PITTSTON COAL GROUP ET AL. v. SEBBEN ET AL.
No. 87-821
Supreme Court of the United States
Argued October 3, 1988-Decided December 6, 1988
488 U.S. 105
*Together with No. 87-827, McLaughlin, Secretary of Labor, et al. v. Sebben et al., also on certiorari to the same court, and No. 87-1095, Director, Office of Workers’ Compensation Programs v. Broyles et al., on certiorari to the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit.
JUSTICE SCALIA delivered the opinion of the Court.
These consolidated cases call into question the Secretary of Labor‘s interpretation of
I
The black lung benefits program provides benefits to those who have become totally disabled because of pneumoconiosis, a chronic respiratory and pulmonary disease arising from coal mine employment. See Mullins Coal Co. v. Director, OWCP, 484 U. S. 135, 141 (1987). Originally enacted as Title IV of the
For part B claims, the FCMHSA provided that the Secretary of HEW “shall by regulation prescribe standards for determining . . . whether a miner is totally disabled due to pneumoconiosis.”
The FCMHSA provided that after part B ceased, part C would shift black lung benefits claims into state workers’ compensation programs approved by the Secretary of Labor as “adequate” under statutory standards.
This state of affairs persisted until Congress passed the
II
One of the three consolidated cases before us, Director, OWCP v. Broyles, No. 87-1095, is itself a consolidation by the Fourth Circuit of two separate cases brought by, respectively, Lisa Kay Colley and Charlie Broyles. Respondent Colley‘s father, Bill Colley, and respondent Broyles filed claims for black lung benefits in 1974 and 1976, respectively. Under
The other two consolidated cases before us, Pittston Coal Group v. Sebben, No. 87-821, and McLaughlin v. Sebben, No. 87-827, both involve a potential class of claimants consisting of those who
“(1) have filed claims for benefits under the BLBA between December 30, 1969, and April 1, 1980; (2) have claimed a disability due to pneumoconiosis caused by employment in the coal mining industry; (3) have submitted a positive X-ray as proof of the presence of pneumoconiosis; (4) have been denied the benefit of the presumption of pneumoconiosis contained in
20 CFR § 727.203(a)(1) because they did not prove that they had worked ten years in the coal mines; (5) were not afforded the opportunity to submit a claim under20 CFR § 410.490 ; and (6) do not have claims under20 CFR § 410.490 or20 CFR § 727.203(a)(1) currently pending before the Department of Labor.” 815 F. 2d, at 484-485.
These claimants differ from those in No. 87-1095 in that the latter have timely appealed the Labor Department‘s adverse decisions to the courts, while these claimants have permitted the time for direct appeal to expire. See 815 F. 2d, at 478, 485. The Eighth Circuit ordered the certification of this
III
The statutory text at issue here provides that “[c]riteria applied by the Secretary of Labor . . . shall not be more restrictive than the criteria applicable” under the interim HEW regulation. The respect in which it is claimed here that the Labor criteria are more restrictive is this: whereas under the first presumption of the interim HEW regulation (see supra, at 109) a miner would obtain a presumption of entitlement by establishing (1) pneumoconiosis and (2) either 10 years of coal mining experience or proof that the pneumoconiosis was caused by mining employment, under the interim Labor regulation 10 years’ experience is the exclusive element of the second factor. In defending the interim Labor regulation, the Secretary maintains that the term “criteria” is ambiguous, and that her resolution of that ambiguity is reasonable and therefore must be sustained. See Chevron U. S. A. Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc., 467 U. S. 837, 842-843, and n. 9 (1984). We disagree. In our view, the statute simply will not bear the meaning the Secretary has adopted.
