Court Opinion

ID: 9428423
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:23:46.007773+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:23:07.384520
License: Public Domain

Justice Stewart,
dissenting.
Section 6 (b)(5) of the Occupational Safety and Health Act provides:
“The Secretary, in promulgating standards dealing with toxic materials or harmful physical agents under this subsection, shall set the standard which most adequately assures,,, to the extent feasible, on the basis of the best available evidence, that no employee will suffer material impairment of health or functional capacity even if such employee has regular exposure to the hazard dealt with by such standard for the period of his working life.” 29 U. S. C. § 655 (b)(5) (emphasis added).
*542Everybody agrees that under this statutory provision the Cotton Dust Standard must at least be economically feasible, and everybody would also agree, I suppose, that in order to determine whether or not something is economically feasible, one must have a fairly clear idea of how much it is going to cost. Because I believe that OSHA failed to justify its estimate of the cost of the Cotton Dust Standard on the basis of substantial evidence, I would reverse the judgment before us without reaching the question whether the Act requires that a standard, beyond being economically feasible, must meet the demands of a cost-benefit examination.
The simple truth about OSHA’s assessment of the cost of the Cotton Dust Standard is that the agency never relied on any study or report purporting to predict the cost to industry of the Standard finally adopted by the agency. OSHA did have before it one cost analysis, that of the Research Triangle Institute, which attempted to predict the cost of the final Standard. However, as recognized by the Court, ante, at 524N525, the agency flatly rejected that prediction as a gross overestimate. The only other estimate OSHA had, the Hocutt-Thomas estimate prepared by industry researchers, was not designed to predict the cost of the final OSHA Standard. Rather, it assumed a far less stringent and inevitably far less costly standard for all phases of cotton production except roving. Ante, at 527, n. 50. The agency examined the Hocutt-Thomas study, and concluded that it too was an overestimate of the costs of the less stringent standard it was addressing. I am willing to defer to OSHA’s determination that the Hocutt-Thomas study was such an overestimate, conceding that such subtle financial and technical matters lie within the discretion and skill of the agency. But in a remarkable non sequitur, the agency decided that because the Hocutt-Thomas study was an overestimate of the cost of a less stringent standard, it could be treated as a reliable estimate for the more costly final Standard actually promulgated, never rationally explaining how it came to this happy *543conclusion. This is not substantial evidence. It is unsupported speculation.
Of course, as the Court notes, this Court will re-examine a court of appeals’ review of a question of substantial evidence “only in what ought to be the rare instance when the standard appears to have been misapprehended or grossly misapplied.” Universal Camera Corp. v. NLRB, 340 U. S. 474, 491. But I think this is one of those rare instances where an agency has categorically misconceived the nature of the evidence necessary to support a regulation, and where the Court of Appeals has failed to correct the agency’s error. Of course, broad generalizations about the meaning of “substantial evidence” have limited value in deciding particular cases. But within the confines of a single statute, where the agency and reviewing courts have identified certain specific factual matters to be proved, we can establish practical general criteria for comprehending “substantial evidence.”
Unlike the Court, I think it clear to the point of being obvious that, as a matter of law, OSHA’s prediction of the cost of the Cotton Dust Standard lacks a basis in substantial evidence, since the agency did not rely on even a single estimate of the cost of the actual Standard it promulgated. Accordingly, I respectfully dissent.