Full opinion text
OPINION RIDGWAY, Judge. In this action, former employees of Houston, Texas-based BMC Software, Inc. (“the Workers”) contest the determination of the U.S. Department of Labor denying their petition for certification of eligibility for trade adjustment assistance (“TAA”) benefits. See Letter to Court from A. Blummer, dated June 1, 2004 (“Complaint”); 69 Fed.Reg. 6694, 6695 (Feb. 11, 2004) (notice of receipt of petition and initiation of investigation); 69 Fed.Reg. 11,887, 11,888 (March 12, 2004) (notice of denial of petition); 69 Fed.Reg. 20,642 (April 16, 2004) (notice of denial of request for reconsideration); A.R. 2-33, 44-45, 53, 56-59. Jurisdiction lies under 28 U.S.C. § 1581(d)(1) (2000). Now pending before the Court is the Labor Department’s Notice of Revised Determination on Remand (“Revised Remand Determination”), which certifies that; All workers of BMC Software, Inc., Houston, Texas, who became totally or partially separated from employment on or after December 23, 2002, through two years from the issuance of this revised determination, are eligible to apply for Trade Adjustment Assistance under section 223 of the Trade Act of 1974. 69 Fed.Reg. 76,783, 76,784 (Dec. 22, 2004). The Workers have advised that they are satisfied with that certification, albeit with certain reservations. Accordingly, with the observations and clarifications set forth below, the Labor Department’s Revised Remand Determination is sustained. I. Background A. The Trade Adjustment Assistance Laws Trade adjustment assistance (“TAA”) programs historically have been—and today continue to be—touted as the quid pro quo for U.S. national policies of free trade. See generally Former Employees of Chevron Prods. Co. v. U.S. Sec’y of Labor, 27 CIT -, -, 298 F.Supp.2d 1338, 1349-50 (2003) ("Chevron III”) (summarizing policy underpinnings of trade adjustment assistance laws). As UAW v. Marshall explains, “much as the doctrine of eminent domain requires compensation when private property is taken for public use,” the trade adjustment assistance laws similarly reflect the country’s recognition “that fairness demand[s] some mechanism whereby the national public, which realizes an overall gain through trade readjustments, can compensate the particular ... workers who suffer a[job] loss.” UAW v. Marshall, 584 F.2d 390, 395 (D.C.Cir.1978). In short, absent TAA programs that ate adequately funded and conscientiously administered, “the costs of a federal policy [of free trade] that confer[s] benefits on the nation as a whole would be imposed on a minority of American workers” who lose their jobs due to increased imports and shifts of production abroad. Id. See also Former Employees of Bell Helicopter Textron v. United States, 18 CIT 323, 328-29 (1994) (summarizing policy underpinnings and legislative history of TAA). Thus, as a recent article in Harper’s Magazine explained, “[w]hen he introduced TAA, President Kennedy justified the program in moral terms”: “Those injured by [trade] competition should not be required to bear the full brunt of the impact. Rather, the burden of economic adjustment should be borne in part by the federal government ... [T]here is an obligation to render assistance to those who suffer as a result of national trade policy.” Harper’s Magazine at 63 (quoting Kennedy). The trade adjustment assistance laws are generally designed to assist workers who have lost their jobs as a result of increased import competition from—or shifts in production to—other countries, by helping those workers “learn the new skills necessary to find productive employment in a changing American economy.” Former Employees of Chevron Prods. Co. v. U.S. Sec’y of Labor, 26 CIT 1272, 1273, 245 F.Supp.2d 1312, 1317 (2002) (“Chevron I”) (quoting S.Rep. No. 100-71, at 11 (1987)). As expanded in 2002, today’s TAA program entitles eligible workers to receive benefits which may include employment services (such as career counseling, resume-writing and interview skills workshops, and job referral programs), vocational training, job search and relocation allowances, income support payments (known as “Trade Readjustment Allowance” or “TRA” payments), and a Health Insurance Coverage Tax Credit. See generally 19 U.S.C. § 2272 et seq. (2000 & Supp. II 2002). Since 1974, the Labor Department has been entrusted with the administration of the trade adjustment assistance program. The trade adjustment assistance laws are remedial legislation and, as such, are to be construed broadly to effectuate their intended purpose. UAW v. Mar- shall, 584 F.2d at 396 (noting the “general remedial purpose” of TAA statute, and that “remedial statutes are to be liberally construed”). See also Fortin v. Marshall, 608 F.2d at 526, 529 (same); Usenj v. Whitin Machine Works, Inc., 554 F.2d 498, 500, 502 (1st Cir.1977) (emphasizing “remedial” purpose of TAA statute). Moreover, both “[b]ecause of the ex parte nature of the certification process, and the remedial purpose of the [TAA] program,” the Labor Department is obligated to “conduct [its] investigation with the utmost regard for the interest of the petitioning workers.” Local 167, Int’l Molders and Allied Workers’ Union, AFL-CIO v. Marshall, 643 F.2d 26, 31 (D.C.Cir.1981) (emphases added). See also Stidham v. U.S. Dep’t of Labor, 11 CIT 548, 551, 669 F.Supp. 432, 435 (1987) (citing Abbott v. Donovan, 7 CIT 323, 327-28, 588 F.Supp. 1438, 1442 (1984) (quotations omitted)); IBM, 29 CIT at -, 403 F.Supp.2d at 1314 (quoting Stidham); Former Employees of Computer Sciences Corp. v. U.S. Sec’y of Labor, 29 CIT -, -, 366 F.Supp.2d 1365, 1371 (2005) Thus, while the Labor Department is vested with considerable discretion in the conduct of its investigation of trade adjustment assistance claims, “there