Pacific Legal Foundation v. Department of Transp.
| Decision Date | 03 April 1979 |
| Docket Number | 78-1034,Nos. 77-1797,s. 77-1797 |
| Citation | 193 U.S.App.D.C. 184,593 F.2d 1338 |
| Parties | PACIFIC LEGAL FOUNDATION et al., Petitioners, v. DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION, Respondent. Ralph NADER and Public Citizen, Petitioners, v. Brock ADAMS, Secretary of Transportation, Respondent, Ford Motor Company, Intervenor. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — District of Columbia Circuit |
Sam Kazman, Washington, D. C., with whom Ronald A. Zumbrun, Robert K. Best, Raymond M. Momboisse, and John H. Findley, Sacramento, Cal., and Albert Ferri, Jr., and Donald C. Simpson, Washington, D. C., were on the brief, for petitioners Pacific Legal Foundation et al.
Alan B. Morrison, Washington, D. C., with whom Thomas K. Wilka, Washington, D. C., was on the brief, for petitioners Ralph Nader et al.
Paul Blankenstein, Atty., Dept. of Justice, Washington, D.C., with whom Barbara Allen Babcock, Asst. Atty. Gen., Washington, D.C., Joseph J. Levin, Jr., Chief Counsel, Frank Berndt, Deputy Chief Counsel, David W. Allen, Asst. Chief Counsel, Nat'l Highway Traffic Administration, Washington, D.C., and Leonard Schaitman, Atty., Dept. of Justice, Washington, D. C., were on the brief, for respondents Brock Adams and Department of Transp.
John H. Pickering, Washington, D. C., with whom William R. Perlik, William J. Perlstein, and Donald C. Langevoort, Washington, D. C., were on the brief, for intervenor Ford Motor Co.
Before WRIGHT, Chief Judge, WILKEY, Circuit Judge, and FLANNERY, * District Judge.
Opinion for the court filed by Chief Judge J. SKELLY WRIGHT.
Like Scylla and Charybdis, the petitioners in these two cases challenge from opposite sides Motor Vehicle Safety Standard 208, which requires "passive restraints," such as automatic seatbelts or airbags, in all passenger cars sold in this country after September 1, 1983. 1 In No. 77-1797 petitioners argue that there is insufficient empirical support for Standard 208, and that the Secretary of Transportation (Secretary) violated the Motor Vehicle Safety Act of 1966 (Safety Act) 2 by failing to consider public reaction to passive restraints and by ignoring potential hazards posed by them. Petitioners in No. 78-1034, in contrast, insist that the Secretary improperly delayed implementation of the Standard and lacked good cause for permitting car manufacturers to introduce passive restraints gradually, rather than requiring full compliance by the effective date. We find that the Secretary acted within his statutory authority and validly issued the passive restraint order under his rulemaking powers.
After the "first collision" between an automobile and an external object, passenger restraint systems protect against the "second collision" between vehicle occupants and the interior of the car. 3 In 1967 the Secretary of Transportation issued the original Standard 208, requiring seatbelts in all passenger cars to reduce damages from the second collision. 4 By July 1969, however, the Department of Transportation (DOT) concluded that the level of seatbelt use was far too low to reduce traffic injuries to an acceptable level. 5 Consequently, DOT sought to develop "passive restraints" that would protect car occupants automatically. Two currently available systems protect against injuries from the second collision without requiring independent action by motorists. "Passive seatbelts," which function like shoulder belts when in position, deploy around front seat occupants as they enter the car and close the doors, but are largely restricted to use in cars with bucket seats. 6 Airbags are cushions stored under the dashboard that, when triggered by a frontal collision, fill with stored or rapidly generated gas to protect the rider from collision with the car's interior. 7 Both are designed to protect occupants in frontal crashes, so riders must wear lap belts to guard against injury from lateral-impact crashes and roll-overs. 8
Beginning in May 1970 the agency conducted a lengthy rulemaking proceeding on passenger restraint systems, and in 1972 adopted a rule that established a three-step approach. 9 Between January 1972 and August 1973 new cars would have to be equipped with lap and shoulder belts for front seats, with a warning to go off when the belts were not fastened, and lap belts at other seating positions. From August 1973 to August 1975 new cars would have to provide at least lap and shoulder belts for front seat occupants with an "ignition interlock" system that would prevent the car from starting while those belts were not connected. Finally, after August 1975 new cars would have passive protection for all passengers. The 1972 passive restraint standard, like the rule before us now, was a performance standard. Rather than dictate any particular form of passive protection, the rule established minimum criteria that cars would have to meet.
