These cases require us to decide whether 28 U. S. C. § 2342(4) and 42 U. S. C. § 2239 grant the federal courts of appeals exclusive subject-matter jurisdiction initially to review decisions of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to deny citizen petitions requesting that the Commission "institute a proceeding . . . to modify, suspend or revoke a license . . . ." 10 CFR § 2.206(a) (1984).
I
Respondent Joette Lorion, on behalf of the Center for Nuclear Responsibility, wrote the Nuclear Regulatory Commission on September 11, 1981, to express fears about potential safety threats at petitioner Florida Power and Light Company's Turkey Point nuclear reactor near her home outside Miami, Florida. Her detailed letter urged the Commission to suspend Turkey Point's operating license
This rule also requires the Director of Nuclear Reactor Regulation, within a reasonable time after receiving such a request, either to institute the requested proceeding,
In these cases, the Director decided not to take the action Lorion had requested. His written explanation — based on a 547-page record compiled primarily from existing Commission materials — responded to each of Lorion's points.
Declining to reach the merits of this dispute, the Court of Appeals decided sua sponte that it lacked initial subject-matter jurisdiction over Lorion's challenge to the denial of the § 2.206 petition. This result was based on the court's reading of the three statutory provisions that define the initial jurisdiction of the federal courts of appeals over Commission decisions. Under 28 U. S. C. § 2342(4), a provision of the Administrative Orders Review Act (commonly known and referred to herein as the Hobbs Act) the courts of appeals have exclusive jurisdiction over petitions seeking review of "all final orders of the Atomic Energy Commission [now the Nuclear Regulatory Commission] made reviewable by section 2239 of title 42." Title 42 U. S. C. § 2239(b) provides that the Hobbs Act governs review of "[a]ny final order entered in any proceeding of the kind specified in subsection (a) [of section 2239]." Subsection (a) proceedings are those "for the granting, suspending, revoking, or amending of any license." 42 U. S. C. § 2239(a)(1). The Court of Appeals concluded that the Commission's denial of Lorion's § 2.206 petition was not an order entered in a "proceeding for the granting, suspending, revoking, or amending of any license" within the meaning of 42 U. S. C. § 2239(a) and therefore dismissed Lorion's petition for review for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction. 229 U. S. App. D. C. 440, 712 F.2d 1472 (1983).
The court's decision turned on its interpretation of the interrelation between the review and hearing provisions of § 2239. Section 2239(a)(1) provides that "[i]n any proceeding under this chapter, for the granting, suspending, revoking, or amending of any license . . . the Commission shall grant a hearing upon the request of any person whose interest may be affected by the proceeding." On the basis of this statutory
II
The issue before us is whether the Commission's denial of a § 2.206 request should be considered a final order initially reviewable exclusively in the court of appeals pursuant to 42
A
We begin, as did the Court of Appeals, with the language of the statute. See Reiter v. Sonotone Corp., 442 U.S. 330, 337 (1979). The crucial statutory language in subsection (b)
The Court of Appeals found this statutory language "clearcut." 229 U. S. App. D. C., at 445, 712 F. 2d, at 1477. We do not find it so. Though the linkage in § 2239 of the definition of proceeding and hearing could be read as the Court of Appeals read it, see supra, at 733-734, § 2239 could as easily be read as reflecting two independent congressional purposes: (1) to provide for hearings in licensing proceedings if requested by certain individuals (those "whose interest may be affected"); and (2) to place judicial review of final orders in all licensing proceedings in the courts of appeals pursuant to the Hobbs Act irrespective of whether a hearing before the agency occurred or was requested. On this alternative reading, the cross-reference in subsection (b) to "proceeding[s] of the kind specified in subsection (a)," 42 U. S. C. § 2239(b), was meant only to refer to the language "any proceeding under this chapter, for the granting, suspending, revoking, or amending of any license," § 2239(a)(1). If read this way, subsection (b) reflects no congressional intent to limit initial court of appeals review to Commission actions in which a hearing took place.
