Court Opinion

ID: 9439213
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-03 06:25:33.257687+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:26:13.668942
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Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge TATEL.
Separate opinion dissenting in part filed by Circuit Judge GINSBURG.
TATEL, Circuit Judge:
A rider to the District of Columbia Appropriations Act imposes limits on fees the District may pay under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, known as IDEA, to attorneys who represent prevailing parties in actions against the D.C. Public Schools. In this suit by disabled students and their parents, the district *3court rejected challenges to the fee cap, finding -it neither preempted by IDEA nor contrary to the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment. The district court also held that the rider restricts only the District’s authority to pay attorneys’ fees, not court authority to award fees pursuant to IDEA. Finding no error, we affirm in all respects.
I
The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act seeks to “ensure that all children with disabilities have available to them a free appropriate public education that emphasizes special education and related services designed to meet their unique needs and prepare them for employment and independent living.” 20 U.S.C. § 1400(d)(1)(A). As a condition of receiving funds under the Act, IDEA requires school districts to adopt procedures to ensure appropriate educational placement of disabled students. See 20 U.S.C. § 1413. In addition, school districts must develop comprehensive plans for meeting the special educational needs of disabled students. See 20 U.S.C. § 1414(d)(2)(A). Known as “individualized education programs,” or IEPs, these plans must include “a statement of the child’s present levels of educational performance, ... a statement of measurable annual goals, [and] a statement of the special education and related services ... to be provided to the child....” 20NS.C. § 1414(d)(1)(A).
IDEA guarantees parents of disabled children an opportunity to participate in the identification, evaluation, and placement process. See 20 U.S.C. §§ 1414(f), 1415(b)(1). Parents who object to their child’s “identification, evaluation, or educational placement” are entitled to an “impartial due process hearing,” 20 U.S.C. §§ 1415(b)(6), (f)(1), at which they have a “right to be accompanied and advised by counsel.” 20 U.S.C. § 1415(h)(1). Parents “aggrieved by” a hearing officer’s findings and decision may bring a civil action in either state or federal court without regard to the amount in controversy. 20 U.S.C. § 1415(f)(2).
Section 1415(i)(3)(B) of IDEA gives courts authority to “award reasonable attorneys’ fees as part of the costs to the parents of a child with a disability who is the prevailing party.” Prevailing parents may also recover fees incurred during administrative proceedings. See Moore v. District of Columbia, 907 F.2d 165 (D.C.Cir.1990) (en banc). The amount of fees awarded “shall be based on rates prevailing in the community in which the action or proceeding arose for the kind and quality of services furnished.” 20 U.S.C. § 1415(f)(3)(C).
The District of Columbia Public Schools (DCPS) has failed to meet its obligations under IDEA, a fact no one disputes. In its brief, the United States describes DCPS’s situation this way:
By 1998, the District of Columbia School System’s ... failure to fulfill its obligations under IDEA reached crisis proportions. The District had virtually ceased to conduct timely hearings requested by parents under IDEA and to issue final decisions within the required timelines. Other of its obligations under IDEA were also not being met to a significant extent.
See also Blackman v. District of Columbia, 185 F.R.D. 4, 5 (D.D.C.1999) (finding that DCPS’s noncompliance with IDEA has resulted in “significant delays both in the placement of children in appropriate educational settings and in the provision of crucial medical services, delays that have the potential to permanently harm the physical and emotional health of many young children.”). At a June 1997 public hearing, DCPS identified several factors responsible for its noncompliance, including “inadequate management[,].... poor information management systems, lack of staff training, inappropriate staff allocation and lack of appropriate programs.” Notice of Written Findings and Decision and Compliance Agreement, 63 Fed.Reg. *441370, 41373. A'year later, the Secretary of Education stated that, after “working with DCPS over a number of years to address its serious and ongoing failure to comply with the requirements of [IDEA],”' he determined that immediate compliance was “not feasible.” Id. at 41371. The Secretary and DCPS entered" into a Com-' pliance Agreement mandating that DCPS “be in full compliance with the requirements of [IDEA in] no later than three years.” Id. at 41374.