“Criteria” are “standard[s] on which a judgment or decision may be based.” Webster‘s Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary 307 (1983). It is undisputed that in the current context the standards referred to include the standards for obtaining the presumption of entitlement. The distinctive feature of the
The Secretary contends, however, that the criteria referred to in
The premise of the Secretary‘s argument-that “criteria” means total disability criteria-has considerable merit, though it is by no means free from doubt. Assuming it is correct, however, we find it unavailing to sustain the Secretary‘s interim regulation, which in our view does impose more restrictive total disability criteria. For although the categorical 10-year-employment requirement bears proximately upon causation, it bears ultimately upon total disability as well. The interim HEW regulation had provided, in effect, that if certain evidence of the first two elements of entitlement (pneumoconiosis and causation) was established, the third element (total disability) would automatically be presumed. Thus, to increase the requirements for the presumption of causality is necessarily to increase the requirements for the presumption of total disability. No other view of the matter accords with the reality. By making the criteria for proving causation “more restrictive” for miners who
The Secretary goes further still, however, and argues that the legislative history leading up to the enactment of the BLBRA actually discloses a congressional intention to preserve only “medical criteria” in the adoption of
Even if we agreed with the Secretary‘s assertion that the “criteria” in
for all appropriate medical tests,” but it is also used in the separate subparagraph immediately preceding use of the lengthier phrase-namely, in
That the Secretary has increased medical criteria can be more readily understood by transposing the substance of what has occurred here to a more commonplace, analogous context. Just as the black lung program considers both medical and nonmedical criteria for entitlement, college admissions programs typically consider both academic and extracurricular criteria for admission. Assume a hypothetical college that has traditionally tendered offers of admission to all applicants with a B+ average, and to all high school student-body presidents and football-team captains with a B
The Secretary‘s remaining arguments require little discussion. She points out that Congress could very easily have adopted the entire interim HEW regulation if it had meant to preserve all aspects of the HEW presumptions. But that course (which is in any event no more simple than
Finally, we address an argument not made by the Secretary-neither before us nor, as far as appears, before any other court in connection with this extensive litigation-but relied upon by the dissent. The dissent believes that the Secretary of HEW made a typographical error in drafting
Moreover, even if the Secretary of HEW had made a typographical error, the dissent offers no evidence whatever to establish that in enacting the BLBRA, Congress, unlike past and present Secretaries, was aware of that error, and meant to refer to the regulation as the dissent would amend it. To support congressional agreement with its understanding of the regulation, the dissent produces, from the voluminous legislative history of hearings, debates, and committee reports dealing with this subject, nothing more than stray remarks made by a United Mine Workers official and a single Representative at hearings occurring four years and two Congresses before the BLBRA was enacted, see post, at 147-148-remarks that the dissent concedes could be attributable to a simple “misread[ing] [of] the regulation,” post, at 148, n. 12. We do not think this suffices to justify rewriting
Having agreed with the conclusion of both courts below that the interim Labor regulation violates
The order of the Eighth Circuit in Sebben (Nos. 87-821 and 87-827) is more problematic. There, as we described earlier, the finding that the interim Labor regulation violated
The extraordinary remedy of mandamus under
With respect to claims filed between the effective date of the BLBRA and that of the permanent Labor regulations, and with respect to claims filed before the effective date of the BLBRA but not yet adjudicated at that time, there is not even a colorable basis for the contention that Congress has imposed a duty to reconsider finally determined claims. And with respect to the already adjudicated pre-BLBRA claims that
We do not believe that Bowen v. City of New York, 476 U. S. 467 (1986), upon which the Sebben respondents place principal reliance, has any bearing upon the present cases. There we held that the application of a secret, internal policy by the Secretary of Health and Human Services in adjudicating Social Security Act claims equitably tolled the limitations periods for seeking administrative or judicial review. Id., at 478-482. Even assuming that equitable tolling is available under the relevant provisions of the Longshore and Harbor Workers’ Compensation Act, the conditions for applying it do not exist. The agency action here was not taken pursuant to a secret, internal policy, but under a regulation that was published for all to see. If respondents wished to challenge it they should have done so when their cases were decided.
Accordingly, we affirm the decision of the Fourth Circuit, and reverse the decision of the Eighth Circuit and remand with instructions to direct the District Court to dismiss the petition for mandamus.
It is so ordered.
JUSTICE STEVENS, with whom THE CHIEF JUSTICE, JUSTICE WHITE, and JUSTICE O‘CONNOR join, dissenting.
Pneumoconiosis is a serious respiratory disease that has afflicted hundreds of thousands of coal miners who have spent their entire working lives inhaling coal dust. See Mullins Coal Co. v. Director, OWCP, 484 U. S. 135 (1987). The severity of the disease is directly related to the duration of the miner‘s underground employment. Although pneumoconiosis may be present in its early stages in short-term miners (i. e., miners with fewer than 10 years of coal mine experience), it is seldom, if ever, disabling unless the employee has
The specific statutory debate in these cases is over the meaning of the word “criteria” as used in § 2(c) of the
But even if my reading of this complex legislation revealed mere ambiguity-that is, if I concluded that there were reasonable grounds for construing “criteria” broadly and reasonable grounds for construing it more narrowly-I would nevertheless conclude that these are especially appropriate cases for deferring to the Secretary‘s interpretation of the statute
she must administer. See, e. g., K mart Corp. v. Cartier, Inc., 486 U. S. 281 (1988); id., at 293, n. 4 (KENNEDY, J.) (“[T]he threshold question in ascertaining the correct interpretation of a statute is whether the language of the statute is clear or arguably ambiguous“) (emphasis added); Chevron U. S. A. Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc., 467 U. S. 837 (1984). In explaining why I am convinced that the Court‘s rather superficial treatment of these cases is profoundly wrong, I shall first discuss the HEW regulation,
I
This litigation exists because of the following problem: As promulgated in 1972, the HEW regulation,
Unfortunately, no one has seen fit to examine the mechanics of the HEW regulation itself; rather, both sides seem to assume that the gap created by that regulation is a given, a firm starting point from which Congress and Labor operated. A close inspection of the HEW regulation and its genesis reveals, however, that the gap was a mistake caused by a scrivener‘s error, and that no one—not HEW, not Labor, not Congress—has ever intended that short-term miners receive the benefit of a scheme that presumes them totally disabled from coal mine caused pneumoconiosis.
