Court Opinion

ID: 9481519
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 08:21:41.117395+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:48:22.555827
License: Public Domain

WALD, Circuit Judge,
dissenting:
I believe this case is controlled by the Supreme Court’s decision in Dole v. United Steelworkers of America, 494 U.S. 26, 110 S.Ct. 929, 108 L.Ed.2d 23 (1990). I find that the “self-evaluation requirement” in this case resembles the “hazard communication requirement” at issue in Dole closely enough so that Dole’s reasoning removes the self-evaluation requirement from OMB review under the Paperwork Reduction Act.
I.
In Dole, the Supreme Court reviewed the Office of Management and Budget’s (“OMB”) disapproval of disclosure requirements under which the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (“OSHA”) required employers to make available to employees extensive information concerning hazardous chemicals in the workplace. See 29 C.F.R. § 1910.1200 (1988). The Court ruled that the Paperwork Reduction Act (“Paperwork Act”) did not authorize OMB to review or disapprove such disclosures. In doing so, the Court emphasized two aspects of disclosure requirements. First, a disclosure requirement “represents a substantive regulatory choice” that “such a requirement is the least intrusive measure that will sufficiently protect the public.” 110 S.Ct. at 933. Second, a disclosure requirement does not involve “an agency’s efforts to gather facts for its own use.” Id. at 934. Because of these two factors, the Court concluded, a disclosure requirement was not an “information collection request” under the Paperwork Act, and therefore was not subject to OMB review.
The self-evaluation requirement at issue in this case bears the same critical features identified by the Dole Court. First, the self-evaluation requirement embodies a substantive regulatory choice. Just as OSHA determined that a disclosure requirement was “the least intrusive measure that will sufficiently protect the public,” id. at 933, so the Department of Health and Human Services (“HHS”) determined that a less intrusive weapon in combating age discrimination was to require recipients to take a hard look at their own policies and practices. The parallel between the disclosure and self-evaluation requirements is striking, as the following passage from Dole, mutatis mutandis, illustrates:
An agency charged with protecting employees from hazardous chemicals [read “ending age discrimination”] has a variety of regulatory weapons from which to choose: It can ban the chemical altogether [“ban certain types of age distinctions”]; it can mandate specified safety measures [“establish goals or timetables”]; or it can require labels or other warnings [“require self-evaluation”]. An agency chooses to impose a warning requirement [“a self-evaluation requirement”] because it believes that such a requirement is the least intrusive measure that will sufficiently [fulfill its statutory mandate].
110 S.Ct. at 933. Thus, like OSHA’s disclosure requirement, HHS’ self-evaluation requirement embodies an agency’s substantive regulatory choice.
Second, the self-evaluation requirement — again like the disclosure requirement — does not involve “an agency’s efforts to gather facts for its own use.” Id. at 934. Indeed, in promulgating its final rules, HHS (then the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare (“HEW”)) directly and expressly rejected suggestions that self-evaluations be used for enforcement purposes.
*85Comment: Several commenters [on the proposed self-evaluation requirement] stated that all self-evaluations should be subjected to a review_ Other com-menters suggested that the funding agency spot check recipients’ self-evaluations .... Generally, commenters stated that self-evaluations alone would be insufficient to meet the [Age Discrimination Act (“ADA”)] reporting requirements.
Response: HEW believes that the primary purpose of the self-evaluation is internal review by the recipient. The self-evaluation process is not intended to yield sufficient information to satisfy the ADA reporting requirements.
44 Fed.Reg. at 33,784-85 (1979) (emphasis supplied). As these remarks clearly demonstrate, HHS intended that the self-evaluation requirement be for the recipient’s use, not “for [the agency’s] own use.” Thus, in this regard as well, the self-evaluation requirement is indistinguishable from the disclosure requirement in Dole.
Stated more generally, Dole established that OMB’s jurisdiction under the Paperwork Act did not extend to information requests that, taken alone and without further agency action, advance the ends of the relevant statute.1 Thus, what distinguishes the disclosure requirement in Dole from other information requests is that hazard disclosure, taken alone, reduces workplace injuries and thus advances the ends of the relevant statute (the OSH Act). The same cannot be said of the standard variety of agency information-collection requests. The collection of receipts or records for tax purposes does not in and of itself generate revenue; it merely facilitates subsequent agency enforcement actions. Similarly, the collection of financial information by license applicants does not, taken alone, ensure that the Federal Communications Commission’s licensing requirements will be met; instead such collection is merely “a means of acquiring information useful in performing some other agency function,” 110 S.Ct. at 933-34 (emphasis supplied), namely, enforcement.
In contrast, HHS’ self-evaluation requirement, like the hazard disclosures in Dole, is an end in itself. HHS believed that, through self-scrutiny, recipients would begin to recognize and eliminate discriminatory practices. HHS expressly stated that self-evaluations were not a means of agency enforcement, but rather themselves a way of combatting discrimination.2 Given *86these characteristics, I conclude that the self-evaluation requirement is, for purposes of the Paperwork Act, similar to the disclosure requirement in Dole. And, pursuant to Dole, I also conclude that such self-evaluations are beyond OMB review under the Paperwork Act.
II.
The majority distinguishes this case from Dole on two grounds. The first of these can be dispatched quickly. The majority first suggests that the “requirement of availability to an agency [is] enough to bring a data-collection regulation under the Paperwork Act,” Majority opinion (“Maj. op.”) at 81, and that such a requirement is present in this case, but was not in Dole. Actually, however, there is no real difference between this case and Dole insofar as the existence of an agency-availability requirement is concerned. As the majority notes, OSHA regulations did require that hazard disclosures — like self-evaluations— be made available to the agency. See 29 C.F.R. § 1910.1200(e)(4). The only difference between the two cases, then, is this: while in Dole OMB did not explicitly disapprove the agency-availability requirement,3 in this case, OMB appears to have disapproved both the self-evaluation and the agency-availability requirements.