DCPS’s failure to meet the special education needs of its disabled students has resulted in an exceedingly large number of parental complaints. The record shows that in 1995, although DCPS served less than two-thousandths of one percent of the nation’s disabled students, over forty-five percent of requests for due process hearings nationwide were made in D.C.
Because IDEA authorizes the award of attorneys’ fees, parental complaints have been costly for DCPS. In fiscal year 1998, for example, the school district paid over $10 million to attorneys. That same year, the Washington Post reported that legal representation of special education students, once “an obscure niche,” had developed into a “booming, lucrative industry.” Doug Struck and Valerie Strauss, Special Ed Law Is Big Business; Students’ Attorneys Collectively Receiving Millions in Fees, The Wash. Post, July 20,1998, at B7. Describing special education cases as “easy [to] win,” the Post stated that “when the city’s school system is crying for money to try to build an adequate special education system — and thereby begin to lessen the flood of legal challenges — these attorney fees rankle school officials who say the money should be spent on children.” Id.
Responding to the concerns expressed in the Post article, the House Committee on Appropriations, while considering the District’s fiscal year 1999 appropriations request, acted to stem “the growth in legal expenses ... and the usurping of resources from education to pay attorney fees.” H.R. Rep. 105-670, at 50 (1998). The Committee adopted an appropriations rider that, in order to allow DCPS to “focus more clearly on teaching and learning rather than on litigation and expensive legal fees,”-limited the District’s fee payments under IDEA. Id. Eventually becoming section 130 of the 1999 D.C. Appropriations Act, the rider imposed caps on both the hourly rate and total amount of compensation the District could pay lawyers of parents who prevail in IDEA actions and proceedings. See Section 130 of the Omnibus Consolidated and Emergency Supplemental Appropriations Act of 1999, Pub.L. 105-277, 112 Stat. 2681 (October 21, 1998) (hereinafter, section 130). Specifically, section 130 provided that 1999 funds could not be used to pay attorneys’ fees in excess of the amount at which the D.C.Code fixes compensation of attorneys who represent indigent defendants charged with misdemeanors: $50 per hour and $1,300 ■’ overall. See section 130; D.C.Code Ann. § ll-2604(a); D.C.Code § 11 — 2604(b)(1). Section 130 allowed the maximum total payment, but not the maximum hourly rate, to be waived for “extended or complex representation.” See section 130; D.C.Code Ann.§ ll~2604(c). In its entirety, section-130-reads as follows:
None of the funds contained in this Act may be made available to pay the fees of an attorney who represents a party who prevails in an action, including an administrative proceeding, brought against the District of Columbia Public Schools under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (20 U.S.C. § 1400 et seq.) if—
(1) the hourly rate of compensation of the attorney exceeds [$50]; or
(2) The maximum amount of compensation of the attorney exceeds [$1,300], except that compensation and reimbursement in excess of such maximum may be approved for extended or complex representation in accor*5dance with section ll-2604(e), District of Columbia Code.
Congress included a similar rider in the District’s fiscal year 2000 appropriations bill. Fearful of the rider’s impact on disabled children, President Clinton vetoed the bill. “In the long run,” the President’s veto message explained, “this provision would likely limit the access of the District’s poor families to quality legal representation, thus impairing their due process protections provided by ... IDEA.” See District of Columbia Appropriations Act, 2000—Veto Message from The President of The United States (H. Doc. No. 106-135), 145 Cong. Rec. H8941, H8942 (Sept. 28, 1999). Persisting, Congress included the fee cap (with minor revisions not relevant to this litigation) in a reenacted FY 2000 appropriations bill. This time the President signed. See Section 129, District of Columbia Appropriations, 2000, Pub.L. No. 106-113, 113 Stat. 1501, 1517 (November 29,1999).