B
Relevant evidence of congressional intent in the legislative history, though fragmentary, supports this interpretation. The legislative metamorphoses of the various bills that eventually became the Atomic Energy Act of 1954 strongly suggest that Congress intended to define the scope of initial court of appeals review according to the subject matter of the Commission action and not according to whether the Commission held a hearing. As originally introduced in both the House and the Senate, the provision governing judicial
The hearing requirement under the Act developed independently of the review provisions until the last step of the legislative process. As introduced in the House and the Senate, the original bills did not provide for a hearing in licensing determinations. See H. R. 8862, supra; S. 3323, supra. The lack of a hearing requirement prompted expressions of concern at Committee hearings, S. 3323 and H. R. 8862, To Amend the Atomic Energy Act of 1946: Hearings on
The evolution of the judicial review provision reveals a congressional intent to provide for initial court of appeals review of all final orders in licensing proceedings. When Congress decided on the scope of judicial review, it did so solely by reference to the subject matter of the Commission action and not by reference to the procedural particulars of the Commission action. That the hearing provision evolved independently reinforces the conclusion that Congress had no intention to limit initial court of appeals review to cases in which a hearing occurred or could have occurred. The only possible evidence of congressional intent to limit court of appeals review by reference to the procedures used is the last-minute marriage of the hearing and review provisions in the Hickenlooper Amendment. Nothing in the legislative history affirmatively suggests that Congress intended this conjunction of the hearing and review provisions to limit initial
C
Whether subject-matter jurisdiction over denials of § 2.206 petitions properly lies in the district courts or the courts of appeals must also be considered in light of the basic congressional choice of Hobbs Act review in 42 U. S. C. § 2239(b). The Hobbs Act specifically contemplated initial court of appeals review of agency orders resulting from proceedings in which no hearing took place. See 28 U. S. C. § 2347(b) ("When the agency has not held a hearing . . . the court of appeals shall . . . pass on the issues presented, when a hearing is not required by law and . . . no genuine issue of material fact is presented"). One purpose of the Hobbs Act was to avoid the duplication of effort involved in creation of a separate record before the agency and before the district court. See H. R. Rep. No. 2122, 81st Cong., 2d Sess., 4 (1950) ("[T]he submission of the cases upon the records made before the administrative agencies will avoid the making of two records, one before the agency and one before the court, and thus going over the same ground twice"). Cf. Harrison v. PPG Industries, Inc., 446 U.S. 578, 593 (1980) ("The most obvious advantage of direct review by a court of appeals is the time saved compared to review by a district court, followed by a second review on appeal").
Given the choice of the Hobbs Act as the primary method of review of licensing orders, we have no reason to think Congress in the Atomic Energy Act would have intended to preclude initial court of appeals review of licensing proceedings
D
The legislative history and the basic congressional choice of Hobbs Act review lead us to conclude that Congress intended to vest in the courts of appeals initial subject-matter jurisdiction over challenges to Commission denials of § 2.206 petitions. An examination of the consequences that would follow upon adoption of the contrary rule proposed by the Court of Appeals in these cases confirms the soundness of this conclusion. The Court of Appeals did not specify whether it though § 2239 vested the courts of appeals with initial jurisdiction over only proceedings in which a hearing actually occurred or over proceedings in which a hearing could have occurred had one been requested. Either approach results in consequences that cannot be squared with general principles respecting judicial review of agency action.
If initial review in the court of appeals hinged on whether a hearing before the agency actually occurred, then some licensing proceedings will be reviewed in the courts of appeals while others will not depending on whether a hearing is requested. It is clear that § 2239 contemplates the possibility of proceedings without hearings. Absent a request from a person whose interest may be affected by the proceeding no hearing is required. 42 U. S. C. § 2239(a)(1) ("In any proceeding under this chapter . . . the Commission shall grant a hearing upon the request of any person whose interest may be affected by the proceeding"). Thus if no one requests a hearing or if the only request comes from a person whose interest cannot be affected by the issues before the Commission in the proceeding, no hearing will be held. See, e. g., Bellotti v. NRC, 233 U. S. App. D. C. 274, 725 F.2d 1380 (1983). The locus of judicial review would thus depend on the "fortuitous circumstance" of whether an interested person
If initial review in the court of appeals hinged on whether a hearing could have taken place had an interested person requested one, different but equally irrational consequences follow. All final orders in full-blown Commission licensing proceedings in which the issue is the granting, suspending, revoking, or amending of a license would be reviewed initially in the court of appeals irrespective of whether a hearing occurred before the agency. But final orders in summary proceedings and informal Commission rulemaking authorized in § 2239(a) would be reviewed initially in the district court because the Commission does not currently provide for a hearing in such situations.
