Court Opinion

ID: 9477233
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 06:18:02.057486+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:45:46.184261
License: Public Domain

RUTH BADER GINSBURG, Circuit Judge,
with whom WALD, Chief Judge, and Circuit Judges SPOTTSWOOD W. ROBINSON, III, MIKVA, and HARRY T. EDWARDS join, dissenting:
Like Judge Edwards, I would adhere to the disposition of the original panel; fur*780ther, I note some respects in which the current court opinion slips from my grasp. First, the current majority opinion reports that “the FDA publishes a semi-annual Regulatory Agenda that lists all current and projected rulemaking being considered by the FDA_” Court’s opinion at 771. Given that revealing publication, it is not evident to me that “the information requested in this case would certainly reveal policies prematurely.” See court’s opinion at 775.
Second, the current majority opinion appears to envision an FDA-HHS-OMB world in which decisionmakers always say “Yes” or “No,” “Approve” or “Disapprove,” never “Modify,” “Amend,” “Explain.” * Might it not be the case, for example, that “[i]f no transmittal to OMB is shown,” see court’s opinion at 771, HHS may not have “disapproved the FDA’s proposal,” id. at 771, it may instead have returned the regulation to the FDA for refinement or alteration, if indeed HHS has moved at all.
“Reverse; I will write,” see court’s opinion at 775, seems to me a very different matter from the one here at issue. As it moves along administrative tracks, a proposed regulation may change shape significantly. Nothing in the FOIA request we face seeks the substance of a regulatory proposal at the first or any other administrative stage. But a lower court decision or agency adjudication has a known content; the matter is set out in a public document, displaying the tribunal’s reasons. “Reverse; I will write,” thus conveys concrete information to the reader, for she knows just what the district court or agency ruled and why.
In sum, I doubt that today’s decision construes Exemption 5 “as narrowly as consistent with efficient Government operation,” court’s opinion at 774, quoting S.Rep. No. 813, 89th Cong., 1st Sess. 9 (1965); rather, the decision appears to me to stray from the legislature’s will.

 Would it not be extraordinary for administrative units always to relate to each other in so fixed and definite a fashion? Compare, e.g., the report published periodically by the Bureau of National Affairs, Inc. (BNA) on “the current plans of the Internal Revenue Service and the Treasury Department (Office of Tax Policy) for the development and the publication of regulations.” This BNA commercial publication is titled Report by Legislation and Regulations Division of Internal Revenue Service’s Office of Chief Counsel on Status of Regulations Projects; available to any interested person by subscription or at a law library, the publication describes the subject matter of the regulatory projects tracked, identifies by name the particular deci-sionmakers responsible for the most current action, and notes the reason for the transmittal of each of the listed items. Relevant to the instant case, a common explanation for a transmittal is "returned for revision."