Before .the enactment of the FY 2000 appropriations bill, seven disabled children and their parents filed suit against the District in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia challenging section 130 of the FY 1999 Appropriations Act. The families allege that the fee cap prevents them from retaining qualified legal counsel on a contingency basis. One plaintiff unable to find counsel declared: “I spoke with ... one of the attorneys who specializes in education law ... who informed me that, due to the passage of Section 130 of the D.C. Appropriations Act, her firm was no longer able to accept special education cases on a contingency basis. She indicated that she was not aware of any other private attorney in the District of Columbia who would.... ”
The families mounted two challenges to section 130. Relying on the Supremacy Clause of Article VI of the Constitution, they argued that section 130—which they referred to as a “local law”—is preempted by IDEA. They also argued that by singling out disabled children residing in the District of Columbia for unfavorable treatment, section 130 violates .the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment. Finally, the families sought a declaratory ruling that section 130 does not affect a district court’s authority to award reasonable attorneys’ fees under IDEA. Pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2403(a), the United States intervened to defend section 130’s- constitutionality. The District of Columbia, which joined the United States’ defense of the statute, argued that section 130 amended IDEA, thus barring courts in D.C. from awarding fees in excess of the amount the District is authorized to pay.
Rejecting plaintiffs’ challenges to section 130, the district court granted summary judgment in favor of the District. The court also rejected the District’s interpretation of section 130, ruling that the rider had “done nothing to affect the district court’s ability under [IDEA] to base a determination of reasonable attorneys’ fees [on] rates prevailing in the community.”
The families now appeal, and the District of Columbia cross-appeals. Although the United States defends section 130’s constitutionality, it takes no position on the proper interpretation of the section. Our review of all issues is de novo. See Tao v. Freeh, 27 F.3d 635, 638 (D.C.Cir.1994) (“Our review of the grant of summary judgment is de novo, applying the same standards as the district court.”); United States v. Williams-Davis, 90 F.3d 490, 512 (D.C.Cir.1996) (applying de novo review to a question of statutory construction).
II.
Beginning with the families’ appeal, we can easily dispose of their Supremacy Clause argument. Because IDEA is national legislation, the families argue, it preempts under the Supremacy Clause any state or local legislation that impedes its accomplishment, such as section 130. In support, the families cite Brown v. United States, 742 F.2d 1498, 1502 (D.C.Cir.1984) (en banc), where we stated *6that “Congress frequently enacts legislation applicable only to the District and.... [a]bsent evidence of contrary congressional intent, such enactments should be treated as local law, interacting with federal law as would the laws of the several states.” Even assuming the Supremacy Clause applies to Congress when it legislates for the District under Article I, section 8 of the Constitution—a proposition for which we have found no persuasive support—the families’ argument suffers from a fatal weakness: it requires us to believe that Congress enacted section 130 for the purpose of having it instantaneously preempted by a statute enacted over a decade earlier. See Cipollone v. Liggett, 505 U.S. 504, 516, 112 S.Ct. 2608, 120 L.Ed.2d 407 (1992) (“[T]he purpose of Congress is the ultimate touchstone of pre-emption analysis.”) (internal quotation marks omitted).
We turn to the families’ equal protection challenge. They argue that section 130, by limiting their ability to obtain counsel and leaving them “powerless to enforce their IDEA rights,” treats them differently from non-D.C. families with disabled children, in violation of the equal protection guarantee of the Fifth Amendment’s Due Process Clause. See Bolling v. Sharpe, 347 U.S. 497, 74 S.Ct. 693, 98 L.Ed. 884 (1954) (applying equal protection principles to the District of Columbia through the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment). To assess this claim, we must first determine the appropriate level of scrutiny. Most laws will survive equal protection challenge if they bear a rational relationship to a legitimate governmental purpose. See Vacco v. Quill, 521 U.S. 793, 799, 117 S.Ct. 2293, 138 L.Ed.2d 834 (1997). More searching scrutiny is reserved for laws that either burden a suspect class or impinge upon a fundamental interest. See id. The families urge us to apply heightened scrutiny for two reasons: residents of D.C. are themselves a suspect class, and section 130 burdens the educational opportunities of a disadvantaged group; i.e., children with disabilities.