exists a threshold requirement of reasonable inquiry.” Former Employees of Hawkins Oil & Gas, Inc. v. U.S. Sec’y of Labor, 17 CIT 126, 130, 814 F.Supp. 1111, 1115 (1993) (“Hawkins Oil & Gas II”); Former Employees of Electronic Data Sys. Corp. v. U.S. Sec’y of Labor, 29 CIT -, -, 408 F.Supp.2d 1338, 1342-43 (2005); Merrill Corp. II, 29 CIT at -, 387 F.Supp.2d at 1345. Courts have not hesitated to set aside agency determinations which are the product of perfunctory investigations. See generally section II.E, infra (summarizing statistics concerning TAA actions filed with Court of International Trade in recent years, and noting that—at least during four year period analyzed—Labor Department never successfully defended a denial without at least one remand). B. The Facts of This Case The Workers’ former employer, BMC, is a “Fortune 1000” company, and one of the largest software vendors in the world. Among other things, BMC designs, develops, produces and sells business systems management software, which is distributed both in “object code” form and on a “shrink-wrap” basis. BMC’s competitors include industry giants and household names such as IBM, Computer Associates, Microsoft, Sun Microsystems, and Hewlett Packard. S.A.R. 33-36, 52-61; C.S.A.R. 153; see also C.S.A.R. 488, 490-91, 492, 493 (relevant portions of Form 10-K for BMC (for FY ended March 31, 2003)) (“BMC Form 10-K”). The four former employees who filed the TAA petition at issue here were involved in the production and distribution of BMC software products. Those products were mass-replicated at the Houston facility where they worked (as well as at several other BMC facilities), and were often shipped on physical media including CD-ROMs, packaged with user manuals. See Complaint (including attached photos); A.R. 53; S.A.R. 33-36, 52-61; C.S.A.R. 135, 149, 155, 157, 453, 711. The Workers’ employment at BMC was terminated in early August 2003, as part of a round of lay-offs in response to the company’s lackluster performance in the first quarter of its 2004 fiscal year. Those layoffs were reported in an article published in the Houston Chronicle: BMC Software ... reported a first-quarter loss and said it will slash about 900 jobs worldwide to return to profitability. The cuts come amid a weak spending environment for technology and amount to about 13 percent of the Houston-based company’s work force of 6,825. The maker of software for managing and monitoring large computer networks would not say how many of its 1,800 workers in Houston would be affected by the reductions, but it is closing facilities and consolidating offices across the globe in an effort to shave $25 million to $30 million off expenses by the fourth quarter. The company will spend $60 million this year to restructure. Jobs in sales, research and development, information technology, and administration will be shed. The company will offset some of the cuts by adding research and development jobs and positions in information technology to offshore facilities in India and Israel, making the net reduction more like 8 percent when all is done. The company’s job cuts come on top of 230 earlier this year that were made as part of a plan to discontinue a product line and reduce positions that didn’t relate to high-priority projects. “Weak Quarter Leads BMC to Cut 900 Jobs,” Houston Chronicle, July 29, 2003, at 1 (emphases added) (included at A.R. 5-7; SA.R. 63-64). A copy of the Houston Chronicle article was included with the petition for TAA benefits that the Workers filed with the Labor Department in late December 2003. The petition alleged, inter alia, that the company was shifting jobs “offshore to India and Israel.” A.R. 2-3, 5-7, 33. Appended to the Workers’ petition were some 25 pages of announcements of job vacancies—primarily at BMC facilities in India and Israel—printed out from the company’s website. A.R. 8-33. In mid-January 2004, the Labor Department contacted BMC management concerning the Workers’ TAA petition. Asked to “[bjriefly describe the business activities of BMC Software, Inc.,” the company’s Senior Manager for Human Resources responded by parroting—verbatim—a marketing pitch on BMC’s website: BMC Software, Inc. (N.Y.SE: BMC), is a leading provider of enterprise management software solutions that empower companies to manage their IT infrastructure from a business perspective. Delivering Business Service Management, BMC Software solutions span enterprise systems, applications, databases and service management. C.A.R. 36. The Labor Department also asked BMC to advise whether the company’s Houston employees “produce an article of any kind or ... were engaged in employment related to the production of an article.” There too the Senior Manager for Human Resources failed to respond directly to the Labor Department’s inquiry, and instead proffered a “soundbite” plucked from the company’s promotional materials: BMC Software develops software solutions to proactively manage and monitor the most complex IT environments, enabling around-the-clock availability of business-critical applications. BMC also provides services to support its software products, including support and implementation services. C.A.R. 36-37. With no further inquiry, the Labor Department denied the Workers’ TAA petition on January 20, 2004—although the Federal Register notice of the initiation of the investigation wasn’t published till three weeks thereafter. Compare A.R. 44-45 (Negative Determination Regarding Eligibility to Apply for Worker Adjustment Assistance, dated Jan. 20, 2004) with 69 Fed. Reg. 6694, 6695 (Feb. 11, 2004) (notice of receipt of petition and initiation of investigation). In effect, the agency’s Federal Register notice of the initiation of the investigation