Court Opinion

ID: 8903011
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2022-11-27 01:23:49.023952+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:07:59.343199
License: Public Domain

IRVING R. KAUFMAN, Chief Judge
(concurring):
I would add only one brief comment to my brother Van Graafeiland’s reasoned opinion. The decision whether to expend public funds to advance an essentially private point of view by its very nature is political and, in a democracy, more appropriately made by the elected representatives of the people. All interested individuals can claim, with utmost sincerity, to represent the “public”. Some selection among potential intervenors becomes necessary, therefore, to assure a fair and balanced presentation of the various viewpoints while insuring, at the same time, that the agency does not exceed its financial constraints. Such choices are particularly unamenable to judicial structuring. Indeed, the Supreme Court, in the Alyeska Pipeline case, refused to give the courts the right to determine, in the absence of legislative guidelines, which public policies are sufficiently important to warrant exceptions from the general prohibition of fee shifting. And the Comptroller General himself in Matter of Costs — NRC, at 8, stated:
. [W]e believe it would be advisable for the parameters of such financial assistance, and the scope and limitations on the use of appropriated funds for this purpose to be fully set forth by the Congress in legislation, as was done in the case of the FTC by the “Magnuson-Moss” Act.
Our three prior decisions in this seemingly interminable case demonstrate the critical and important role that intervenors can play in agency decision-making. I believe that expanded participation by advocates of a variety of public interests before agencies would tend to decrease the number of appeals taken to the federal courts and also the number of cases remanded to agencies because the record failed to reflect adequate consideration of the concerns of all affected parties. Nevertheless, if Congress is of the view, as I am, that a reliable source of funding is a sine qua non to effective public participation in agency proceedings, it should appropriate money to that end. At the same time it should establish a comprehensive and flexible framework that will assure vigorous and independent representation of the public interest and avoid potential abuses.
Thus, while I agree with my dissenting brethren that public funding has become necessary to the optimal functioning of the administrative process, I do not agree that the decision of the en banc majority is an “unfortunate step backward.” I would rather characterize it as an eschewal of the inevitable pitfalls of “judicial lawmaking” in the face of congressional inability to resolve the dilemmas posed by these sensitive issues.