This distinction cannot plausibly dictate a different outcome from that which the Supreme Court reached in Dole. The Dole court ruled that OMB did not have jurisdiction to disapprove the disclosure requirement; it surely cannot be the case that simply by disapproving both the disclosure and the availability requirements OMB could magically extend its own authority. To allow the tail to wag the dog in this way would render Dole meaningless.
The majority relies most heavily on a second contention: that a self-evaluation is merely a compliance record — no different from, say, tax records. This contention, however, is directly contrary to the language, structure, and purpose of the self-evaluation requirement.
The most obvious evidence that a self-evaluation is not merely an enforcement report is the name of the requirement. HHS did not style the requirement as a “compliance report,” or a “performance record,” but as a “self-evaluation.” The label could not be more accurate: the object of the requirement is to have recipients evaluate themselves. This plain meaning is reinforced by the structure of the regulation which indicates that HHS did not intend the self-evaluation to be an enforcement tool.4 HHS set forth the procedures for compliance reviews in a separate section (§ 90.44), making no reference there to the self-evaluations. Also, when outlining a recipient’s duty to “[p]ermit reasonable access by the agency to ... sources of information” necessary to determine compliance, HHS again made no mention of the self-evaluations. 45 C.F.R. § 90.45(b).
Moreover, events subsequent to OMB’s disapproval of the self-evaluation requirement further indicate that HHS did not intend the self-evaluation requirement to be an enforcement device. After OMB disapproved the self-evaluation requirement, HHS, in an effort to comply with OMB’s decision, amended the regulation to provide that self-evaluation would only be required in conjunction with an agency enforcement action. See 47 Fed.Reg. at 57,860; 45 C.F.R. § 91.33(b). This, it seems to me, clearly indicates that both HHS and OMB understood the original self-evaluations at *87issue in this case to be something very different from compliance reports.
Finally, as noted, HHS articulated the purpose of self-evaluations as “internal review by the recipient.” 44 Fed.Reg. at 33,785 (emphasis supplied). In introducing the regulations, HHS framed the “major issue” as the need to correct “age distinctions [that] may be based on nothing more than stereotypes and misconceptions about the abilities and needs of persons of different ages.” 43 Fed.Reg. at 56,428 (1978). As the regulations reflect, HHS believed that one important way to eliminate such stereotypes was through self-evaluations.
In sum, the language, structure, and purpose of the self-evaluation requirement belie the majority’s claim that that requirement is nothing more than a compliance record. HHS clearly believed that the self-evaluations, taken alone, would aid in redressing the problems of age discrimination.
III.
Distilled to its essence, OMB’s critical error was to substitute its vision of anti-discrimination law for HHS’ vision. As illustrated, HHS believed that anti-discrimination law required recipients to modify their attitudes and values, that battling discrimination involved not only barring certain behaviors, but also debunking stereotypes and exposing prejudices. The origins of HHS’ vision of anti-discrimination law can ultimately be traced to a federal study mandated by the Age Discrimination Act itself.
Prior to the enactment of any regulations, the Act required the Commission on Civil Rights to conduct a study of age discrimination in federally funded programs and activities. \See 42 U.S.C. § 6106.]_ The Act also required each affected federal agency to respond to the Commission’s findings or recommendations [before promulgating regulations].
43 Fed.Reg. at 56,428. One of the Commission’s critical findings was that, in federally funded programs, “Negative staff attitudes toward older persons predispose program administrators to neglect or avoid serving older persons.” U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, The Age Discrimination Study at 36 (1977) (emphasis in original). Based on the Commission’s report, see 43 Fed.Reg. at 8,756, and on subsequent hearings, HHS proposed its regulations, including the self-evaluation requirement. As this history indicates, HHS believed self-scrutiny to be an important way of battling “negative [ ] attitudes” and required self-evaluations as a means — in and by itself — of combatting discrimination.
OMB apparently rejected this vision and imposed upon HHS a different conception of anti-discrimination law. Adopting what might be called a “regulatory” approach to anti-discrimination law, OMB suggested that fighting discrimination is not about changing attitudes or values, but simply about prohibiting certain behaviors. Thus, from OMB’s perspective, the only way for HHS to fulfill its statutory mandate is through policing, enforcing, and sanctioning such behavior; self-evaluations must, therefore, be part of these efforts.
The majority defers to OMB’s approach to anti-discrimination law. They therefore conclude that self-evaluations cannot “independently ... fulfill[ ] the agency’s ultimate statutory goal,” Maj. op. at 82 (emphasis in original), and equate self-evaluations with “tax records and compliance reports [that merely] adjust[ ] the regulatees’ mindset and [ ] facilitate] agency enforcement.” Id. But such an analysis misses the point: “adjusting the regulatees’ mindset” is, at least in HHS’ view, what anti-discrimination law is all about.
OMB is the agency charged with enforcing the Paperwork Act and, accordingly, is entitled to significant judicial deference. Nonetheless, if the Supreme Court’s decision in Dole means anything, it means that when it comes to substantive matters— such as the preferred understanding of anti-discrimination law — the Paperwork Act limits OMB’s authority.5 Whatever *88the merits of these two visions of anti-discrimination law, Dole established beyond doubt that it is not the role of OMB to superimpose its opinion of the “better” view onto agency regulations or to trump an agency’s considered, substantive judgment simply because it disagrees with that judgment.
For these reasons, I respectfully dissent.6