invited the Workers to seek a hearing on a petition that the agency had already denied. The Labor Department’s official Negative Determination Regarding Eligibility to Apply for Worker Adjustment Assistance ruled that the Workers “develop[ed] software solutions,” and thus “[did] not produce an article” within the meaning of the TAA statute. A.R. 44-45. See also 69 Fed.Reg. at 11,888 (ruling that “[t]he workers firm does not produce an article as required for certification [under the TAA statute]”). According to an undated internal agency memorandum documenting the “Findings of the Investigation,” the Labor Department concluded—solely on the strength of the information supplied by BMC’s Senior Manager for Human Resources—that the Workers were “engaged in the development of’ software, and thus “provide[d] development services.” To support the agency’s conclusion that “[BMC][w]orkers do not produce an article,” the agency memorandum erroneously attributed a statement to that effect to BMC’s Senior Manager for Human Resources. See C.A.R. 42. The memorandum also stated that BMC’s “Standard Industrial Classification” (“SIC”) code is 7371 (the code for “Computer Programming Services”), although the source of that information was not specified, and the relevance and accuracy of the information are dubious at best. Id. Copies of the Labor Department’s Negative Determination were sent to the Workers under cover of a standard form letter which advised them of their right to seek administrative reconsideration by the agency. Incredibly, however, the Labor Department’s letter said nothing about the Workers’ right to challenge the Negative Determination in this court. See A.R. 46-49. The Workers timely sought reconsideration of the denial. In their request for reconsideration, the Workers emphasized that the Labor Department’s Negative Determination erroneously stated that the investigation was initiated on October 9, 2003—a date that was actually several months before the petition was even filed. The Workers disputed the Labor Department’s determination that BMC did not produce an article, and referred the agency to three specific locations on BMC’s website, including “an online store for purchasing BMC products and product lines. ” A.R. 53 (emphases added). The Workers quoted the BMC website: Now you’re ready to shop online with BMC Software. Browse through the store by category or by the A-Z list below. If you know the name of your product, use the Product Name Search field to locate your product quickly. Id. (emphases added). The Workers explained that “[t]he use of the term ‘solutions’ is misleading. Usage of the term ‘solutions’ within the BMC Software, Inc. web page and other places is synonymous with ‘product lines.’ ” And the Workers again stated that BMC was shifting work “to overseas companies as well as newly created BMC locations overseas.” The Workers added that software was also being “imported to make up the products and product lines that BMC Software, Inc. produces.” A.R. 53. In response to the Workers’ request for reconsideration, a Labor Department staffer called BMC’s Senior Manager for Human Resources (the same company official who had responded to the agency’s initial request for information). The BMC official reportedly stated flatly that “no products are manufactured” by the company, and that the company’s software is not “recorded on media disks,” nor is it “mass-produced” or “sold off-the-shelf.” She further stated that “most [of BMC’s] software is customized for individual users,” and denied that jobs had been transferred abroad. C.A.R. 55. The agency staffer apparently failed to ask any follow-up questions concerning, for example, the nature and volume of BMC software that is not “customized for individual users.” Similarly, the staffer failed to explore with the BMC official the allegations of increased imports raised in the Workers’ request for reconsideration. Indeed, the agency staffer did nothing to confront the BMC official with any of the information provided by the Workers. Nor did the staffer make any other effort to reconcile the evident discrepancies and inconsistencies in the information before the agency. Based on nothing more than its phone conversation with BMC’s Senior Manager for Human Resources, the Labor Department denied the Workers’ request for reconsideration, ruling once again that they were “not considered to have been engaged in production.” 69 Fed.Reg. at 20,642. The Labor Department summarized its rationale, emphasizing the concept of “tangibility”; Software design and developing are not considered production of an article within the meaning of [the TAA statute]. Petitioning workers do not produce an “article” within the meaning of [that statute]. Formatted electronic software and codes are not tangible commodities, that is, marketable products, and they are not listed on the Harmonized Tariff Schedule of the United States (HTS), ... which describes articles imported to the United States. To be listed in the HTS, an article would be subject to a duty on the tariff schedule and have a value that makes it marketable, fungible and interchangeable for commercial purposes. Although a wide variety of tangible products are described as articles and characterized as dutiable in the HTS, informational products that could historically be sent in letter form and that can currently be electronically transmitted ... are not listed in the HTS. Such products are not the type of products that customs officials inspect and that the TAA program was generally designed to address. Id. (emphases added). This action ensued. In lieu of filing an Answer with the court, the Government sought and was granted a voluntary remand to conduct a further