This court has twice considered claims that D.C. residents comprise a suspect class. The first case, United States v. Thompson, 452 F.2d 1333 (D.C.Cir.1971), concerned a district court’s application of D.C. bail provisions to deny appellant bail pending appeal following his conviction for violating federal narcotics laws. Appellant argued that the D.C. bail provisions applied only to local offenses (ones contained in the D.C.Code) and that because he had been convicted of a national offense (one contained in the U.S.Code), his bail application should have been judged by the more lenient criteria applicable to national offenses in other jurisdictions. See id. at 1337-38. This court agreed, stating that application of D.C. bail provisions to U.S.Code offenses would violate the Due Process Clause by treating U.S. code violations in D.C. differently from such violations in all other jurisdictions. See id. at 1340-41. The opinion contains language that supports the families’ position:
Minorities can usually protect themselves by playing their role in the political process and forming coalitions with other groups to secure a majority. But it is senseless to remit District residents to the political process, since for them there is no political process.... In this context, ... the normal arguments for judicial restraint become no more than hollow shibboleths grotesquely detached from the logic which once supported them.... Therefore, discriminatory •classifications affecting District residents must be subjected to the strictest possible review.
Id. at 1341 (internal citation omitted).
This court next considered the suspect class status of D.C. residents in United States v. Cohen, 733 F.2d 128 (D.C.Cir.1984) (en banc). Sitting en banc, the court departed from the reasoning of Thompson and applied rational basis review to uphold a statute requiring civil commitment for D.C. defendants found not guilty by reason of insanity. See id. Explaining why the *7statute did not burden a suspect class, Cohen first noted that the affected group consisted not just of District residents, but “principally of those who commit crimes within the District, a class within which ... many residents of other states ... are likely to be included.... ” Id. at 135. Then, in language relied on by the government in this case, Cohen said the following:
[E]ven if one accepts the thesis that the class in question is residents of the District of Columbia, the mere lack of the ballot does not establish political powerlessness, or, if it does, political powerlessness alone is not enough for “suspect class” status. Minors, for example, are not a suspect class. It is, in any event, fanciful to consider as “politically powerless” a city whose residents include a high proportion of the officers of all three branches of the federal government, and their staffs.
Id. (internal citation omitted).
. According to the families, this language is dicta because the court interpreted the civil commitment statute as not .classifying on the basis of residence. The families urge us to follow Thompson and apply heightened scrutiny to section 130. We are not so free. Whatever force Thompson’s reasoning about the status of D.C. residents once carried, it has not survived Cohen. To begin with,. by ■ pointing out that the civil commitment statute at issue in Cohen applies to anyone tried in the District, not just to District residents, Cohen implicitly undermined Thompson, for notwithstanding Thompson’s apparent holding that D.C. residents are a suspect class, the D.C. bail provisions also apply to persons tried within the District, regardless of residency. Moreover, Cohen expressly repudiates Thompson’s equal protection reasoning. “We ... disapprove ... the rationale expressed in [Thompson] that distinctive legislative treatment of the District is ‘particularly suspect’ and thus requires more than a rational basis to support it.” Id. at 136 n. 12. Although Cohen’s discussion of the suspect class status of D.C. residents was not critical to its holding — the court had already recognized that persons tried within the District need not reside there — its analysis evolved from considerable debate within the court. A portion of the court’s opinion responds to a concurring opinion’s effort to devise a framework by which differential treatment of D.C. residents would, in certain circumstances, raise, special equal protection concerns. See id. at 132 n. 10, 136 n. 12, responding to id. at 141-50 (Mikva, J., concurring). For all of these reasons, a panel of this court may not now depart from the en banc court’s conclusion that D.C. residents do not comprise a suspect class for equal protection purposes.