. The Paperwork Act itself expressly provides that
Nothing in this chapter shall be interpreted as increasing or decreasing the authority of [OMB] with respect to the substantive policies or programs of ... agencies_
44 U.S.C. § 3518(e) (emphasis supplied). The government contends that this case is governed by the Federal Reports Act, the predecessor of the Paperwork Act. Like the majority, I need not decide that issue, for I conclude that in all relevant respects the two statutes are identical. Although the Federal Reports Act did not expressly bar OMB’s regulation of "substantive policies” as does the Paperwork Act’s § 3518(e), Congress clearly intended as much. Indeed, in enacting § 3518(e), Congress noted that
[t]his provision results from concern that the authority of this Act might be used to increase the power of OMB over substantive policy. [T]here have been problems along that line in the past. It has been argued that the Federal Reports Act ... was used to interfere with regulatory policy.... Those arguments prompted Congress to remove the independent agencies from OMB supervision back in 1973 — and place those agencies under GAO. S.Rep. No. 930, 96th Cong., 2d Sess. 56, reprinted in 1980 U.S.Code Cong. & Admin.News 6241, 6296; see also H.R.Conf.Rep. No. 924, 93d Cong., 1st Sess. 10-11, reprinted in 1973 U.S. Code Cong. & Admin.News 2523, 2533-34. I understand these congressional discussions to indicate that Congress did not intend the Federal Reports Act to allow OMB to control the "substantive policies or programs” of federal agencies.