The “interim regulation” promulgated by HEW in 1972 was a response to serious congressional concern about the large backlog of claims that could not await the development of more accurate tests to evaluate disability due to coal mine caused pneumoconiosis.2 Paragraphs defining the interim presumption of entitlement to benefits appear to have been intended to answer three questions: (1) did the miner have pneumoconiosis? and, if so, (2) was the disease caused by coal mine employment? and (3) was the miner totally disabled as a result of the disease? Instead of requiring a claimant to prove all three elements of entitlement—disease, disease causation, and disability causation—the regulation apparently was intended to create a presumption of entitlement through proof of disease plus proof of a certain minimum number of years of coal mine employment. Let me explain: The answer to the first question was to be provided by reference to the “medical requirements” described in paragraph
The 15-year requirement is especially noteworthy for two reasons. First, it reminds us of the important fact that pneumoconiosis is a progressive disease. Although miners with only a few years of underground employment sometimes contract simple pneumoconiosis, they seldom, if ever, develop disabling cases of the disease unless they have worked in the mines for at least 10 years. See Part IV, infra. Second, the 15-year requirement for those applicants who must rely on ventilatory-study evidence is the source of the confusion in the critical third paragraph of the regulation.
Paragraph (b)(2) of the regulation required an applicant who had satisfied the medical requirements to prove further that his impairment arose out of coal mine employment, in other words, to prove disease causation. Disease causation could be established either by direct evidence or by proof of 10 years of underground employment.4
The regulatory answer to the third question—whether the disease had caused total disability—has a peculiar history. As originally drafted, paragraph (b)(3) of the regulation provided that every miner who met any of the medical requirements in paragraph (b)(1) would be “presumed to be totally disabled due to pneumoconiosis arising out of coal mine employment” if he had “at least 10 years of the requisite coal mine employment.” 37 Fed. Reg. 18013 (1972). Thus, as
Ironically, however, the revision—unexplained in the final promulgation and referred to merely as one of a number of “[m]inor editorial and clarifying changes,” id., at 20634—made the 10-year requirement applicable to miners who met “the medical requirements in subparagraph (1)(ii) of this paragraph,” instead of those who met the medical requirements in subparagraph (b)(1)(i). Id., at 20646. Thus, as the promulgated regulation reads, paragraph (b)(3) is totally superfluous, because the miners who had to prove 10 years of underground employment are precisely those miners who had to prove 15 years of underground employment by the terms of subparagraph (b)(1)(ii). The drafters, who had initially provided a 10-year minimum requirement for all miners to trigger disability causation, had either (1) dropped such a requirement for the only group of miners to whom it was relevant (the subparagraph (b)(1)(i) claimants) and created a wholly irrelevant disability causation requirement for another group of miners (the subparagraph (b)(1)(ii) claimants), or (2) promulgated a scrivener‘s error.
The latter assumption is far more plausible for three reasons. First, the confusing and complex character of this regulation makes such human error understandable and not surprising. Second, a substitution of subparagraph (b)(1)(i) for subparagraph (b)(1)(ii) gives the regulation a meaning that comports with the abundant evidence that coal miners
The Court responds that understanding the HEW regulation in this fashion would “merely shif[t] redundancy from one paragraph to another,” and then explains why in its view paragraph (b)(2) would be rendered superfluous. Ante, at 119-120. Three things ought be said about the Court‘s response. First, reading the HEW regulation to correct for the scrivener‘s error would not render the disease-causation requirement embodied in paragraph (b)(2) “redundant” or “superfluous.” That HEW intended to require proof of 10 years in the mines to invoke a presumption of disability causation, and to permit such proof to invoke a presumption of disease causation, renders neither requirement superfluous; because they are separate elements of the claim, it makes sense to state them separately, and given the vanishingly low incidence of totally disabling coal mine caused pneumoconiosis in short-term miners, it also makes sense to use a 10-year minimum to satisfy both causation requirements. Second, the Court fails to note that this parallelism of requirement between paragraphs (b)(2) and (b)(3) would exist, at least for some miners, regardless of whether the scrivener‘s error is corrected. For even as the regulation reads on its face, subparagraph (b)(1)(ii) miners, required by paragraph (b)(3) to prove 10 years in the mines to invoke a presumption of disability causation (and by subparagraph (b)(1)(ii) to prove 15 years in the mines to satisfy the medical requirement), in so doing satisfy paragraph (b)(2). Finally—and this is a critical point that the Court simply ignores—the revision of para
In sum, as originally drafted, paragraph (b)(3) of the proposed regulation provided that the presumption of total disability was conditioned on at least 10 years of coal mine employment. Had the Secretary of HEW intended to eliminate the 10-year requirement, he could have done so by simply eliminating paragraph (b)(3) in its entirety. It is quite absurd to assume that he deliberately accomplished this objective by means of an obscure “clarifying change” that had the effect of making the 10-year requirement applicable only to those applicants who had already established 15 years of coal mine employment. It is equally senseless to assume that Congress perpetuated this typographical error by etching it into stone in the BLBRA, to which I now turn.