In support-' of their second argument- for heightened scrutiny — that section 130 burdens the educational opportunities of a disadvantaged group—the families rely on Plyler v. Doe, 457 U.S. 202, 223-24, 102 S.Ct. 2382, 72 L.Ed.2d 786 (1982), which applied heightened scrutiny to invalidate a Texas statute denying public education to children not legally admitted to the United States. In subsequent cases, however, the Supreme Court' limited Plyler to its facts. In Kadrmas v. Dickinson Public Schools, the Court rejected a claim that charging some students a fee for transportation to school triggered heightened scrutiny under Plyler, saying “we . have not extended [PlylePs] holding beyond the unique circumstances that provoked its unique confluence of theories and rationales.” 487 U.S. 450, 459, 108 S.Ct. 2481, 101 L.Ed.2d 399 (1988) (internal citations and quotation marks omitted). Those “unique circumstances” are not present here. In Plyler, the doors to the public schools were completely closed to children of undocumented aliens. See Plyler, 457 U.S. at.205, 102 S.Ct. 2382. Although section 130 may make it less likely that disabled children will receive an education that conforms to IDEA, the doors to the schoolhouse remain open, as they did .in Kadrmas. And the Supreme Court has made clear that a statute bur*8dening the educational opportunities of disadvantaged children does not by that fact alone trigger heightened scrutiny. See San Antonio Independent School Dist. v. Rodriguez, 411 U.S. 1, 93 S.Ct. 1278, 36 L.Ed.2d 16 (1973) (applying rational basis review to uphold Texas’s use of property taxes to finance local school districts even though that funding system resulted in fewer educational opportunities for poor students than for students in districts with richer tax bases).
We thus review the families’ equal protection challenge under the rational basis standard. We ask whether “there is a rational relationship between the disparity of treatment and some legitimate governmental purpose.” Heller v. Doe, 509 U.S. 312, 320, 113 S.Ct. 2637, 125 L.Ed.2d 257 (1993). “On rational-basis review, a ... statute ... comes to us bearing a strong presumption of validity, and those attacking the rationality of the legislative classification have the burden to negative every conceivable basis which might support it.” FCC v. Beach Communications, Inc., 508 U.S. 307, 314, 113 S.Ct. 2096, 124 L.Ed.2d 211 (1993) (internal citations and quotation marks omitted).
Pointing to The Washington Post article, the District’s brief refers to “evidence of abuse by attorneys in the legal services process,” presumably implying — -though never directly so stating — that'section 130 was designed to curb excessive or unjustified fees. The families and their lawyers ■ resist any such charges, and at oral argument counsel for the District conceded that the city has no evidence of attorney misconduct. The District, moreover, “adopts” the United States’ brief, which argues not that section 130 stemmed from evidence of attorney abuse, but that in view of DCPS’s manifest inability to meet its obligations under IDEA, Congress could rationally have concluded that “it was more important for the District to spend its funds on remedying these systemic defects and providing primary services rather than upon litigation fees.” According to the government, then, section 130’s legitimate governmental purpose is to assist disabled children in D.C. by allocating additional funds to primary special education services. The statute is rationally related to that objective, we are left to infer, because limiting payments to attorneys will leave more funds available for direct services.
The families raise several reasons to doubt that section 130 will yield the benefits claimed by the government. As the families point out, nothing requires DCPS to reallocate section 130 savings to special education services, nor does the record indicate that such funds have been so reallocated. Rather, the families claim, the District’s annual budget has simply been reduced by the amount of fees saved. Moreover, section 130 limits attorneys’ fees even when paid from sources other than DCPS’s budget; while the statute caps fees for both administrative proceedings and court litigation, payments for the latter come from the Corporation Counsel’s Settlement and Judgment fund. Finally, the families ask, even if section 130 actually made more funds available for special education, would any improvements that might flow from such expenditures outweigh section 130’s harmful effects?
