Riverbend Farms, Inc. v. Madigan
| Decision Date | 17 March 1992 |
| Docket Number | 90-15781,Nos. 90-15505,s. 90-15505 |
| Parties | RIVERBEND FARMS, INC., a California Corporation; Sequoia Orange Co.; Exeter Orange Co., a California Corporation, Plaintiffs-Appellees, v. Edward R. MADIGAN, * Secretary Department of Agriculture, Defendant-Appellant. RIVERBEND FARMS, INC., a California Corporation; Sunny Cove Citrus Association, a California cooperative corporation; Belridge Packing Co., a California corporation; Sequoia Orange Company, Inc., a California corporation; and Exeter Orange Company, Inc., a California corporation, Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. Edward R. MADIGAN, Secty Dept. of Agriculture, Defendant-Appellee. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Ninth Circuit |
James Moody, Washington, D.C., and Thomas E. Campagne, A Professional Corporation, Fresno, Cal., for plaintiffs-appellees-appellants.
Mark W. Pennack, U.S. Dept. of Justice, Washington, D.C., for defendant-appellant-appellee.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of California.
Before CANBY and KOZINSKI, Circuit Judges, and CARROLL, ** District Judge.
Procedure, not substance, is what most distinguishes our government from others. In the not-so-distant past, a government agency in the Soviet Union could impose controls on the production of commodities without bothering to involve the public in the decisionmaking process. By contrast, a government agency in the United States must usually give notice to, and accept comments from, the public before undertaking to place manacles on the invisible hand. 5 U.S.C. § 553. In this case, we address some of the details of this notice and comment requirement.
Plaintiffs are domestic "handlers" of navel oranges: they buy, sell, consign, transport, ship, or by other means place oranges in the current of commerce. 7 C.F.R. § 907.10 (1991). They challenge the procedure used by the Secretary of Agriculture to regulate the navel orange market. Plaintiffs contend that the regulatory system: (1) neither complies with the Administrative Procedure Act's notice and comment requirements nor falls within the good cause exception to those requirements; (2) eviscerates the requirement that the Secretary engage in reasoned decisionmaking; and (3) denies plaintiffs equity in marketing opportunity.
The Agricultural Marketing Agreement Act, 7 U.S.C. § 601 et seq., authorizes the Secretary of Agriculture to issue marketing orders limiting the quantity of commodities shipped into markets identified by the Secretary, thus protecting prices for producers and maintaining orderly marketing conditions. 7 U.S.C. § 602(1). Pursuant to the AMAA, the Secretary promulgated regulations in 1954 (Marketing Order 907, 7 C.F.R. Part 907) to govern the shipment of navel oranges from California and Arizona. 1 For the most part, the regulations promulgated in this marketing order still govern the navel orange market.
The regulations divide California and Arizona into four districts and authorize the Secretary to limit the quantity of navel oranges shipped from these districts to points in the continental United States or Canada during the navel orange marketing season, which generally runs from the middle of fall until the middle of spring.
Pursuant to the regulations, the Navel Orange Administrative Committee (NOAC), an eleven-member committee composed of ten representatives of growers, handlers or cooperative marketing organizations and one non-industry representative, develops its annual Marketing Policy before the start of each season. See 7 C.F.R. §§ 907.20-.34; id. §§ 907.50-.51; Judicial Officer's Opinion, Finding of Fact No. 9(a), at 45-46. As part of this process, the NOAC notifies all handlers by letter and places advertisements in the newspaper before holding a public meeting concerning the proposed Policy. JO, Finding of Fact No. 14(d), at 70. The Policy estimates the weekly volume restrictions that will probably be needed during the upcoming navel orange season. JO, Finding of Fact No. 9(a), at 46. The Secretary then analyzes the NOAC recommendations in the Policy and issues a Position Paper indicating whether he intends to impose volume restrictions in the forthcoming year and what he intends those restrictions to be for each week during the season. JO, Finding of Fact No. 16, at 71-79.