investigation and to make a redetermination as to the Workers’ eligibility for TAA benefits. On remand, the Labor Department reiterated—and elaborated on—its test for “production” of an “article” in the context of the software industry, further emphasizing the characteristic of “tangibility”: The Department has consistently maintained that the design and development of software is a service. In order to be treated as an article, for TAA purposes, a software product must be tangible, fungible, and widely marketed. The Department considers software that is mass-replicated on physical media (such as CDs, tapes, or diskettes) and widely marketed and commercially available {e.g., packaged “off-the-shelf’ programs) and dutiable under the Harmonized Tariff Schedule of the United States to be an article. The workers designing and developing such products would be considered to be engaged in services supporting the production of an article. 69 Fed.Reg. at 76,783 (emphasis added). Applying that analysis in the course of its remand investigation here, the Labor Department “raised additional questions and obtained detailed supplemental responses from the company.” Id. The information provided by BMC in the course of the remand proceedings conflicted with the information that the company had supplied earlier, and bore out the Workers’ claims, casting an entirely new light on the merits of the Workers’ TAA petition. Reiterating its position that “to be treated as an article ... for TAA purposes, a software product must be tangible, ” the Labor Department explained: [T]he new information showed that, in addition to software design and development, the firm does, in fact, mass-replicate software at the subject facility. Further, software produced by the firm at the subject facility includes not only custom applications, but [also] packaged ‘off-the-shelf applications which are mass-replicated on various media (CDs and tapes) at the subject facility. 69 Fed.Reg. at 76,783 (emphases added). Noting that BMC employees “are not separately identifiable by product line,” the Labor Department concluded that the Workers here were, indeed, “engagefd] in activity related to the production of an article.” Id. On remand, the Labor Department also re-evaluated the Workers’ allegations that BMC had shifted production overseas, to India and Israel. 69 Fed.Reg. at 76,783. The agency concluded that “there was no shift in production, for TAA purposes.” Id. However, the agency did find that “employment and production of packaged, mass-replicated software at the subject facility had declined significantly from 2002 to 2003,” that “company imports of mass-replicated software increased during the same period,” and that “the increase in company imports represented a significant percentage of the decline in production at the subject facility during the relevant period.” Id. The Labor Department therefore determined on remand “that increases of imports of articles like or directly competitive with those produced at BMC Software, Inc., Houston, Texas, contributed importantly to the total or partial separation of a significant number of workers and to the decline in sales or production at that firm.” Accordingly, nearly one full year after the TAA petition was filed (and more than 16 months after the Workers here lost their jobs), the Labor Department certified as eligible to apply for benefits all Houston-based BMC employees “who became totally or partially separated from employment on or after December 23, 2002, through two years from the issuance of [the] revised determination.” 69 Fed.Reg. at 76,-783-84. Moreover, the Labor Department has recently revised its position to recognize that—at least for purposes of cases such as this—“there are tangible and intangible articles,” and that “the production of intangible articles can be distinguished from the provision of services.” See, e.g., Computer Sciences Corporation: Notice of Revised Determination on Remand, 71 Fed.Reg. 18,355 (April 11, 2006) (emphasis added). Accordingly, “[software and similar intangible goods that would have been considered articles for the purposes of the Trade Act if embodied in a physical medium will now be considered to be articles regardless of their method of transfer.” Id. (emphasis added). In short, as the Labor Department apparently now concedes, the Workers here would have been entitled to TAA certification even if BMC’s software had not been “replicated on various media (CDs and tapes)”—that is, even if it had not been in “tangible” form. II. Analysis To be sure, the Workers are gratified by the Labor Department’s affirmative determination granting their TAA petition. But they are also quite understandably bewildered that it took the agency so long to grant them the relief to which they are entitled. And they are frustrated that they had to haul the Labor Department into court to force the agency to take a hard look at their claim. Moreover, while the Government is to be commended for recognizing the need for a voluntary remand, the Labor Department’s “about-face” as a result of that remand simply underscores the fact that the agency should have certified these Workers in the first place, within 40 days of receipt of their petition. In this case, like so many others in recent years, the agency’s “investigation” was “a shockingly cursory process.” In short, as discussed more fully below, it exalts form over substance to characterize as an “investigation” the Labor Department’s superficial review of the Workers’ petition at the agency level. A. The Labor Department’s Failure to Identify and Resolve Discrepancies and Inconsistencies in Information Provided to It The entirety of the Labor Department’s initial investigation here consisted of a