Whatever the doubts about section 130, “rational-basis review in equal protection analysis is not a license for courts to judge the wisdom, fairness, or logic of legislative choices.” Heller, 509 U.S. at 319, 113 S.Ct. 2637 (internal quotation marks omitted). “The Constitution presumes that, absent some reason to infer antipathy, even improvident decisions will eventually be rectified by the democratic process and that judicial intervention is generally unwarranted no matter how unwisely we may think a political branch has acted.” Beach Communications, 508 U.S. at 314, 113 S.Ct. 2096. Moreover, “courts are compelled under rational-basis review to accept a legislature’s generalizations even when there is an imperfect fit be*9tween means and ends.” Heller, 509 U.S. at 321, 113 S.Ct. 2637.
Applying these highly deferential principles, we cannot conclude that Congress acted irrationally. Assisting disabled children is a legitimate governmental purpose. It is at least conceivable, moreover, that capping fees will produce additional resources for direct educational services, and that, despite limiting parents’ ability to use litigation as a means of enforcing IDEA, section 130 will yield a net benefit for disabled children. Notwithstanding the doubts of the families and the President, supra at 8-9, 4-5, that possibility suffices for the statute to survive rational basis review.
III.
In its cross-appeal, the District argues that section 130 not only prohibits the District from paying attorneys’ fees greater than the prescribed amounts, but also prohibits courts from awarding such fees. In resolving this claim, we are guided by the well-settled principle that “[w]hile appropriation acts are ‘Acts of Congress’ which can substantively change existing law, there is a very strong presumption that they do not.” Building & Construction Trades Dept., AFL-CIO v. Martin, 961 F.2d 269, 273, (D.C.Cir.1992). As we have elsewhere observed, “the established rule [is] that, when appropriations measures arguably conflict with the underlying authorizing legislation, their effect must be construed narrowly. Such measures have the limited and specific purpose of providing funds for authorized programs.” Donovan v. Carolina Stalite Co., 734 F.2d 1547, 1558 (D.C.Cir.1984) (internal citation and quotation marks omitted). Applying this principle, we agree with the district court that section 130 limits only District authority to pay fees from FY 1999 appropriations, not court authority to award fees under IDEA.
We begin, as we must, with section 130’s plain language: “None of the funds contained in this Act may be made available to pay the fees of an attorney who represents a party who prevails in an action ... brought against [DCPS] under [IDEA]” in excess of $50 per hour or $1,300 total. Note that nothing in section 130 restricts court authority to award fees under section 1415(i)(3)(B) of IDEA; the rider concerns only District authority to pay fees from FY 1999 appropriations. As the district court observed, section 130 and IDEA regulate different government authorities: “The IDEA attorney’s fees provision provides the courts with discretion ... to award reasonable attorneys’ fees. By contrast, section 130 governs the District of Columbia’s appropriations and right to pay those fees.”
To be sure, restricting federal court authority to award fees might have been one way for Congress to help DCPS address its special education problems. It is not our function, however, to determine whether such a limitation would “accor[d] with common sense and the public weal. Our Constitution vests such responsibilities in the political branches.” Tennessee Valley Authority v. Hill, 437 U.S. 153, 195, 98 S.Ct. 2279, 57 L.Ed.2d 117 (1978) (internal quotation marks omitted); but see Op. at 15 (Ginsburg, J., dissenting) (arguing that “common sense tells us” that section 130 is “a limitation upon the district court’s authority to award attorneys’ fees”).
In view of the “very strong presumption” that appropriation acts do not amend substantive law, we face a straightforward question of statutory construction: has Congress unambiguously expressed an intent to limit court authority to award fees under IDEA? When Congress wants to use an appropriations act to limit court authority, it knows precisely how to do so. For example, section 311 of the 2000 Appropriations Act says, “section 5 of the Y2K. Act ... is amended” to state that “punitive damages in a Y2K action may not be awarded against an institution of higher education.” Section 311, Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2000, Pub.L. *10106-113, 113 Stat. 1501, 1537 (Nov. 29, 1999). Section 130 contains no similar limiting language.