II
The conclusion that the term “criteria” in
Respondents’ case is based primarily on the argument that the phrase “criteria” in
III
A careful reading of the legislative history of the BLBRA leaves no doubt that Members of Congress were concerned with whether the HEW medical criteria—not the system of presumptions through which the medical criteria were utilized—were too lenient or too stringent. This is precisely the conclusion reached by the two Circuit Court judges who conducted a thorough investigation into the background of the BLBRA. See Strike v. Director, OWCP, 817 F. 2d 395, 400-406 (CA7 1987) (Cummings, J.); Halon v. Director, OWCP, 713 F. 2d 21, 25-30 (CA3 1983) (Weis, J., dissenting in part). To understand fully the certainty of the proposition that Congress intended “criteria” to mean “medical criteria,” one must examine closely first the background of the BLBRA and then the congressional debates and Committee Reports that serve as evidence of the context of what became
In 1972, Congress amended the original black lung legislation in several respects. The HEW part B interim regulation that serves as the benchmark for these cases was promulgated as a result of the 1972 amendments, and followed from concerns regarding HEW‘s claims-approval rate, as explained in the Report of the Senate Committee on Labor and Public Welfare:
“[T]he backlog of claims which have been filed under [part B] cannot await the establishment of new facilities
or the development of new medical procedures. They must be handled under present circumstances in the light of limited medical resources and techniques. “Accordingly, the Committee expects the Secretary to adopt such interim evidentiary rules and disability evaluation criteria as will permit prompt and vigorous processing of the large backlog of claims consistent with the language and intent of these amendments. . . . Such interim rules and criteria shall give full consideration to the combined employment handicap of disease and age and provide for the adjudication of claim[s] on the basis of medical evidence other than breathing tests when it is not feasible or practicable to provide physical performance tests of the type described [by HEW].” S. Rep. No. 92-743, pp. 18-19 (1972) (emphasis added).
The Report clearly distinguishes between evidentiary rules and medical disability evaluation criteria. The part B interim regulation (
“In enacting the Black Lung Act of 1972, the Congress noted that adjudication of the large backlog of claims generated by the earlier law could not await the establishment of facilities and development of medical tests not presently available to evaluate disability due to pneumoconiosis, and that such claims must be handled under present circumstances in the light of limited medical resources and techniques. Accordingly, the Congress stated its expectancy that the Secretary would adopt such interim evidentiary rules and disability evaluation criteria as would permit prompt and vigorous processing of the large backlog of claims consistent with
the language and intent of the 1972 amendments and that such rules and criteria would give full consideration to the combined employment handicap of disease and age and provide for the adjudication of claims on the basis of medical evidence other than physical performance tests when it is not feasible to provide such tests. The provisions of this section establish such interim evidentiary rules and criteria. They take full account of the congressional expectation that in many instances it is not feasible to require extensive pulmonary function testing to measure the total extent of an individual‘s breathing impairment, and that an impairment in the transfer of oxygen from the lung alveoli to cellular level can exist in an individual even though his chest roentgenogram (X-ray) or ventilatory function tests are normal.” (Emphasis added.)
Although HEW‘s claims-approval rate rose under the part B interim regulation, Labor was still adjudicating part C claims under stricter permanent regulations. In a 1975 House Report that served as a precursor to the BLBRA, the Committee on Education and Labor explained Labor‘s bind, and offered assistance:
“For some inexplicable reason, [HEW], exercising authority provided under the current law, has literally saddled [Labor] with rigid and difficult medical standards for measuring claimant eligibility under part C of the program. The so-called ‘permanent’ medical standards now in effect under part C are much more demanding than the so-called ‘interim’ standards applied by HEW under part B of the program. HEW points to ‘substantial legal and other reasons’ for applying restrictive medical standards to a claim filed on and after July 1, 1973, and less restrictive criteria to a claim filed before July 1, 1973. That assertedly ‘substantial’ support apparently arises out of language contained in the Senate Report
accompanying the 1972 amendments. In actual fact, HEW has completely misplaced the emphasis of the Senate Report. The Senate directive with regard to the ‘interim’ standards clearly spoke to standards that would obtain until ‘the establishment of new facilities or the development of new medical procedures.’ (S. Rept. 92-743, at 18) That was the clear and explicit condition underscoring the need for and the duration of ‘interim’ medical standards. Under the HEW interpretation, these developments somehow magically occurred at the onset of part C of the program. The Congress did not intend in adopting the Senate initiative, as HEW so unequivocally asserts, that this ‘interim’ approach would suddenly conclude at the termination date for new part B filings. And HEW could hardly intimate that the ‘new facilities’ or ‘new medical procedures’ referenced so specifically in the Senate Report have, in fact, become reality. “This provision of the bill would require that standards no more restrictive than the ‘interim’ medical standards shall be equally applicable to part C claims. To the extent that more restrictive standards are justified by the presence of ‘new facilities’ or ‘new medical procedures,’ it is apparent that the Congress must in the future make that determination.” H. R. Rep. No. 94-770, pp. 13-14 (1975) (emphasis added).
