## Facts

- Food-stamp recipient households challenged USDA regulations setting coupon allotments under the Food Stamp Act.
- USDA pegged allotments to the cost of its “Thrifty Food Plan,” a model low-cost diet developed by USDA nutritionists.
- The allotment method relied on standardized assumptions about a “normal” household and translated those assumptions into benefit schedules by household size, rather than matching allotments to each household’s actual nutritional needs and composition.
- The record indicated that some households with atypical age/sex compositions would receive allotments insufficient to purchase a nutritionally adequate diet under the Thrifty Food Plan.
- After the 1971 amendments to the Food Stamp Act, USDA issued a general notice of proposed rulemaking on program administration, but the coupon allotment schedules were announced and revised through separate Federal Register notices without full notice-and-comment procedures directed to the allotment methodology and levels.
- The district court granted summary judgment to USDA; recipients appealed.

## Issues

1. Whether USDA’s coupon allotment schedules were “legislative rules” requiring notice-and-comment rulemaking under APA § 553.
2. Whether USDA complied with APA § 553 when promulgating the coupon allotment system.
3. Whether an allotment system that concededly leaves some households unable to purchase a nutritionally adequate diet satisfies the Food Stamp Act’s mandate to provide an “opportunity to obtain a nutritionally adequate diet.”

## Decision

- The D.C. Circuit reversed the district court’s summary judgment for USDA.
- The court held that the coupon allotment system and the Thrifty Food Plan’s incorporation into benefit-setting rules were legislative rules that affected substantive entitlements.
- The court held USDA failed to satisfy APA § 553 procedures for promulgating the allotment schedules.
- The court declared the allotment system void as promulgated and remanded to the Secretary for new proceedings consistent with APA notice-and-comment requirements.
- The court discussed the strengthened statutory nutrition mandate after the 1971 amendment but did not finally resolve the merits because the APA violation was dispositive.

## Legal Principles

- Rules that set public-benefit levels and determine recipients’ rights and obligations are legislative rules with the force of law and ordinarily require APA § 553 notice-and-comment procedures.
- An agency may not avoid APA rulemaking obligations by treating substantively binding benefit schedules as interpretive rules or policy statements.
- When Congress directs an agency to administer a benefits program to provide an “opportunity to obtain a nutritionally adequate diet,” administrative convenience cannot justify a scheme designed to leave identifiable households without that opportunity.
- A procedurally defective legislative rule is invalid; the usual remedy is vacatur and remand for repromulgation through lawful procedures, including meaningful opportunity for public comment and reasoned explanation.

## Conclusion

The court invalidated USDA’s food-stamp coupon allotment schedules because they were legislative rules adopted without the notice-and-comment procedures required by APA § 553, and it remanded for new rulemaking informed by the Food Stamp Act’s requirement that recipients have an opportunity to obtain a nutritionally adequate diet.


Rodway v. U.S. Dep’t of Agric., 514 F.2d 809 (D.C. Cir. 1975)