Law360, New York ( July 28, 2014, 11:47 AM EDT) -- In July 2013, the D.C. Circuit ruled that Section 207 of the Passenger Rail Investment and Improvement Act of 2008 ("PRIIA"), under which Amtrak and the Federal Railroad Administration ("FRA") jointly established metrics and standards to measure Amtrak's performance, was an unconstitutional delegation of regulatory power to a private entity (i.e., Amtrak). The court of appeals said "the U.S. Supreme Court has never approved a regulatory scheme that so drastically empowers a private entity in the way §207 empowers Amtrak."[1] In its petition for a writ of certiorari, the government[2] said the Supreme Court has "not invalidated a federal statute in nearly 80 years on the ground that it impermissibly delegated authority to a private party."[3] On June 23, the Supreme Court granted the government's writ of certiorari to review the decision....