The terms “medical standards” and “standards” are used interchangeably in this Report; the unmodified term “standards” is used not to distinguish “medical standards,” but rather as a matter of style to avoid repetition.
Testifying during 1977 hearings, President Arnold Miller of the United Mine Workers of America explained his support for a requirement that Labor adjudicate earlier filed or once-denied part C claims under medical standards no less restrictive than HEW‘s part B medical standards:
“The interim standards were by no means ideal. Nearly four of every ten miners’ claims were denied under these standards. We have criticized their failure to include new blood gas standards and their overreliance on a single breathing test score. However, these standards can provide a base point, and we urge enactment of a guarantee that any new standards will be no more restrictive than the interim standards. In developing new regulations we urge that [Labor] utilize the lung formation standards established by the I. L. O.” Oversight of the Administration of the Black Lung Program, Hearings before the Subcommittee on Labor of the Senate Committee on Human Resources, 95th Cong., 1st Sess., pp. 49-50 (1977).
That a strong supporter of liberalized standards for black lung benefits explained quite carefully that the criteria at issue in this case are medical—specifically, those medical criteria that relate to proof of the disease (“blood gas standards“; “breathing test score“; “lung formation standards“)—is certainly strong evidence that the Secretary‘s position is correct (and, a fortiori, reasonable). It is also interesting9
The House Education and Labor Committee returned its Report on the proposed BLBRA on March 31, 1977. H. R. Rep. No. 95-151. Throughout the discussion whether Labor could adopt HEW‘s more lenient regulation, the Report uses the terms “medical standards” and “screening criteria” to describe what Labor sought to borrow. See id., at 15, 16, 28. The House bill required Labor to adjudicate all part C claims—whether earlier filed, once-denied, or later filed—pursuant to criteria not more restrictive than HEW‘s part B criteria.
The Senate Human Resources Committee approved a bill that authorized Labor to write new part C permanent regulations for all claims adjudicated under its aegis and in so doing “to establish medical test criteria appropriate to disability in coal miners.” See S. Rep. No. 95-209, p. 2 (1977). The Committee clarified the Senate‘s desire to give Labor leeway in establishing “medical test standards.” See id., at 13-14. Even the United Mine Workers, who thought HEW‘s part B interim standards too stringent, wrote to the Committee about medical test standards that measure pulmonary capacity; there is no mention of evidentiary standards. See id., at 13. Further, a Congressional Budget Office survey, written when it was assumed that HEW‘s part B interim standards would be maintained for all part C claims, states that the new
House and Senate conferees met to resolve the differences between the two bills, and, not surprisingly, reached a compromise. See H. R. Conf. Rep. No. 95-864 (1978). The Conference Report explains that, pursuant to the Senate‘s desires, Labor would promulgate for future claims “new medical standards,” that is, “criteria for medical tests,” and that, in accord with the House‘s wishes, “the so-called ‘interim’ part B medical standards are to be applied to all reviewed and pending claims filed before the date the Secretary of Labor promulgates new medical standards for part C cases.” Id., at 16. It could not be clearer that the conferees intended to carry over HEW‘s part B medical standards to earlier filed or once-denied part C claims, while new medical standards would govern Labor‘s adjudication of claims filed later. It is also important to note that although the resulting bill required that Labor “shall not provide more restrictive criteria” to its adjudication of earlier filed or once-denied claims, the Conference Report adds that “in determining claims under such criteria all relevant medical evidence shall be considered in accordance with standards prescribed by the Secretary of Labor.” Ibid. This indicates that Congress was concerned that some medical evidence was not being considered; this concern, attached as a clause at the end of a sentence about “no more restrictive criteria,” implies that the referenced criteria are medical ones.