At least two implausible results would flow from excluding orders in such situations from initial review in the court of appeals. First, the resulting duplication of judicial review in the district court and court of appeals, with its attendant delays, would defeat the very purpose of summary or informal
Perhaps the only plausible justification for linking initial review in the court of appeals to the occurrence of a hearing before the agency would be that, absent a hearing, the reviewing court would lack an adequate agency-compiled factual basis to evaluate the agency action and a district court with factfinding powers could make up that deficiency. Such a justification cannot, however, be squared with fundamental principles of judicial review of agency action. "[T]he focal point for judicial review should be the administrative record already in existence, not some new record made initially in the reviewing court." Camp v. Pitts, 411 U.S. 138, 142 (1973). The task of the reviewing court is to apply the appropriate APA standard of review, 5 U. S. C. § 706, to the
If the record before the agency does not support the agency action, if the agency has not considered all relevant factors, or if the reviewing court simply cannot evaluate the challenged agency action on the basis of the record before it, the proper course, except in rare circumstances, is to remand to the agency for additional investigation or explanation. The reviewing court is not generally empowered to conduct a de novo inquiry into the matter being reviewed and to reach its own conclusions based on such an inquiry. We made precisely this point last Term in a case involving review under the Hobbs Act. FCC v. ITT World Communications, Inc., 466 U.S. 463, 468-469 (1984); see also Camp v. Pitts, supra. Moreover, a formal hearing before the agency is in no way necessary to the compilation of an agency record. As the actions of the Commission in compiling a 547-page record in this case demonstrate, agencies typically compile records in the course of informal agency action. The APA specifically contemplates judicial review on the basis of the agency record compiled in the course of informal agency action in which a hearing has not occurred. See 5 U. S. C. §§ 551(13), 704, 706.
The factfinding capacity of the district court is thus typically unnecessary to judicial review of agency decisionmaking. Placing initial review in the district court does have the negative effect, however, of requiring duplication of the identical task in the district court and in the court of appeals; both courts are to decide, on the basis of the record the agency provides, whether the action passes muster under the appropriate APA standard of review. One crucial purpose of the Hobbs Act and other jurisdictional provisions that place initial review in the courts of appeals is to avoid the waste attendant upon this duplication of effort. Harrison v. PPG Industries, Inc., 446 U. S., at 593; Investment Company
These considerations apply with full force in the present cases. Locating initial review in the district court would certainly result in duplication of effort and probably result in bifurcation of review in that persons seeking to use § 2.206 petitions to broaden the scope of ongoing Commission proceedings would, if unsuccessful, obtain review in the district court while review of the final order in the proceeding would occur in the court of appeals.
III
Whether initial subject-matter jurisdiction lies initially in the courts of appeals must of course be governed by the intent of Congress and not by any views we may have about sound policy. Harrison v. PPG Industries, Inc., supra, at 593. In these cases, the indications of legislative intent we have been able to discern suggest that Congress intended to locate initial subject-matter jurisdiction in the courts of appeals. This result is in harmony with Congress' choice of Hobbs Act review for Commission licensing proceedings in § 2239(b) and is consistent with basic principles respecting the allocation of judicial review of agency action. We therefore hold that 42 U. S. C. § 2239 vests in the courts of appeals initial subject-matter jurisdiction over Commission orders denying § 2.206 citizen petitions. Accordingly, the judgment below is reversed, and the cases are remanded to the Court of Appeals for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
JUSTICE STEVENS, dissenting.
Anyone may write a letter to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission requesting it to initiate enforcement proceedings.
I
There is no ambiguity in the language of the relevant statutes. Title 28 U. S. C. § 2342 provides:
Thus, the question of statutory construction is whether the Commission's refusal to initiate an enforcement proceeding is a "final orde[r] . . . made reviewable by section 2239 of title 42."
The cross-referenced statute
The Commission has adopted regulations concerning proceedings to modify, suspend, or revoke a license. These regulations provide that the "Director of Nuclear Reactor Regulation . . . may institute a proceeding to modify, suspend, or revoke a license or for such other action as may be proper by serving on the licensee an order to show cause." 10 CFR § 2.202(a) (1984). These proceedings, of course, are the proceedings described in § 2239(a) which are reviewable in the court of appeals under § 2239(b). The Director may initiate these proceedings on his own information or on the basis of materials submitted by any citizen in a request for enforcement which "set[s] forth the facts that constitute the basis for the request." 10 CFR § 2.206(a) (1984).
