Court Opinion

ID: 9479816
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 07:29:46.962872+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:47:17.727823
License: Public Domain

D.H. GINSBURG, Circuit Judge,
concurring in the denial of rehearing en banc, with whom SILBERMAN, WILLIAMS, and SENTELLE, Circuit Judges, concur:
Contrary to the claim made by petitioner National Federation of Federal Employees in urging the court to rehear this case en banc, there is no conflict between the decisions here and in C C Distributors, Inc. v. United States, 883 F.2d 146 (D.C.Cir.1989), decided three days earlier. In National Federation of Federal Employees v. Cheney, 883 F.2d 1038 (D.C.Cir.1989) (NFFE), we held that federal employees lack standing to challenge a decision to contract out government work because their interest is “inconsistent” with Congress’s purpose, in § 1223 of the 1987 National Defense Authorization Act, of removing unwarranted “ ‘handicaps’ against government contractors,” id. at 1050-51; in C C Distributors we held that private contractors have such standing because their interest in competing for government contracts is “closely related to” Congress’s goal of improving efficiency through contracting out; as the legislative history showed, “DOD had previously handicapped private contractors” in ways that the Act was intended to preclude, 883 F.2d at 153. In applying the test for prudential standing, therefore, these decisions merely conclude that private contractors fall within, and federal employees without, “the zone of interests ... protected or regulated by the statute ... in question,” Association of Data Processing Service Orgs., Inc. v. Camp, 397 U.S. 150, 153, 90 S.Ct. 827, 830, 25 L.Ed.2d 184 (1970) (footnote omitted), i.e., § 1223 of the 1987 Authorization Act.
As we discussed in C C Distributors, the Senate Report referred to that statute as a “mandatory contracting out provision” and stated that it would newly “enable private industry to compete with the government sector whenever possible_” S.Rep. No. 331, 99th Cong. 2nd Sess. 277 (1986), reprinted in 1986 U.S.Code Cong. & Admin. News 6413, 6472. See C C Distributors, 883 F.2d at 152. On this basis, we found it reasonable to infer that Congress intended to permit the plaintiff contractors to bring a suit challenging the decision of the Air Force, without comparing the relative costs, to displace private contractors with in-house employees in order to perform certain procurement functions. Id. at 148-49. Although we did not expressly hold that private contractors were “intended benefi*99ciaries” of the Act, see Hazardous Waste Treatment Council v. Thomas, 885 F.2d 918, 923 (D.C.Cir.1989) (HWTC IV), as they may well be, it was at least apparent that their interests systematically coincide with Congress’s interest in encouraging contracting out. See C C Distributors, 883 F.2d at 153.
Congress mandated contracting out not as an end in itself, of course, but in order to promote economy and efficiency in government. See id. at 152-53. Economy and efficiency are promoted not through indiscriminate use of private contractors, but by contracting out only where that is less expensive than using in-house employees, such as are represented by NFFE. Thus, petitioners argue, the real interest of government employees in challenging contracting out decisions is consistent with Congress’s intent, because the employees will prevail in getting the work only when they can make it cheaper for the Government to have them do the work.
The prudential standing test focuses not upon whether the outcome of a particular case might be consistent with the public interest, but upon whether furtherance of the challenger’s interest is likely consistent with Congress’s intent. See HWTC IV, 885 F.2d at 925-26. Adopting the level of generality suggested by petitioners would eviscerate the prudential standing test: challengers to agency actions might as reasonably assert that because Congress’s interest in adopting any statute is to promote the public welfare, they have standing because they will not prevail unless their position is found to be consistent with the public welfare.
The prudential standing test is not so porous a filter. It screens out challenges by persons whom the court cannot rationally infer that “Congress ‘intended ... be relied upon to challenge agency disregard of the law.’ ” Clarke v. Securities Industry Ass’n, 479 U.S. 388, 399, 107 S.Ct. 750, 757, 93 L.Ed.2d 757 (1987) (quoting Block v. Community Nutrition Institute, 467 U.S. 340, 347, 104 S.Ct. 2450, 2454-55, 81 L.Ed.2d 270 (1984)).
Here, we deal with a statute by which Congress expressed its intention to improve the relative position of private contractors, who had previously been handicapped by employees on the inside track. See C C Distributors, 883 F.2d at 152. Government employees were clearly not the intended beneficiaries of a statute designed to promote contracting out, nor are their interests systematically coincident with — on the contrary, they are systematically incongruent with — the objective of the statute. See HWTC IV, 885 F.2d at 924. Their suits therefore “are more likely to frustrate than to further,” Clarke, 479 U.S. at 397 n. 12, 107 S.Ct. at 756 n. 12, Congress’s attempt to overcome the innate bias of government agencies against contracting out.