The Senate and House debates on the Conference Report provide the most dramatic evidence that Members of both Houses of Congress understood the term “criteria” in
“I was concerned throughout the consideration of this legislation by the conference committee that the dual responsibilities of HEW and [Labor] for reviewing previously denied claims be exercised in a manner that is fair to all concerned. These claims are to be reviewed by both agencies under medical criteria no more restrictive than the so-called interim medical standards which were originally promulgated by HEW for the determination of claims under part B of the act, for which HEW was responsible through June 30, 1973. The bill also provides authority for the Secretary of Labor to promulgate regulations establishing revised medical criteria, based on the best medical information available, to be applicable to all newly filed claims.
“The ‘interim’ standards as they were applied to determine benefit claims under part B, have been highly controversial and widely criticized. For example, the Secretary of Labor, on September 30, 1977, stated:
“‘The part B standards are not medically sound for providing benefits to all deserving individuals.’
“I therefore requested that the statement of managers include language to the effect that ‘all relevant medical evidence’ be considered in applying the ‘interim’ standards to the reviewed claims in order to more clearly ex-
Thus, the Senators who spoke to the issue plainly understood
The House debate reveals a similar clarity of understanding. Representative Perkins of Kentucky, the bill‘s House manager, explained:
“. . . The House bill required that the so-called interim medical standards of part B of the program be applied under part C as well. For the most part, the House provision prevailed in conference on this issue and all of the denied and pending claims subject to review under the legislation will be evaluated according to the ‘interim’ standards. These standards will continue to apply into the future as well, until such time as the Secretary of Labor promulgates new regulations consistent with the authority given him by the bill. With respect to the review responsibility of the Secretary of HEW under the legislation, the ‘interim’ standards remain solely applicable, as they have in the past under the HEW-part of the program. As for the Secretary of Labor‘s review responsibility thereunder, the ‘interim’ standards are exclusively and unalterably applicable with respect to every area they now address, and may not be made or applied more restrictively than they were in the past, but they may be considered by the Labor Secretary within the context of all relevant medical evidence according to the methodology prescribed by the Secretary
Representatives Perkins and Simon, of Illinois, then engaged in the following revealing colloquy:
“Mr. SIMON. Mr. Speaker, I would also like to ask Chairman PERKINS, who also served as chairman of the conference committee, if in his opinion this legislation clearly requires that all denied or pending claims subject to the review provisions of the new section 435 will be subject to reconsideration under the so-called interim medical criteria applicable under part B of the black lung program?
“Mr. PERKINS. That is the intent of the legislation, and I would state to the gentleman that a reading of the conference report and of the joint explanatory statement could lead only to that opinion. The new law speaks clearly to this issue; and the relevant legislative history and intent is equally clear. All claims filed before the date that the Secretary of Labor promulgates new medical standards under part C are subject to evaluation under standards that are no more restrictive than those in effect as of June 30, 1973. And that means the so-called interim standards. These are the standards HEW has applied under part B and they are the precise and only standards HEW will apply to these old claims it must review according to this legislation. As for the Labor Department, it too must apply the interim standards to all of the claims filed under part C, at least until such time as the Secretary of Labor promulgates new standards consistent with the authority this legislation gives him. We do recognize in the joint explanatory statement that the Secretary of Labor may apply the interim standards to its part C claims within the context of all relevant medical evidence. But there is no such directive or requirement imposed on HEW as it fulfills its review duties. We expect that HEW will review these
“I would also add here that this legislation gives no authority to the Labor Secretary to alter, adjust, or otherwise change the interim standards until such time as he actually promulgates the new standards and those new standards will apply only to claims filed after the effective date of their promulgation. Insofar as the interim standards address a medical criteria, they cannot be made more restrictive.
“Mr. SIMON. Mr. Speaker, I thank the chairman for his response. His views are in perfect accord with my own understanding of the intent underlying these provisions.
“Mr. Speaker, I am pleased that the language in this bill is crystal clear on the subject of the medical standards that must be used by the Secretary of HEW and the Secretary of Labor in reviewing all pending and denied claims filed before the effective date of new medical standards promulgated by the Secretary of Labor for part C cases. Those standards can be no more restrictive than the so-called interim criteria, formally known as the interim adjudicatory standards, applied by the [SSA] after the 1972 Black Lung Amendments and before July 1, 1973.
[He then quotes
§ 902(f)(2) .]“It should not be possible to misconstrue the meaning of this language. The Department of Labor is required to apply medical criteria no more restrictive than criteria being used by the [SSA] on June 30, 1973.
“The conference committee agreed that the Secretary of Labor, in his review of denied and pending cases, is to consider all relevant medical evidence and to promulgate regulations for the use of such evidence. An example of this would be for the Secretary to consider and promul-
[He then quotes from the Conference Report.]
“So the Secretary is not confined to the medical evidence of the interim criteria and yet may not prescribe criteria more restrictive than the social security interim adjudicatory standards.” Id., at 3431 (emphasis added).
Although the Members occasionally used the unmodified terms “standards” and “criteria,” and although Representative Simon a few times referred to the “interim adjudicatory standards,” the comments read in full leave no doubt that these terms were used interchangeably to refer to what the Members viewed as medical criteria.