mere five questions (all of which were either very basic, or conclusory, or both), posed to BMC’s Senior Manager for Human Resources. C.A.R. 36-37. The record reveals that the agency made no effort whatsoever to follow up with company officials (via telephone or otherwise)—even though the company’s responses to the Labor Department’s few substantive questions were non-responsive, ambiguous, and/or inconsistent with other information on the record, and thus begged for clarification. For example, as discussed in section I.B above, BMC’s Senior Manager for Human Resources supplied “canned” marketing pitches in response to both the Labor Department’s request for a description of the company’s business, and the agency’s inquiry as to whether BMC workers “produce an article.” It would be, frankly, impossible for anyone—including the Labor Department—to discern from BMC’s non-responsive answers whether or not the company’s software constitutes a “product” within the Labor Department’s interpretation of the TAA laws at that time (that is, whether BMC’s software is mass-replicated on physical media (such as CDs, tapes, or diskettes) and is widely marketed and commercially available (e.g., packaged for “off-the-shelf’ sale)). Nevertheless, the Labor Department failed to seek any clarification—from either BMC or the Workers. Indeed, in responding to the Labor Department’s query whether the company’s workers “produce an article,” BMC’s Senior Manager for Human Resources herself actually used the term “products”—i.e., “software products”—in describing BMC’s business. See C.A.R. 37 (emphasis added). Yet, not only did the Labor Department fail to seek clarification of that ambiguous reference, but the agency investigator even purported to rely on the company official’s statement as the sole basis for the agency’s affirmative conclusion that BMC employees do not produce a “product”: According to company official, [the Senior Manager for Human Resources], the workers at BMC ... did not produce a product. Compare C.A.R. 42-43 (undated internal agency memorandum) (emphases added) with C.A.R. 36-37 (BMC’s responses to agency questions in course of initial investigation). The Labor Department investigator thus impermissibly distorted what little information was supplied by the company in response to the agency’s inquiries. Similarly, the Labor Department made no attempt to reconcile the discrepancy between information supplied by the Workers in their TAA petition and the agency’s conclusion that “the workers at BMC ... did not produce a product.” For example, near the top of a number of the pages of job vacancy announcements printed out from BMC’s website (and appended to the Workers’ TAA petition) is a banner consisting of six buttons, labeled “Home,” “Partners,” “Support,” “Store,” “Education,” and—significantly—“Products & Solutions.” See, e.g., A.R. 12, 17, 21, 26, 31 (emphasis added). And the job vacancy announcements themselves included listings not only for positions such as “Systems Programmers” and “Programmer Analysts,” but also for positions such as “Product Developers” and “Sr. Product Developers.” See, e.g., A.R. 8-9, 11-14, 19, 22, 24-25, 27-30 (emphases added). To be sure, an employer’s use of the term “product” is by no means conclusive, or binding on the Labor Department. But it is equally clear that such a use warrants further inquiry by the agency, and that— absent such further inquiry, accompanied by a reasoned explanation of the facts (reconciling the company’s use of the term)—the agency is not free to conclude (as it did here) that petitioning workers do not produce a product. The Labor Department further failed even to acknowledge—-much less seek to resolve—apparent inconsistencies between other information provided by the Workers in their TAA petition and that supplied by their former employer, BMC. For example, asked by the Labor Department to “[bjriefly explain the circumstances relating to separations at [BMC],” the company’s Senior Manager for Human Resources responded simply that the company had taken “significant restructuring actions, including reductions in force, to reduce its ongoing operational expenses to be in line with the revenue that [was then] currently being generated.” C.A.R. 37. The Labor Department made no effort whatsoever to plumb the meaning of that wholly uninformative response. Certainly the agency made no effort to press BMC on the underlying causes of the layoffs, or the specifics of BMC jobs being moved overseas. Yet the Houston Chronicle article appended to the Workers’ TAA petition reported that, while BMC jobs in Houston and elsewhere were being slashed, the company planned to “offset some of the cuts” by adding positions “to offshore facilities in India and Israel.” A.R. 5-6. And the vast majority of the listings in the 25 pages of BMC job vacancy announcements included with the Workers’ TAA petition were for positions in India and Israel. See A.R. 8-32. That and other critical information was either overlooked or simply ignored in the Labor Department’s preparation of its “Findings of the Investigation” and in its initial negative determination. C.A.R. 42-43; A.R. 44^15. Adding insult to injury, the agency’s investigation conducted in response to the Workers’ request for reconsideration was little more than a rubber-stamp of its initial denial. The Labor Department’s reconsideration consisted—in toto—of a single phone conversation with BMC’s Senior Manager for Human Resources (the same company official who had responded to the agency’s initial questions). That conversation was in turn documented by the agency investigator in a memorandum that consisted of a total of five sentences, in a mere five lines of text. C.A.R. 55. The Labor