute--under which the utility could charge its proposed rate during the course of the proceedings, but would have to refund any amount received in excess of the rate eventually determined to be just and reasonable--will not provide effective relief in situations where proceedings have extended for too long a period of time. 86 In this situation, just as in the case of a duty to make a timely decision, this court may review agency delay because it jeopardizes our future review of the final [agency] decision if review may come so late that no effective relief will be available. 87 If we find that the agency has unreasonably delayed, then we have the authority, under the All Writs Act, 28 U.S.C. Sec. 1651, to issue a writ of mandamus to compel the agency to take final action. 88 48 To summarize, for this court to have jurisdiction over Sierra Club's claim alleging unreasonable delay of a rulemaking proceeding, we must find that Sierra Club has a right the denial of which we would have jurisdiction to review upon final agency action but the integrity of which might be irreversibly compromised by the time such review would occur. As our discussion has indicated, this may be the right to timely decisionmaking itself or some other interest that will be irreparably harmed through delay.