In this case, respondent Lorion (hereafter respondent) sent a 10-paragraph letter to the Commission urging that safety problems might require a license suspension or a temporary shut-down of Florida Power & Light Co's. Turkey Point Unit #4. App. 8. Three and a half weeks later, the Director of Nuclear Reactor Regulation provided respondent with a written opinion entitled "Director's Decision Under 10 CFR 2.206."
Because no proceeding of the kind described in § 2239(a) was initiated, the Commission was not required to grant respondent's request for a hearing.
II
The Court rejects the plain and simple construction of the statutory language, observing that "subject-matter jurisdiction should [not] turn on such semantic quibbles." Ante, at 745, n. 11. Proper deference to the powers of Congress, however, requires exactly that result. It is hardly an equivocation to argue that "[s]tatutory construction must begin with the language employed by Congress and the assumption that the ordinary meaning of that language accurately expresses the legislative purpose." Park 'N Fly, Inc. v. Dollar Park and Fly, Inc., 469 U.S. 189, 194 (1985). Even if the Court's tortured effort to generate an ambiguity in the statute were supported by an implicit assumption that the court of appeals is the more efficient forum for review of informal agency decisionmaking, that assumption is debatable at best and does not justify judicial revision of the statutory text.
Congress' failure to provide an avenue for direct appeal to the court of appeals of informal agency decisions like the one involved in this case may well implement its judgment that agency actions "committed to agency discretion by law" are not reviewable by the federal courts. 5 U. S. C. § 701(a)(2). In this case, the Director decided not to initiate an enforcement proceeding under § 2239(a) and § 2.202. "This Court has recognized on several occasions over many years that an agency's decision not to prosecute or enforce, whether through civil or criminal process, is a decision generally committed
The reviewability of such decisions does not, in my opinion, depend on the kind of public record that the agency chooses to make before it decides not to initiate an enforcement proceeding. In this case, without adversary presentations, the agency elected to compile a 547-page record from available materials before it denied respondent's request that it commence a proceeding to suspend Florida Power & Light's license. The agency is to be commended for giving the public access to the reasoning that led to its decision. The lengthy record, however, does not make the agency's inaction here any more reviewable than if respondent's request had been rejected in a one-paragraph letter sent by return mail.
There are, of course, cases in which an agency's refusal to initiate an enforcement proceeding constitutes such a clear abdication of the agency's statutory responsibilities that a court may order it to take action. See, e. g., Dunlop v. Bachowski, 421 U.S. 560, 566-576 (1975). Cases of that kind, however, represent the exception rather than the rule,
Accordingly, I respectfully dissent.
FootNotes
In addition, no party has argued that under the APA, 5 U. S. C. § 701(a)(2), Commission denials of § 2.206 petitions are instances of presumptively unreviewable "agency action . . . committed to agency discretion by law" because they involve the exercise of enforcement discretion. See Heckler v. Chaney, post, at 828-835. Because the question has been neither briefed nor argued and is unnecessary to the decision of the issue presented in this case, we express no opinion as to its proper resolution. The issue is open to the Court of Appeals on remand should the Commission choose to press it.
The cases before us present no question, and thus we express no opinion, as to the Commission's authority to condition or restrict the statutory hearing requirement of 42 U. S. C. § 2239(a)(1) in these or any other ways. In particular, we express no opinion as to whether the Commission properly denied respondent Lorion's request for a hearing on her § 2.206 petition.
This argument in reality is a claim that denials of § 2.206 petitions occur too early in the process to be considered final orders in licensing proceedings. That argument, properly understood, is a claim that such Commission decisions are exercises of enforcement discretion. As such, the argument goes to whether such decisions are reviewable under the APA, see n. 8, supra, and not to whether the courts of appeals have initial subject-matter jurisdiction.
"(1) In any proceeding under this chapter, for the granting, suspending, revoking, or amending of any license or construction permit, . . . and in any proceeding for the issuance or modification of rules and regulations dealing with the activities of licensees, . . . the Commission shall grant a hearing upon the request of any person whose interest may be affected by the proceeding, and shall admit any such person as a party to such proceeding."
"Within a reasonable time after a request pursuant to paragraph (a) of this section has been received, the Director of Nuclear Reactor Regulation. . . shall either institute the requested proceeding in accordance with this subpart or shall advise the person who made the request in writing that no proceeding will be instituted in whole or in part, with respect to his request, and the reasons therefor." (Emphasis added.)
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