Department’s investigation in response to the Workers’ request for reconsideration was also tainted by the same methodological flaws that plagued the agency’s initial investigation. Thus, for example—notwithstanding the fact that the Workers’ request for reconsideration insisted that BMC “does produce an article or articles in the form of products,” and even though the Workers quoted language from the BMC website referring to “products” and provided the agency with cites to locations on the BMC website where company products are sold-—the Labor Department investigator accepted at face value the BMC official’s statement that no products were manufactured by the company. Compare A.R. 53 with C.A.R. 55. Similarly, although the Workers’ request for reconsideration reiterated that BMC production was being shifted “offshore,” and although the Workers’ TAA petition had included documentation that appeared to support such allegations, the Labor Department investigator nevertheless accepted without question the BMC official’s statement that “[tjhere were no job transfers abroad.” Compare A.R. 2-3, 5-32, 53 with C.A.R. 55, Only after this action was filed and the voluntary remand granted did the Labor Department begin to seriously probe the merits of the Workers’ TAA petition, pressing BMC (for the first time) to “provide detailed answers” supplying the “accurate] and complete[ ]” information needed for the agency to “conduct a comprehensive investigation” of the Workers’ claims (see S.A.R. 38-39)—information that was at the time still so conspicuously absent from the agency’s files. Even a cursory review of the administrative record here makes it clear that the Labor Department could—and should—have elicited the necessary information much earlier, by scrutinizing the company’s statements, seeking greater specificity and clarification, and reconciling the obvious inconsistencies in the evidence before the agency. B. The Labor Department’s Over-Reliance on Employer-Provided, Information In its initial investigation of the Workers’ petition, the Labor Department asked BMC the “ultimate question”: Do the workers in BMC Software, Inc., Houston, TX ... produce an article of any kind or were they engaged in employment related to the production of an article? If workers do produce an article, please explain, and what is the product? C.A.R. 36-37. In effect, the agency sought to delegate to BMC’s Senior Manager for Human Resources the power to decide the Workers’ TAA petition. But, “it is Labor’s responsibility, not the responsibility of the company official, to determine whether a former employee is eligible for benefits.” Federated Merck., 29 CIT at -, 2005 WL 290015 at * 6 (citation omitted). Accordingly, the Labor Department cannot rely on employers’ blanket assurances that workers were, or were not, engaged in “production.” IBM I, 29 CIT at -, 387 F.Supp.2d at 1351-52 (Labor Department erred in “effectively substituting] the [company official’s] opinion for its own inquiry into whether the products produced ... constituted ‘articles’ for the purpose of [the] TAA statute”); IBM, 29 CIT at - & n. 25, -, 403 F.Supp.2d at 1329-31 & n. 25, 1336 (Labor Department “may not rely on the legal conclusions of others as a substitute for its own analysis of the relevant facts”; agency “cannot simply adopt as its own the legal conclusions of employers,” but must instead “reach its own conclusions, based on its own thoughtful, thorough, independent analysis of all relevant record facts”; “agency may not rely on conclusory assertions by company officials—particularly not as to ‘ultimate facts’ and legal determinations entrusted to the agency, and particularly not where those conclusory assertions are contradicted by detailed, specific statements made by the [petitioning workers] under penalty of perjury”); EDS I, 28 CIT at -, 350 F.Supp.2d at 1292-93 (in relying on company official’s statement that company “did not produce articles, but provided computer related services,” Labor Department improperly “substituted one ... employee’s opinion that the company did not produce ‘articles’ for [the agency’s] own legal inquiry”); Ericsson I, 28 CIT at -, 2004 WL 2491651 at * 7 (agency erred in relying on company official’s “essentially legal conclusion” that workers “[did] not produce a product!” ). Indeed, to the contrary, the Labor Department has an affirmative obligation to conduct its own independent “factual inquiry into the nature of the work performed by the petitioners” to determine whether or not that work constituted “production.” Ameriphone, 27 CIT at -, 288 F.Supp.2d at 1359 (citing Chevron I, 26 CIT at 1284, 245 F.Supp.2d at 1327-28 (quoting Former Employees of Shot Point Servs. v. United States, 17 CIT 502, 507 (1993))). Nor can the Labor Department rely on the unverified statements of company officials in the face of factual discrepancies in the record, as it did in this case. See generally Former Employees of Marathon Ashland, Pipe Line, LLC v. Chao, 370 F.3d 1375, 1385 (Fed.Cir.2004) (ruling that the Labor Department is entitled to base TAA determinations on statements of company officials “if the Secretary reasonably concludes that those statements are creditworthy” and if the statements “are not contradicted by other evidence”; but— where there is a conflict in the evidence— the Labor Department is “precluded ... from relying on the representations by the employer” and is required to “take further investigative steps before making [its] certification decision”) (emphasis added); IBM, 29 CIT at -, -, 403 F.Supp.2d at 1330-31, 1336 (Labor Department cannot “rely on evidence which is fundamentally at odds with other record evidence (at least not without reconciling discrepancies)”; agency cannot “accept