Court Opinion

ID: 9473492
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 04:31:33.588544+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:43:34.007817
License: Public Domain

SCALIA, Circuit Judge,
concurring:
I agree with the court’s disposition of this case, but reach the result in a somewhat different fashion.
While I am in accord with the majority that"[t]he JTPA does not preclude judicial review,” Maj. op. at 1048 — a reference to the exemption from judicial review contained in paragraph (1) of 5 U.S.C. § 701(a) — it seems to me that the allocation of grant funds among various eligible recipients, none of which has any statutory entitlement to them, is traditionally a matter “committed to agency discretion by law”— the exemption contained in paragraph (2) of the same provision. Such an allocation of available funds shares with agency decisions not to prosecute what the Supreme Court has called in the latter context a “general unsuitability for judicial review,” Heckler v. Chaney, — U.S.-,-, 105 S.Ct. 1649, 1656, 84 L.Ed.2d 714 (1985), because it “often involves a complicated balancing of a number of factors which are peculiarly within [the agency’s] expertise,” id. See International Union, United Automobile, Aerospace & Agricultural Implement Workers v. Donovan, 746 F.2d 855, 862-63 (D.C.Cir.1984). In my view the majority’s treatment of this issue is not in accord with the teaching of Chaney, as shown by the reliance upon Local 1219, American Federation of Government Employees v. Donovan, 683 F.2d 511 (D.C.Cir.1982), cited in Maj. op. at 1048 n. 28. That case’s appeal to “pragmatic considerations” in determining whether to undertake review, 683 F.2d at 515, was the approach- of this circuit which Chaney specifically disapproved, _U.S. at-, 105 S.Ct. at 1656.
Of course discretionary grant allocation decisions are only presumptively unreviewable, and “the presumption may be rebutted where the substantive statute has provided guidelines for the agency to follow,” id. at-, 105 S.Ct. at 1656. Here there are no guidelines whatever, except that (1) allotments and allocations must “be based on the latest available data and estimates satisfactory to the Secretary,” 29 U.S.C. § 1572(a) (1982), and (2) if the Secretary chooses to use an allocation formula (instead of making case-by-case determinations of the appropriate grantees), he must permit public comment on the proposed formula as the statute requires, 29 U.S.C. § 1572(d). Since neither staleness of the data nor failure to comply with the comment procedures is alleged on this appeal, the limited statutory guidelines have been fully met.
I disagree with the majority’s suggestion, Maj. op. at 1048-49, that that portion of the public comment guideline which requires the Secretary, in announcing his proposed formula, to specify “the rationale for the formula,” 29 U.S.C. § 1572(d), was meant to give us authority to evaluate the adequacy of that rationale. That conclusion would perhaps follow if the rationale had to be included with the required publication of the final allotments and allocations in the Federal Register; but it does not. That is a significant departure from the well known requirement of the Administrative Procedure Act for rulemaking — which so often supplies the foundation for our judicial review — that “the agency shall incorporate in the rules adopted a concise general statement of their basis and purpose,” 5 U.S.C. § 553(c) (emphasis added). I read the requirement for a “rationale” at the notice stage but not at the adoption stage as fully consistent with the ordinary presumption of nonreviewability of discretionary grant-allocation decisions. Its evident purpose is to give would-be grantees a full opportunity to persuade the Secretary that he should choose a different formula, without, however, subjecting the formula he ultimately adopts to unaccustomed judicial review. This interpretation is supported by the fact that it would be passing strange to impose judicial review only if the Secretary chooses to adopt a formula, leaving him *1053unconstrained if he selects the grantees one by one.
Since the statutory provisions establish “no law to apply” by which we might review the Secretary’s discretionary judgment, Citizens to Preserve Overton Park v. Volpe, 401 U.S. 402, 410, 91 S.Ct. 814, 821, 28 L.Ed.2d 136 (1971), it remains to consider whether the Secretary’s regulations do so. The only provision arguably applicable states that the funds “shall be allocated ... using the best data available as to the farmworker population as determined by the Department.” 20 C.F.R. § 633.105(b).* If this provision were an attempt to confer discretion upon the Secretary, it would be proper to interpret the categorical phrase “as determined by the Department” to mean “as reasonably determined by the Department,” leaving it ultimately to the courts to determine what is within the range of the “reasonable.” Private contractual provisions committing certain matters to the determination of one of the parties are routinely interpreted in this fashion. See, e.g., 5 Williston on Contracts § 675B (3d ed. 1961) (promises conditioned on satisfaction); U.C.C. § 2-306(1) (1978) (requirements and output contracts); cf. Coveil v. Tymshare, Inc., 727 F.2d 1145, 1151-54 (D.C.Cir.1984). Here, however, there is no effort to confer unreviewable discretion; as we have seen, absent the rule unreviewable discretion already exists. The only question is whether this regulation — which in its literal terms leaves the determination of “best data” entirely to the Department — somehow confines that preexisting discretion. It seems to me the question answers itself.
I believe that those portions of the majority opinion dealing with the reasonableness of the Secretary’s action are unnecessary to our decision. The District Court must be affirmed because, in all the respects challenged, this matter is committed to agency discretion by law.

 The majority apparently considers that our powers of review are invoked by the portion of this regulation specifying that the funds shall be allocated "in an equitable manner.” See Maj. op. at 1048 n. 28, 1050. I cannot imagine a clearer example of a provision that establishes "no law to apply.” It is surely no more constraining than the text of the JTPA itself — or of any discretionary grant statute — unless it is to be thought that Congress contemplates the distribution of funds in an ¿«equitable manner.