Each Tuesday during the season, the NOAC holds a meeting to settle on a recommendation to give the Secretary for the following week's volume restrictions. Before each meeting, NOAC members usually notify growers and handlers of navel oranges in order to obtain their general views on market conditions. JO at 190. At the meeting, growers, handlers and any other members of the public may participate. JO, Finding of Fact No. 17, at 79. After the meeting, the NOAC makes a recommendation to the Secretary as to the volume of oranges he should authorize for shipment into the domestic market for the week beginning that Friday. Id. After making its recommendation, the NOAC provisionally calculates the quantity of oranges that may be handled by each district, and by each handler within the district, during the coming week, 7 C.F.R. § 907.54(a), and informs the handlers of their scheduled allotment. The Secretary then issues the actual rule, which seldom varies from the NOAC's recommendation. JO, Finding of Fact No. 20, at 86. The rule is published in the Federal Register on Friday and sets the volume restrictions for the upcoming week. When the Secretary issues the rule, he includes a finding that states: "It is further found that it is impracticable and contrary to the public interest to give preliminary notice, engage in public rulemaking, and postpone the effective date until 30 days after publication in the Federal Register." ALJ Decision, Finding of Fact No. 4(c), at 25.
A. The Administrative Procedure Act ensures that the massive federal bureaucracy remains tethered to those it governs--or so the theory goes. When an agency decides to issue a rule, it must first publish a notice of proposed rulemaking in the Federal Register, which is the guide for those members of the public--usually special interest groups--who want to participate in the rulemaking process. The notice must contain "(1) a statement of the time, place, and nature of public rule making proceedings; (2) reference to the legal authority under which the rule is proposed; and (3) either the terms or substance of the proposed rule or a description of the subjects and issues involved." 5 U.S.C. § 553(b). Although the APA mandates no minimum comment period, some window of time, usually thirty days or more, is then allowed for interested parties to comment. Petry v. Block, 737 F.2d 1193, 1201 (D.C.Cir.1984). The public may comment "through submission of written data, views, or arguments with or without opportunity for oral presentation." 5 U.S.C. § 553(c). After "consideration of the relevant matter presented," the agency publishes the final rule, accompanied by a "concise general statement of [its] basis and purpose," in the Register. Id.
The gestation period from initial notice to final rule can be a couple of months, and often much longer depending on the time the agency allows for comments and the time it takes to digest those comments. In addition to the time required for the notice and comment procedures to run their course, an additional thirty days ordinarily must pass between the time the final rule is published and the time it takes effect. 5 U.S.C. § 553(d).
B. The APA contains a few exceptions to the notice and comment requirements for informal rulemaking. One of these is the good cause exception, which applies when an agency "for good cause finds ... that notice and public procedure thereon are impracticable, unnecessary, or contrary to the public interest." 5 U.S.C. § 553(b)(B). The Secretary of Agriculture has relied on this exception for several decades and has never fully complied with the APA's notice and comment requirements before issuing weekly navel orange volume restrictions.
Plaintiffs, currently defendants in forfeiture proceedings for allegedly violating volume restrictions, argue that past volume restrictions are invalid because they were promulgated without observing the APA's notice and comment requirements. Plaintiffs argue that the good cause exception cannot justify the wholesale abandonment of the APA's requirements week in and week out, year in and year out, for the entire life of a regulatory program. The Secretary counters that the regulatory process simply could not be carried out if he were required to follow APA procedures (which often take weeks or months) for rules that must be put into effect almost immediately and that have an effective life of exactly one week. We agree with both parties.
The Secretary certainly has the better of the argument when he points out that he has made a substantive regulatory decision that volume restrictions must be issued on a weekly basis, and that we and plaintiffs are bound by that decision. The APA was intended to impose procedural requirements on the adoption of rules; it is not a device by which an agency may be forced to adopt a less effective regulatory program in order to more effectively comply with notice and comment procedures. The existence of the good cause exception is proof that Congress intended to let agencies depart from normal APA procedures where compliance would jeopardize their assigned missions. Levesque v. Block, 723 F.2d 175, 184 (1st Cir.1983). 2
At the same time, the good cause exception goes only as far as its name implies: It authorizes departures from the APA's requirements only when compliance would interfere with the agency's ability to carry out its mission. The agency thus must minimize conflict with the APA by complying with those APA requirements it is capable of complying with.
The procedures the Secretary has...
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