I have quoted at length from the legislative history of the BLBRA because this history reveals the supposedly “plain” language of the statute to be not so plain after all. In other words, although
IV
There is another body of evidence completely consistent with the understanding that Congress intended “criteria” in
During the 1974 hearings that gave rise to the BLBRA, even supporters of liberalized standards agreed that short-term miners should be subjected to more rigorous rules than long-term miners. See, e. g., Hearings on H. R. 3476, H. R. 8834, H. R. 8835, and H. R. 8838, before the General Subcommittee on Labor of the House Committee on Education and Labor, 93d Cong., 1st and 2d Sess., 367 (hereinafter 1974 Hearings) (Director of Appalachian Research and Defense Fund argues for quite lenient standards for miners with 20 years of experience, and suggests that “[a] miner with 10 or 15 years might be required to meet the interim standards, and a miner with less than 10 years, perhaps, a more rigid standard“). During those same hearings, supporters of liberalized standards from the United Mine Workers and the House both mentioned that
Study after study has revealed one stark, simple fact: Miners with fewer than 10 years in the mines rarely suffer from pneumoconiosis at all, and those who have the disease have its earliest, nondisabling stage. The Appendix to the 1977 House Report lists a number of studies that have been conducted concerning black lung disease. H. R. Rep. No. 95-151, at 30-38. The evidence from these studies could not more plainly demonstrate that short-term miners either do not have pneumoconiosis or have it only at its earliest stages. See, e. g., Lainhart, Prevalence of Coal Miners’ Pneumoconi-
Given this overwhelming evidence, it was surely not unreasonable for the Secretary to reject a reading of the BLBRA that would mandate a presumption of total disability caused by pneumoconiosis for every short-term miner who could establish that he had contracted simple pneumoconiosis, which “is generally regarded by physicians as seldom productive of significant respiratory impairment.” Usery v. Turner Elkhorn Mining Co., 428 U. S. 1, 7 (1976).
Deference to Labor‘s construction is appropriate at two different levels of analysis. First, to the extent that the debate is over whether “criteria” means “all criteria” or only “medical criteria,” the foregoing sections on the legislative history of the BLBRA and statistical studies of the connection between years in the mines and incidence of pneumoconiosis reveal that reading “criteria” to mean “medical criteria” is almost certainly correct and is certainly reasonable. Second, if one concedes that Congress meant “medical criteria,” but simultaneously insists that medical criteria encompass proof of total disability from pneumoconiosis as well as proof of black lung disease itself, the case for deference could not be stronger. For as an interpretive question becomes more technical, the expertise of the agency charged with a statute‘s administration becomes greater and deferring to its construction rather than importing our own becomes more appropriate. See, e. g., Chevron U. S. A. Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc., 467 U. S., at 864-866; Aluminum Co. of America v. Central Lincoln Peoples’ Utility District, 467 U. S. 380, 390 (1984). One can define away the problem through hypotheticals about football-team captains and B averages, but in the end such hypotheticals cannot overcome the common-sense proposition that “medical criteria” may well be limited to criteria that are clearly medical—ventilatory study values, how X rays are to be read, etc.—and not extended to second-level medical concerns—e. g., at what point someone is likely to be totally disabled from coal mine employment. That we have evidence of congressional concern with the former, as well as evidence that short-term miners simply do not suffer from pneumoconiosis in the same way that longer term miners do, should be sufficient to sustain the Secretary‘s reading as reasonable.
In order to sanction a departure from the views of an agency charged with the administration of a complex regu
Notes
“(b) Interim presumption. With respect to a miner who files a claim for benefits before July 1, 1973, and with respect to a survivor of a miner who dies before January 1, 1974, when such survivor timely files a claim for benefits, such miner will be presumed to be totally disabled due to pneumoconiosis, or to have been totally disabled due to pneumoconiosis at the time of his death, or his death will be presumed to be due to pneumoconiosis, as the case may be, if:
“(1) One of the following medical requirements is met:
“(i) A chest roentgenogram (X-ray), biopsy, or autopsy establishes the existence of pneumoconiosis (see § 410.428); or
“(ii) In the case of a miner employed for at least 15 years in underground or comparable coal mine employment, ventilatory studies establish the presence of a chronic respiratory or pulmonary disease (which meets the requirements for duration in § 410.412(a)(2)) as demonstrated by values which are equal to or less than the values specified in the following table:
| Equal to or less than— | ||
|---|---|---|
| FEV1 | MVV | |
| 67” or less | 2.3 | 92 |
| 68” | 2.4 | 96 |
| 69” | 2.4 | 96 |
| 70” | 2.5 | 100 |
| 71” | 2.6 | 104 |
| 72” | 2.6 | 104 |
| 73” or more | 2.7 | 108 |
“(2) The impairment established in accordance with paragraph (b)(1) of this section arose out of coal mine employment (see §§ 410.416 and 410.456).
