Title 49

SECTION 5.65

5.65 Proper exercise of prosecutorial and enforcement discretion.

§ 5.65 Proper exercise of prosecutorial and enforcement discretion.

The Department's attorneys and policy makers have broad discretion in deciding whether to initiate an enforcement action. Nevertheless, in exercising discretion to initiate an enforcement action and in the pursuit of that action, agency counsel must not adopt or rely upon overly broad or unduly expansive interpretations of the governing statutes or regulations, and should ensure that the law is interpreted and applied according to its text. DOT will not rely on judge-made rules of judicial discretion, such as the Chevron doctrine, as a device or excuse for straining the limits of a statutory grant of enforcement authority. All decisions by DOT to prosecute or not to prosecute an enforcement action should be based upon a reasonable interpretation of the law about which the public has received fair notice and should be made with due regard for fairness, the facts and evidence adduced through an appropriate investigation or compliance review, the availability of scarce resources, the administrative needs of the responsible OA or OST component, Administration policy, and the importance of the issues involved to the fulfillment of the Department's statutory responsibilities.

---