. The idea that critical self-evaluation is an important means of battling discrimination is not novel. Courts, in other contexts, have long recognized the importance of such introspective techniques. Cf. Albemarle Paper Co. v. Moody, 422 U.S. 405, 417-18, 95 S.Ct. 2362, 2371-72, 45 L.Ed.2d 280 (1975) (emphasizing the importance, in title VII actions, of remedies "which cause[ ] employers and unions to self-examine and to self-evaluate their employment practices and to endeavor to eliminate, so far as possible, the last vestiges of” discrimination); see also Penk v. Oregon State Board of Higher Education, 99 F.R.D. 511, 512 (D.Or.1983) (discussing whether self-evaluations should be discoverable and noting that "candid self-evaluation is proba*86bly necessary in order to achieve voluntary compliance with the employment discrimination laws”); Jamison v. Storer Broadcasting Co., 511 F.Supp. 1286 (E.D.Mich.1981) (same).

. OMB did not need to disapprove explicitly the availability requirement because, having disapproved the hazard communication itself, the availability requirement was meaningless.

. Although one subsection of the disapproved regulation does use the word “compliance,” see 45 C.F.R. § 90.43(b)(1), that single word does not demonstrate that the purpose and function of the self-evaluation was to enhance agency enforcement. Instead, in context, "compliance under the Act” is merely a shorthand for the contents of the self-evaluation — namely, the "identification] and justification of] each age distinction imposed by the recipient.” 45 C.F.R. § 90.43(b)(2).

. The majority recognizes that Congress and HHS "hoped that the Age Discrimination Act *88would correct discriminatory stereotyping," but erroneously concludes that “neither of the political branches saw [this objective] as an independent regulatory goal.” Maj. op. at 82-83. If by the executive branch the majority means HHS, its conclusion is incorrect: as demonstrated above, the very promulgation of the regulation indicates that HHS understood the revision of attitudes and values to be an "independent regulatory goal.” (And under Chevron U.S.A., Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc., 467 U.S. 837, 104 S.Ct. 2778, 81 L.Ed.2d 694 (1984), this court must defer to HHS’ reasonable interpretation of the Age Discrimination Act.) If, on the other hand, the majority refers to OMB, its conclusion is also unsound: under Dole, OMB must defer to HHS’ substantive judgments.

. For the reasons set forth in my original dissent, see Action Alliance of Senior Citizens of Philadelphia v. Bowen, 846 F.2d 1449, 1458-59 (D.C.Cir.1988), vacated, - U.S. -, 110 S.Ct. 1329, 108 L.Ed.2d 469 (1990), I continue to dissent from the majority’s treatment and resolution of the notice and comment issue.