“(3) With respect to a miner who meets the medical requirements in paragraph (b)(1)(ii) of this section, he will be presumed to be totally disabled due to pneumoconiosis arising out of coal mine employment, or to have been totally disabled at the time of his death due to pneumoconiosis arising out of such employment, or his death will be presumed to be due to pneumoconiosis arising out of such employment, as the case may be, if he has at least 10 years of the requisite coal mine employment.”
“Sec.2. (a) Section 402(b) of the Federal Mine Safety and Health Act of 1977 (hereinafter in this Act referred to as the ‘Act‘) is amended to read as follows:
“(b) The term “pneumoconiosis” means a chronic dust disease of the lung and its sequelae, including respiratory and pulmonary impairments, arising out of coal mine employment.’
“(b) Section 402(d) of the Act is amended to read as follows:
“(d) The term “miner” means any individual who works or has worked in or around a coal mine or coal preparation facility in the extraction or preparation of coal. Such term also includes an individual who works or has worked in coal mine construction or transportation in or around a coal mine, to the extent such individual was exposed to coal dust as a result of such employment.’
“(c) Section 402(f) of the Act is amended to read as follows:
“(f)(1) The term “total disability” has the meaning given it by regulations of the Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare for claims under part B of this title, and by regulations of the Secretary of Labor for claims under part C of this title, subject to the relevant provisions of subsections (b) and (d) of section 413, except that—
“(A) in the case of a living miner, such regulations shall provide that a miner shall be considered totally disabled when pneumoconiosis prevents him or her from engaging in gainful employment requiring the skills and abilities comparable to those of any employment in a mine or mines in which he or she previously engaged with some regularity and over a substantial period of time;
“(B) such regulations shall provide that (i) a deceased miner‘s employment in a mine at the time of death shall not be used as conclusive evidence that the miner was not totally disabled; and (ii) in the case of a living miner, if there are changed circumstances of employment indicative of reduced ability to perform his or her usual coal mine work, such miner‘s employment in a mine shall not be used as conclusive evidence that the miner is not totally disabled;
“(C) such regulations shall not provide more restrictive criteria than those applicable under section 223(d) of the Social Security Act; and
“(D) the Secretary of Labor, in consultation with the Director of the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, shall establish crite-
“(2) Criteria applied by the Secretary of Labor in the case of—
“(A) any claim which is subject to review by the Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare, or subject to a determination by the Secretary of Labor, under section 435(a);
“(B) any claim which is subject to review by the Secretary of Labor under section 435(b); and
“(C) any claim filed on or before the effective date of regulations promulgated under this subsection by the Secretary of Labor;
shall not be more restrictive than the criteria applicable to a claim filed on June 30, 1973, whether or not the final disposition of any such claim occurs after the date of such promulgation of regulations by the Secretary of Labor.” 92 Stat. 95-96.
“The only practicable way to respond to [Congress’ desire to decrease the backlog of claims in a liberalized fashion], considering the marked limitations in actually obtaining the physical performance tests, was to establish criteria which would detect disease.
“It was acknowledged that these criteria would not necessarily describe a level of impairment which would impose a functional limitation on the individual. Thus, the interim adjudicatory rules provide for allowing the claim if (1) a chest roentgenogram, biopsy, or autopsy establishes the existence of pneumoconiosis or (2) the individual‘s ventilatory function values met a liberalized table provided in the section.
“The liberalized ventilatory function table was established at a sufficiently high level, at a point just below normal for the younger individual, so as not to disadvantage those individuals who might be allowed benefits if the physical performance test could be obtained, and it was recognized it
could not be obtained in a vast majority of cases.” Oversight of the Administration of the Black Lung Program, Hearings before the Subcommittee on Labor of the Senate Committee on Human Resources, 95th Cong., 1st Sess., p. 194 (1977) (statement of Herbert Blumenfeld, M. D., Chief, Medical Consulting Staff, Bureau of Disability Insurance, Social Security Administration) (emphasis added).“‘Like all rules of evidence that permit the inference of an ultimate fact from a predicate one, black lung benefits presumptions rest on a judgment that the relationship between the ultimate and the predicate facts has a basis in the logic of common understanding.
“‘Inferences and presumptions are a staple of our adversary system of factfinding. It is often necessary for the trier of fact to determine the existence of an element of the crime—that is, an “ultimate” or “elemental” fact—from the existence of one or more “evidentiary” or “basic” facts. . . . The value of these evidentiary devices, and their validity under the Due Process Clause, vary from case to case, however, depending on the strength of the connection between the particular basic and elemental facts involved and on the degree to which the device curtails the factfinder‘s freedom to assess the evidence independently.’ Ulster County Court v. Allen, 442 U. S. 140, 156 (1979).”