at face value information provided by a source where either (a) that information is contradicted by other evidence on the record, or (b) there is some other reason to question the veracity of the information or the credibility of the source”). Cf. Int’l Molders and Allied Workers’ Union, 643 F.2d at 31-32 (sustaining agency reliance on unverified employer response absent “objective circumstances ... suggesting that the company gave a less than truthful response” and absent any indication “that the company would have financially benefitted from the denial of certification”); Former Em ployees of Gateway Country Stores LLC v. Chao, 30 CIT -, -, 2006 WL 539129 at * 11 (2006) (Labor may reasonably “rely upon information supplied by a company official where that information is not disputed by either party or, if there is a dispute, if Labor conducts an adequate investigation into the reliability of that information”) (citations omitted). In the case at bar, as discussed in section I.B above, BMC’s Senior Manager for Human Resources stated unequivocally that BMC software is not “recorded on media disks,” nor is it “mass-produced” or “sold off-the-shelf,” when asked by the Labor Department investigator reviewing the Workers’ request for reconsideration. See C.A.R. 55. The BMC official also denied that any jobs had been transferred abroad. Id. In fact, all of those statements were patently and demonstrably false. It is impossible to definitively discern from the record here whether or not she knew that the statements were false at the time she made them—although, candidly, it strains credulity to suggest that the Senior Manager for Human Resources of a major multinational corporation could be so ignorant of such basic information about the nature of her employer’s business, much less the overall status of the company’s workforce at its facilities here at home in the U.S. versus abroad. Each of the false statements made by BMC’s Senior Manager for Human Resources was at odds with information that the Workers had provided to the Labor Department. Yet the agency never once contacted the Workers to attempt to reconcile the discrepancies, or to solicit information from them (on this, or any other, subject)—not as part of the agency’s initial investigation, and not even in response to the request for reconsideration. There can be no doubt that—if the Labor Department had bothered to ask the Workers whether BMC’s software is mass-replicated on physical media and is widely marketed and commercially available (e.g., packaged for “off-the-shelf’ sale)—the Workers would have provided to the agency the same photos of shrink-wrap software that they appended to their Complaint filed with the court. But the Labor Department never asked, and instead accepted as gospel truth the unsubstantiated representations of the BMC human resources official. As section I.A above observes, the methodology used to conduct TAA investigations is—as a general principle—committed to the sound discretion of the agency. But it is difficult to fathom why Labor Department investigators continue to rely so heavily on employers, virtually to the exclusion of petitioning workers. A review of the administrative records in TAA cases filed with the court reveals that agency investigators only relatively rarely contact petitioning workers to seek additional information, documentation, or clarification. In contrast, investigators seem almost gullible in their willingness to accept at face value virtually anything an employer says—typically without even confronting the employer with other, conflicting information provided by petitioning workers (or sometimes the employer itself). In a nutshell, the Labor Department views employers as presumptively reliable sources, and treats any information that they provide as though it “trumps” information provided by petitioning workers. The agency maintains that an employer has no reason to lie, and has “[no] interest in the outcome of [a TAA case] that might ... be[ ] adverse to its former employees.” Former Employees of Barry Callebaut v. Chao, 357 F.3d 1377, 1381 (Fed.Cir.2004). Au contraire. The Labor Department’s position on the reliability of company statements is simplistic and naive, at best—for, just as the Labor Department seems to impute to petitioning workers a motivation to stretch the truth in an effort to secure TAA benefits, so too employers have certain inherent incentives to be less than candid and fully forthcoming as well. See, e.g., Tyco Toys, 12 CIT at 782-83 (remand ordered, based on court’s finding that sole source on which agency relied for information evidenced “a certain bias against provision of trade adjustment funds to the claimants”). Particularly in today’s social and political climate—a time when issuing pink slips, padlocking factory doors, or outsourcing production to India or China may trigger a consumer boycott, make a company the lead story on “Lou Dobbs Tonight,” or get the company’s chief executive branded a “Benedict Arnold CEO” —some employers may be understandably reluctant to acknowledge layoffs and the reasons for them. Thus, in Bell Helicopter, for example, the court properly criticized the Labor Department’s reliance on information provided by company officials, emphasizing that: [Both company officials] had serious adverse interests to acknowledging or confirming that the job losses were due to the fact that [the firm] could pay Canadians less than Americans ... [and] ... intended to do just that. The public relations implications alone were enough to cast a cloak of suspicion over [the firm’s] responses, both in terms of veracity and completeness. Bell Helicopter, 18 CIT at 326 (emphasis added). Similarly, employers have an incentive to