The District argues that even if section 130 does not expressly amend IDEA, the appropriations rider nevertheless represents an implied limit on court authority to award fees. Otherwise, the District claims, section 130 might increase the District’s eventual fee liability by encouraging litigation to recover fees in excess of section 130’s caps. Repeals by implication, however, are disfavored—a policy that “applies with even greater force when the claimed repeal rests solely on an Appropriations Act.” TVA, 437 U.S. at 190, 98 S.Ct. 2279. “[I]n the absence of some affirmative showing of an intention to repeal, the only permissible justification for a repeal by implication is when the earlier and later statutes are irreconcilable.” Id. (internal quotation marks omitted). No irreconcilable conflict exists here since, as we have pointed out, section 130 and IDEA are directed at different governmental entities.
Like the district court, we recognize the potential incongruity of courts’ awarding fees that section 130 prohibits the District from paying during the same fiscal year. As the Supreme Court has made clear, however, reconciling inharmonious statutory directives is Congress’ responsibility, not courts’. In TVA v. Hill, the Supreme Court faced a situation similar to this case. Acting pursuant to the Endangered Species Act, 16 U.S.C. § 1531 et seq., the Sixth Circuit halted construction of a nearly completed TVA dam in order to preserve the critical habitat of the snail darter. See TVA, 437 U.S. at 168-70, 98 S.Ct. 2279. In the Supreme Court, TVA argued that Congress, by appropriating funds for completion of the dam after learning that the snail darter had been placed on the endangered species list, had implicitly amended the Endangered Species Act to allow construction to continue. See id. at 189-90, 98 S.Ct. 2279. Disagreeing, the Court explained that “[w]hile it is emphatically the province and duty of the judicial department to say what the law is, it is equally— and emphatically—the exclusive province of the Congress not only to formulate legislative policies and mandate programs and projects, but also to establish their relative priority for the Nation.” Id. at 194, 98 S.Ct. 2279 (internal citation and quotation marks omitted). Just as the Supreme Court left it to Congress to resolve the incongruity of appropriating funds for a dam that another statute prohibited, we leave to Congress the resolution of the incongruity in this case.
The cases relied on by the dissent do not require a different result. See Op. at 13-18 (Ginsburg, J., dissenting). In American Federation of Government Employees, AFL-CIO v. Campbell, 659 F.2d 157 (D.C.Cir.1980), we held that an appropriations rider containing language similar to section 130 “modified pro tanto” a substantive statute. 659 F.2d at 161. The rider provided that “[n]o ... funds appropriated for the fiscal year [1979] may be used to pay the salary or pay of any individual ... in an amount which exceeds [a five and one-half percent raise] as a result of any adjustments ... under [the ‘prevailing rate’ act].” Pub.L. No. 95-429, § 614(a), 92 Stat. 1001, 1018 (1978). Had the prevailing rate, statute been given effect, government employees would have received raises in 1979 of between seven and twelve percent. Because of the appropriations rider, however, pay increases that year were limited to five and a half percent. Government employees “sued to enforce their alleged rights to wage increases based solely on the ... prevailing rate statute.” Campbell, 659 F.2d at 159. We rejected their claim, concluding that the appropriations act, by including a new ceiling on wage increases, and “by express reference to the earlier statute, effectively modified [it].” Id. at 161. We thus gave the appropriations act the effect that its express terms required—limiting pay increases for FY 1979.
*11Observing that section 130 expressly refers to IDEA and includes a fee schedule, our dissenting colleague relies on Campbell for the conclusion that Congress intended to modify IDEA. See Op. at 14-15 (Ginsburg, J., dissenting). We think Campbell and this case are different. As in Campbell, we have given the rider the effect that its plain text requires — limiting the District’s payment of fees for FY 1999 — -but this case presents an additional question, one not raised in Campbell: in the absence of clear legislative intent, evidenced either through statutory language or legislative history, to amend substantive law, does an appropriations act funding one governmental entity restrict the substantive authority of a separate entity, indeed a separate branch of government? Given the “very strong presumption” that appropriation acts do not'amend substantive statutes, neither section 130’s reference to IDEA nor its fee schedule warrants an inference that an appropriations rider directed at the District of Columbia restricts the authority of the federal courts. Indeed, Congress could hardly have identified the class of payments affected by section 130 without mentioning IDEA. Nor could Congress have limited the District’s FY 1999 payments without specifying the amounts of those limits.