The 1972 rule foundered both in the courts and in Congress. In December of that year the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit ruled that, although "the Agency's decision to require passive restraints is supported by substantial evidence," 10 its testing procedures did not satisfy the Safety Act's requirement that standards be "objective." 11 The court found that the anthropomorphic dummies used in crash tests had been insufficiently uniform and had not replicated several characteristics of the human body. 12 The ignition interlock system mandated by the second step of the 1972 rule was unaffected by the Sixth Circuit's finding, 13 and briefly increased seatbelt use. 14 By late 1974, however, the nation's irritation at being unable to start a car without fastening the seatbelts drove Congress to ban ignition interlocks and continuous buzzers. 15 That legislation also limited DOT's discretion to amend Standard 208 in the future. If any modification could not be satisfied by a seatbelt system, it would have to be submitted to Congress, which could veto it by concurrent resolution of both houses. 16
Despite the demise of the 1972 rule, DOT continued to study passive restraints, 17 and in 1976 then Secretary William Coleman initiated a new rulemaking proceeding on the issue. 18 After hearing public testimony and reviewing written comments, Coleman concluded that passive restraints were technologically and economically feasible and would "provide substantially increased protection to the public in traffic accidents * * *." 19 Nevertheless, because he anticipated public resistance to passive restraints, Coleman did not order their introduction. Instead, he proposed to contract with four automobile manufacturers for production of up to 500,000 cars with passive restraints as a demonstration program to smooth public reception of the new safety systems. 20
The current Secretary of Transportation, Brock Adams, reopened the passive restraint rulemaking only four months after Coleman's decision. 21 Following another round of written comments and a public hearing, Adams issued the mandatory passive restraint rule now before us. 22 Adams squarely rejected Coleman's view of the likely public reaction to passive restraints, which had been based largely on the ignition interlock episode. 23 Adams insisted that the interlock system met with public obloquy because it required affirmative action by the occupant, while passive restraints, by definition, make no such demand. 24 Because passive restraints would not force changes in the public's behavior, Adams concluded, there was no need to wait for a demonstration program to convert public attitudes.
On related issues Adams agreed with Coleman that (1) according to available experimental data and limited field experience, passive restraints could prevent approximately 9,000 deaths and over 100,000 injuries; 25 (2) with these expected benefits reflected in lower insurance premiums, passive restraint systems would not present an unreasonable economic burden for motorists; 26 and (3) possible negative effects, such as accidental deployment of airbags, lower use of lap belts, and possible danger from the gases used in airbags, would be offset by the advantages of passive restraints. 27 The Secretary ordered a "phasing-in" of passive restraint systems. For model year 1982 all new cars with wheelbases above 114 inches would have to be equipped with full passive restraint systems for front seat occupants. In the following year cars with wheelbases between 100 and 114 inches would have to comply, and all 1984 models would be held to the Standard. 28
Revised Standard 208 was then submitted to the Congress, where no action was taken to veto it. 29 The Secretary rejected petitions for reconsideration from both groups participating in these cases, 30 and these appeals followed.
Our review proceeds under both the informal rulemaking provision of the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) 31 and the substantive sections of the Motor Vehicle Safety Act. The latter statute requires that Motor Vehicle Safety Standards "shall be practicable, shall meet the need for motor vehicle safety, and shall be stated in objective terms." 32 In addition, the Secretary must "consider relevant available motor vehicle safety data" 33 and determine the appropriateness of the standard for the type of vehicle covered by it. 34 As applied, these standards can be tested as part of our "thorough, probing, in-depth review" of the record on appeals of informal rulemaking under the APA. 35 Of course, we may not substitute our judgment for the agency's. Still, we must determine that the agency action was consistent with its statutory mandate, rational, and not arbitrary. As this court noted in an earlier Safety Act case, a court must decide "whether the agency has performed in accordance with the Congressional purposes." In that effort
(t)he paramount objective is to see whether the agency, given an...
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