About | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline
LOG IN
LOG IN

B-40342.1 1 (1981-05-15)

handle is hein.gao/gaobabkau0001 and id is 1 raw text is: COMPTROLLER GENERAL OF THE UNITED STATES WASHINGTON D.C. 20548 B-40342.1 May 15, 1981 The Honorable Reuben B. Robertson, Chairman Administrative Conference of the United States 2120 L Street, N.W., Suite 500 Washington, D.C. 20037 Dear Mr. Chairman: You recently requestedcomments on r proposed model rules to implement th4e Equal Access to Justice Act Pub. L. No. 96-481, effective October 1, 1981. As you know, the General Accounting Office does not conduct adversary adjudications under the Administrative Procedure Act (see our letters to your predecessors, B-146328, May 30, 1973, and B-146328, February 24, 1972) and therefore we have no special expertise to offer with respect to most of the policy issues raised in your draft rules. Also, some of the issues relating to legal authority could very well come before us as requests for decisions under 31 U.S.C. §§ 74 and 82d and would depend heavily on the circumstances involved in the parti- cular request. Accordingly, while we might note generally that the draft rules strike us as a sincere and reasonable attempt to implement the con- gressional intent, we are limiting our comments at this time to certain issues concerning the payment of the awards. The statutory provisions regarding payment present a number of issues which could raise serious administrative problems. We identified these issues and made legislative recommendations in a letter to the Speaker of the House of Representatives, B-40342, December 17, 1980, copy enclosed. We sent an identical letter to the President of the Senate and copies to the (then) Chairmen and minority leaders of the Judiciary and Appropriations committees. Briefly, the Act contemplates that awards will be paid primarily from agency funds, with the permanent judgment appropriation established by 31 U.S.C. S 724a available as a back-up in limited situations. How- ever, the Act does not establish a standard to determine when the perma- nent appropriation may properly be used and, in its present form, permits use of the permanent appropriation only to the extent and in such amounts as are provided in advance in appropriation Acts (Pub. L. No. 96-481, § 207). Until these problems are resolved legislatively or an appropria- tion is made under section 207, your draft rule (Subpart E, § 0.501) re- flects essentially all that can be said on the matter. The payment provisions (the new 5 U.S.C. § 504(d)(1) and 28 U.S.C. 2412(d)(4)(A)) refer to payment from any funds made available to the agency, by appropriation or otherwise, for such purpose. It may be asked whether this language requires specific appropriations for the 62/6i'

What Is HeinOnline?

HeinOnline is a subscription-based resource containing thousands of academic and legal journals from inception; complete coverage of government documents such as U.S. Statutes at Large, U.S. Code, Federal Register, Code of Federal Regulations, U.S. Reports, and much more. Documents are image-based, fully searchable PDFs with the authority of print combined with the accessibility of a user-friendly and powerful database. For more information, request a quote or trial for your organization below.



Contact us for annual subscription options:

Contact Us

Already a HeinOnline Subscriber?

Log In

profiles profiles most