Opinion ID: 2997244
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Statutes with Irreconcilable Conflicts

Text: The remainder of the cases we discuss today involve appropriations measures that were in “irreconcilable conflict” with previously enacted substantive legislation—the more likely scenario for ATF. In United States v. Dickerson, 310 U.S. 554 (1940) and United States v. Will, 449 U.S. 200 (1980), the Supreme Court found that appropriations measures substantively changed statutes regarding compensation for federal employees. The underlying statutes in those cases provided, respectively, an allowance to enlisted men and annual pay raises for federal judges. In Dickerson, the Court considered the legislative history and concluded that Congress intended the 1938 appropriations bill to make the same substantive change to enlistment allowances that its predecessor appropriations bills had done (via direct language) in 1934, 1935, 1936 and 1937. Dickerson, 310 U.S. 3 (...continued) prohibited harvesting altogether from various designated areas withing those lands, expanding the applicable administrative prohibitions and then codifying them for the remainder of the fiscal year. In addition, subsections (b)(1), (b)(2), and (b)(4), specified general environmental criteria to govern the selection of harvesting sites by the Forest Service. Subsection (g)(1) provided for limited, expedited judicial review of individual timber sales offered under § 318.” Id. at 433-34. 8 No. 01-2167 at 561. In Will, all legislation in question ordered a simple denial of funds for judicial salary increases. The Court— recognizing repeal by implication is disfavored—found that the “plain words” of the appropriations statutes showed that Congress intended to substantively repeal the raises for the judges for each of the years in question. Will, 449 U.S. at 222. Although these cases concluded that appropriations legislation rendered a change to pre-existing substantive statutes, the underlying substantive statutes involved were significantly different from the FOIA. They concerned only the transfer of funds by the government to government employees, hence, by making the funds in question unavailable Congress was able to squarely defeat the purpose of those statutes. Two courts of appeals have considered variations on the themes in Will and Dickerson with differing results. In Calloway v. District of Columbia, 216 F.3d 1 (D.C. Cir. 2000), the D.C. Circuit considered appropriations measures in which Congress capped the amount of attorneys’ fees that the District could pay in suits brought under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (“IDEA”). The court determined that, although the cap affected the District’s ability to pay the fees, it did not affect the portions of the IDEA that gave courts discretion in awarding attorneys’ fees. Id. at 11. The court found that there was no irreconcilable conflict between the two provisions because they applied to two different governmental bodies: the District and the courts. Acknowledging that this would yield inconsistent results in future IDEA litigation (i.e., courts awarding higher fees than the District was permitted to pay), the court opined that these conflicts would be for Congress to resolve, not the judiciary. Id. at 9-10. Conversely, in McHugh v. Rubin, 220 F.3d 53 (2nd Cir. 2000), the Second Circuit considered the effect of an apNo. 01-2167 9 propriations bill that ordered no funds would be available to ATF to investigate and act upon applications by felons for relief from federal firearms disabilities. Such applications had been numerous, the subsequent investigations by ATF agents of the individuals filing them was time-consuming and costly. The Second Circuit determined that there was a “positive repugnancy” between the statute authorizing ATF review of the applications and the statute denying funds, such that it was impossible for ATF to review applications without expending funds. Id. at 57-58.4 The substantive statute involved in McHugh more closely resembles our case because it mandated more than a simple transfer of funds; that legislation created a system for ATF to conduct background investigations for applicants for relief from firearms disabilities. However, in McHugh, the investigations could only be conducted by ATF agents, and due to the volume of applications and resources needed to investigate they could not be conducted without federal funding. Unlike McHugh’s application investigations, a FOIA request involves nominal costs and may be conducted by persons not connected with the agency. Cal-Almond, Inc. v. United States Department of Agriculture, 960 F.2d 105, 108 (9th Cir. 1992) (finding no repeal by implication when Congress banned the use of federal funds to disclose USDA information). In considering an almost identical ban on funds to disclose USDA information under the FOIA, the Ninth Circuit had little trouble concluding that, so long as the party seeking the information paid the cost to photocopy the document in question, they should be allowed access. Id. 4 The Supreme Court considered a factually similar situation in United States v. Bean, 537 U.S. 71, 74-76 (2002), and quickly disposed of its finding that it lacked jurisdiction to hear the appeal because, without funding, the ATF had been unable to conduct a review of the plaintiff ’s original application. 10 No. 01-2167 at 108-09. That court further noted that any remaining costs to USDA, for example to monitor the photocopying or give the photocopier directions to the right room, were de minimis. Id. at 108. We agree with the Ninth Circuit. Unlike many other statutes, the FOIA deals only peripherally with the allocation of funds—its main focus is to ensure agency information is made available to the public. Indeed, at oral argument both parties to the immediate litigation conceded that the financial cost to retrieve the data in question would not be significant. Based on the nature of the FOIA, we have little trouble concluding that there is no “irreconcilable conflict” between prohibiting the use of federal funds to process the request and granting the City access to the databases. On a final note, ATF urges us to consider the legislative history of the 2003 and 2004 appropriations measures. We find that the measures are facially unambiguous and accordingly decline to do so. Connecticut National Bank v. Germain, 503 U.S. 249, 253-54 (1992).