Court Opinion

ID: 9473461
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 04:30:37.382176+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:43:32.825370
License: Public Domain

COWEN, Senior Circuit Judge,
specially concurring.
While I concur in the court’s opinion, I write here to emphasize my agreement with one aspect of the trial judge’s opinion which the majority may have implicitly adopted. The Government has argued that in determining whether the International Trade Commission (ITC) misconstrued section 201 or acted outside the scope of its delegated authority, courts need only consider whether the ITC made a determination that increased imports of particular items injure or threaten to injure a domestic industry that produces like or directly competitive products. The logical consequence of this argument is that a procedurally faultless affirmative injury determination is totally immune from judicial review, regardless of whether, or to what extent, any reasoning supports this finding.
In my opinion, the Court of International Trade properly rejected this argument. Although the ITC’s findings of fact are not subject to the same substantial evidence standard that prevails in judicial review of most administrative action, the agency is required by section 201(d) to report its determination to the President, accompanied by “the basis therefor.” Before the ITC can be deemed to have complied with this statute, it is therefore necessary, as Judge Carman held, that its Report “fairly apprise the President, interested parties, and the public of the reasoning underlying its recommendation.” 596 F.Supp. at 1081.
In an analogous case, the Supreme Court recognized that the findings of the ITC’s predecessor, the Tariff Commission, were not subject to the same standard of review as might ordinarily apply in administrative law cases. Norwegian Nitrogen Co. v. United States, 288 U.S. 294, 321, 53 S.Ct. 350, 360, 77 L.Ed. 796 (1933). Because Congress required by statute that the Com*91mission hold hearings, however, the Court held the agency to an implied standard of fairness in the conduct of its hearings. Id. The same principle should apply here to require the ITC to at least state the reasons for its findings, in addition to the findings themselves.
In the instant case, the Report of the ITC shows that this requirement has been met. Although the ITC’s footnote referenced by the majority is not a model of clarity, I discern only one way in which it could be read, in the context of the remainder of the report — that frozen mushrooms are among “the subject imports in this case,” but since canned mushrooms constitute 97 percent of the subject imports, the ITC’s conclusions would be the same regardless of whether the import statistics for frozen and dried mushrooms were included in its analysis. It was thus for apparent reasons of convenience or conciseness of expression, rather than neglect or intentional exclusion, that the remainder of the Commissioners’ statements of views dealt only with canned mushrooms. On that analysis, together with the specific inclusion of frozen mushrooms in the ITC’s determination, I agree that the ITC acted within the confines of its discretion.