WASHINGTON, District of Columbia USA — In accordance with the U.S. District Court's scheduling order of events in their case, counsel for the Tripoli Rocketry Association (TRA) and the National Association of Rocketry (NAR) filed a motion for summary judgement with the court on January 31, 2007.

The motion illuminates the shortcomings of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives' (ATF) position in the case.  The filing document will be available on the TRA website for download soon. The Joint Statement from TRA/NAR detailing the next filings and events in the case follows.

Joint Statement on BATFE Issues, January 31, 2007 

This message will report on the status and next steps in our litigation against the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (BATFE).

Recent and Planned Court Filings

Today, counsel filed our Motion for Summary Judgment.  You can download this document here:  http://www.tripoli.org/documents/batfe/batfe.shtml   BATFE's Motion for Summary Judgment was also filed today and we will make that available as soon as possible. We invite members to offer input to us on BATFE's filing.  We'll collect, summarize and forward your input to counsel for consideration.

Oppositions to these summary judgment motions are due to the court by February 28, and replies to oppositions are due March 23, 2007.  This process is exactly the same as was done in our initial pass through the court, but now the Court must consider the parties' arguments in light of the opinion issued by the Court of Appeals and BATFE's new decision confirming the old one.  Assuming there will be no oral argument before Judge Walton, a Count 1 ruling could be issued any time after the March 23, 2007 filings.  If, after these three filings, the court needs to be briefed on any material, we believe an oral argument (by counsel) would occur as a follow-up to the scheduled July 27, 2007 status conference, but perhaps before then.

We wish to thank members who provided a complete review of the 2,199 pages of administrative material submitted in October by the BATFE.  Your work was helpful to counsel in formulating our motion.  

BATFE Field Actions

Members across the country have reported to us the results of recent BATFE inspections of Explosive Permit Holders.  Many of those inspections resulted in administrative citations for failure to record purchase and storage of propellant modules of 62.5 grams or less which were not subject to regulation prior to October 10, 2006.  Counsel advises that, absent any fines or criminal citations, or formal enforcement orders (a simple promise to avoid specified conduct in the future made in response to a notice of violation or citation is not a formal enforcement order), members should not be overly concerned about such citations.  Counsel recommends members note on the notice of action received that these propellant modules were not legally subject to BATFE regulation because APCP is not an explosive and, even if it were, the motors are PADs, and even if the motors aren't PADs, no actions prior to October 10, 2006 are subject to sanction, but to sign the form and make the promise to comply in the future as requested by your inspector.

Should members experience difficulties beyond the administrative citation as described above, they should contact us so we may confer with counsel on your behalf.

Case Duration and Financial Support

We understand the frustration and anxiety experienced by members given the duration of this litigation.  Our legal expenses in preparation for these filings will be considerable, but we are now bringing our strongest technical and legal arguments to the court with the support of a strong win at the Court of Appeals.  We continue to urge members to donate to the Legal Defense Fund, so that this litigation may be pursued to a successful end: http://www.tripoli.org/donations.shtml 

Every dollar you can donate puts us a bit closer to our goal of freeing the hobby from over burdensome, unnecessary and illegal regulation. We appreciate your strong, steady financial support for this effort, and continue to welcome your input, questions and ideas.

When we have further developments, we'll continue to report them here and in our publications.

Ken Good, President
Tripoli Rocketry Association

Mark Bundick, President
National Association of Rocketry

02-01-2007 03:46 PM  #1
crontab Certified Level Three   Joined: Aug 2006 Posts: 204	Hey, the timing is GOOD! I see that Rocketry Planet's NEW T-Shirt Design of the Month was released today as well as this article. So those of you wanting to donate to the Legal Fund can get a great rocketry-related T-shirt and give to the cause. Click the T-shirt banner image on the right hand column and order your's today! I got a rocket doggie...

02-01-2007 09:51 PM  #2
ddmobley Administrator   Joined: Jul 2006 Posts: 2146	New documents uploaded For those of you who wish to read the ATF's motion for summary judgement filed yesterday as well, you can find in the Law Library section of the Newsdesk. Direct links: 2007-01-31 — NAR/TRA Motion for Summary Judgement of amended Complaint 2007-01-31 — ATF Motion for Summary Judgement of amended Complaint

02-03-2007 01:56 AM  #3
Aphyle Hot HCl and rubber @ AM   Joined: Dec 2006 Posts: 103	Reasonable doubt, prepoderance of evidence, or merely rational? The ATF brief makes for some interesting reading, especially in the continued reliance on deference based on interpretations of what Congress “intended.” One statement stood out in particular: “The APA standard is not equivalent to having to produce evidence to support the agency’s decision beyond a reasonable doubt or anything close to it. All that is required is evidence that the agency considered appropriate information and that its decision has a rational basis.” In the first part, it would seem that they would like NAR/Tripoli to attempt to prove a negative, that APCP is not an explosive, then in the absence of such a conclusion, expect deference that their assertions are correct. In science, this is considered an ad ignoraniam attack, and is similar to the assertion that there are insufficient transitional fossils to support biological evolution. In science, you have to prove your assertion – the burden of proof is always on the side making the assertion in the positive. It is not enough to have evidence – you have to show that your evidence is more valid than the opposition. Not being a lawyer, however, I thought that civil cases only required a preponderance of evidence as the standard, not beyond a reasonable doubt. The standard that is set in their language above is only “a rational basis.” Consider the case of peer-reviewed, published research. Looking over both briefs and the documents that precede them, which side would get published? Having been both a reviewer as well as an associate editor for international, peer-reviewed journals as well as an author, assertions that “our methods do not matter; all that matters is we used a method,” or “it does not matter how we analyzed our data so long as it supports our a priori assumptions” would not be considered rational or even responsible on the part of an author. Thus it would seem that ATF would not even reach the standard that they set for themselves, the “rational” basis. So what is “rational?” In statistics, we create devices to deal with the ambiguities and then determine our comfort level of being wrong. Data ranges are useful, but are they significant? It depends, but almost always, there are more powerful statistical tests that can be used, ones that reduce our risk of rejecting a “null hypothesis” (Burn Rate of APCP = Burn Rate of Explosive). Simple overlap of data ranges is not enough to suggest that two ranges are part of the same population. To assert otherwise, especially with such small sample sizes as the tests here are using, is just not rational. IMHO… Eric Q: How many PC Operating system engineers does it take to change a light bulb? A: None. They change the standard of darkness and call it an upgrade.

02-03-2007 09:53 AM  #4
ddmobley Administrator   Joined: Jul 2006 Posts: 2146	Eric, excellent points. I think when a government agency takes the position that you should "trust us, we are the experts here" that this points out the obvious need for "rebalancing" as intended by the three branches of our government. The mere fact that there is supporting precedent that establishes that a government agency's action should be overlooked and presumption deferred to them based on their "expertise" is unthinkable. Yet here we are, in America, with such a thing considered normal. The "checks and balances" of our system need checking and balancing.

02-09-2007 10:31 PM  #5
UhClem Certified Level Three   Joined: Oct 2006 Posts: 106	NAR/TRA filed an errata with the court on 6 February. It seems that where they discussed the way to calculate the burn rate they said "diameter" when they meant "radius".

02-10-2007 01:18 PM  #6
Len_Lekx Certified Level Two   Joined: Aug 2006 Posts: 49	Well... having NAR/TRA admit to an error of a factor of two, is far better than having a government agency NOT admit to an error-factor of over two hundred...