February 16, 1995 [NOT FOR PUBLICATION]
[NOT FOR PUBLICATION]
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FIRST CIRCUIT
No. 94-2081
RHODE ISLAND HIGHER EDUCATION ASSISTANCE AUTHORITY,
Plaintiff, Appellant,
v.
RICHARD RILEY, SECRETARY OF EDUCATION, ET AL.,
Defendants, Appellees.
APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF RHODE ISLAND
[Hon. Ronald R. Lagueux, U.S. District Judge]
Before
Selya and Boudin, Circuit Judges,
and Carter,* District Judge.
Joseph R. Palumbo, Jr. for appellant.
Neil H. Koslowe, Special Litigation Counsel, Dep't of
Justice, with whom Frank W. Hunger, Assistant Attorney General,
Sheldon Whitehouse, United States Attorney, and William Kanter,
Deputy Director, were on brief, for appellees.
*Chief Judge of the United States District Court for the District
of Maine, sitting by designation.
Per Curiam. This appeal seeks to test the appropri-
Per Curiam.
ateness of an order of the Secretary of Education implementing 20
U.S.C. 1072(e) (repealed). Specifically, the contested order
involves the Secretary's denial of appellant's request for a
waiver that would have shielded it from the consequences of its
noncompliance with a particular requirement of the statute.
We have read the briefs, perused the voluminous record,
entertained oral argument, and studied the applicable law. When
all is said and done, we are convinced that, at bottom, this case
turns on deference to the Secretary's exercise of informed
discretion, and that the Secretary's insistence on the forthright
implementation of the statute's "cap" on maximum allowable cash
reserves, as exemplified by his denial of appellant's waiver
request, is not "arbitrary, capricious, or manifestly contrary to
the statute." See Chevron U.S.A. Inc. v. Natural Resources
Defense Council, Inc., 467 U.S. 837, 844 (1984). Since no more
is exigible, the Secretary's ruling must stand. Put another way,
the "inescapable conclusion" that appellant's counsel entreats us
to draw eludes us (as it did the Secretary and the court below).
To go further would serve no useful purpose. We have
already written at length about this very situation, see Rhode
Island Higher Educ. Assistance Auth. v. Secretary of Educ., 929
F.2d 844 (1st Cir. 1991) (vacating earlier district court order
and remanding for further proceedings); the Secretary and the
district court each dealt creditably with appellant's
asseverations in their respective decisions following our
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original remand; and the appeal, in its present posture, presents
no fairly debatable issue of either fact or law. Consequently,
we affirm the judgment below for substantially the reasons
elucidated in the district court's well-considered rescript. See
Rhode Island Higher Educ. Assistance Auth. v. Riley, No. 92-
0623L, slip op. at 5-8 (D.R.I. Aug. 19, 1994).
Affirmed. See 1st Cir. R. 27.1.
Affirmed. See 1st Cir. R. 27.1.
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