If, as the dissent claims, section 130’s ceiling on payments and reference to IDEA sufficed to modify IDEA, the existing presumption would be reversed and replaced with a presumption that appropriation riders do amend substantive law. Under the dissent’s theory, Congress could limit the District’s fee payments from particular appropriations without also restricting court authority to award fees only by adding an express statement that substantive law remains intact. That is not the law of this circuit.
National Treasury Employees Union v. Devine, 733 F.2d 114 (D.C.Cir.1984), is equally distinguishable. See Op. at 17 (Ginsburg, J., dissenting). That case concerned Office of Personnel Management regulations establishing new personnel policies for federal employees. Dissatisfied with the new policies, Congress passed an appropriations rider providing that “[n]one of the funds appropriated under this Act [funding OPM] shall be obligated or expended to implement, promulgate, administer, or enforce [the OPM regulations].” Devine, 733 F.2d at 116. The Director of OPM interpreted the rider to mean that “each federal agency would simply have to administer and enforce the regulations without OPM’s assistance_” Id. at 116. We rejected this'interpretation of the rider, resting our decision on two factors. First, because “the express terms of the regulations require[d] OPM to play a critical and continuing role in their implementation, administration, and enforcement,” id. at 119, we doubted whether the regulations ' could “sensibly ... be effectuated without OPM’s continued participation.” Id. at 120. Indeed, we viewed the Director’s interpretation of the rider as “abdicating [OPM’s] central responsibility for executing, administering, and enforcing civil service rules and regulations.” Id. at 119 (internal quotation marks omitted). Second, after examining the rider’s legislative history, we found “clear indications of Congress’ intent” to foreclose significant changes in personnel management policies. Id. át '120.
Neither factor is present in this .case. To begin with, because the District plays no role in a court’s awarding of fees, section 130 does not prevent the implementation of IDEA’S fee provision in the same manner as the rider in National Treasury Employees Union v. Devine impeded implementation of OPM’s regulations. Nor, for the same reason, does section 130 produce any “abdication” of District responsibility. Moreover, section 130’s legislative history demonstrates no clear congressional intent to amend IDEA. Although the House Appropriations Committee wrote of an earlier version of section 130 that it would limit “the award of attorney fees,” *12H.R.Rep. No. 105-670, at 50 (1998), see also Op. at 14-15 (Ginsburg, J., dissenting), the Conference Report accompanying the final bill speaks only of “placing] a limit on the payment of fees to attorneys.” H.R. Conf. Rep. No. 105-825, at 1116 (1998). As the Supreme Court has observed, “legislative materials may be without probative value, or contradictory, or ambiguous, ... and in such cases will not be permitted to control the customary meaning of words.... ” United, States v. Dickerson, 310 U.S. 554, 562, 60 S.Ct. 1034, 84 L.Ed. 1356 (1940).
To sum up, because we must narrowly construe section 130,- see Donovan, 734 F.2d at 1558, we interpret it to accomplish neither more nor less than its plain text states. The rider’s express terms restrict District payment of IDEA fees from FY 1999 appropriations. We give section 130 precisely that effect. If Congress wishes to restrict court authority to award fees against the District, it may do so either through the D.C. appropriations bill or through the enactment of substantive legislation amending IDEA. But until Congress demonstrates clear intent to modify substantive law, either through statutory language or persuasive legislative history, we presume in accordance with circuit .precedent that it did not use section 130 to limit the power of federal courts to award fees under IDEA.
The decision of the district court is affirmed.

So ordered.