downplay the circumstances surrounding layoff's if they fear that the publicity that may accompany a full-blown TAA investigation (and possible eventual certification) may be exploited by their competitors, or may negatively affect their stock prices or financial ratings, or may have an adverse impact on their relationships with their suppliers or their “downstream” finishers, by signaling that they may be having financial difficulties. Thus, for example, a company subject to a TAA investigation may harbor concerns that, if its suppliers become skittish about the company’s solvency, they may impose more stringent payment terms on the company, refuse to extend credit to it, or cease doing business with it altogether. And a company’s “downstream” finishers may begin to contract with other sources of work to replace the stream of work historically generated by the company, if they suspect that the company may be beginning to scale back production or preparing to close its doors entirely. In other cases, company officials simply may not understand that the TAA program differs from the unemployment compensation system, where an employer has a clear financial stake in minimizing the amount paid to former employees on unemployment claims. Or companies may lack ready access to all the information that the Labor Department seeks. In some cases (and perhaps this case), the company officials who respond to the Labor Department’s inquiries may not intend to mislead the agency, but instead may simply lack the requisite knowledge of the company’s product lines, markets, and operations. See, e.g., Sun Apparel I, 28 CIT at -, 2004 WL 1875062 at * 7 (lambasting Labor Department for relying on information provided by employer’s human resources manager which was “inconsistent, contradictory, and evidencefd] an apparent lack of comprehension of the full array of operations, tasks, and activities” of company personnel) (emphasis added); IBM, 29 CIT at —, 403 F.Supp.2d at 1322 (criticizing agency for-relying on information provided by company official who “later disclaimed ‘any firsthand knowledge of daily work activities of the [petitioning workers],’ and recommended that ‘someone else at [the company] should be contacted for additional information’ ”); Pittsburgh Logistics I, 27 CIT at -, 2003 WL 716272 at * 7 (noting that “[t]he Court does not presume that the Employment Development Specialist ... located in Rochester [New York] who responded to the [agency] investigator’s questions about the petitioners was ‘in a position to know' the extent of the petitioners’ jobs in Independence [Ohio]”). In sum, for all these reasons and more, there is no apparent rational basis for treating information supplied by employers as inherently and necessarily more reliable and authoritative than that provided by petitioning workers—particularly where the employer’s information is un-sworn, unverified, and uncorroborated, or where it conflicts with information submitted by the petitioning workers. The court’s reach may or may not extend to employers who provide incomplete, false, or misleading information to the Labor . Department; but clearly the Labor Department is well within its grasp. And the agency’s persistent failure to verify the accuracy of the information on which it relies-—-as well as its pattern of turning a blind eye to obvious inconsistencies and discrepancies in the record before it—is beginning to verge on contempt for administrative and judicial process, and does a grave disservice to the hardworking men and women of this country. C. The Labor Department’s Failure to Consult Other Publicly-Available Sources of Information Even apart from the Labor Department’s blind faith in information provided by employers, the agency’s failure to solicit information from petitioning workers, and its willingness to ignore apparent inconsistencies in the record before it, there is yet another problem with the agency’s investigations: Here, as elsewhere, Labor Department investigators failed to make use of valuable sources of information that are readily available to them. For example, the Labor Department’s standard form Petition for Trade Adjustment Assistance asks that petitioning workers supply the web address for their former employer. The Workers here complied with that request. See A.R. 2 (providing company web address, www.bmc. com). Agency investigators apparently never consulted the company’s website, however. Had they done so, they would have discovered that the website states that BMC’s “SIC” code—“Standard Industrial Classification” code—is 7372, which is the classification code for “Prepackaged Software.” (Emphasis added.) The agency investí-gators also would have been able to access BMC’s Form 10-K for the Fiscal Year Ended March 31, 2003 (filed in mid-June 2003)—the most recent report as of the date of the Workers’ termination. That report describes the work of BMC’s Houston facility as “manufacturing,” and explains that the company sells its software both “in object code form” and “on a shrink wrap basis.” Of course, the fact that BMC sells “prepackaged software” in “shrink wrap form” was critical to the merits of the Workers’ TAA petition, under the criteria that the Labor Department was applying at the time. By regulation, the Labor Department is required “to marshal all relevant facts to make a determination” on TAA petitions. 29 C.F.R. § 90.12. In light of that obligation, the agency’s failure to avail itself of resources such as company websites and Form 10-Ks in cases such as this is utterly incomprehensible. Here, a few quick clicks of a computer mouse by a Labor Department investigator would have sufficed to expose the falsity of the information provided to the agency by BMC’s Senior Manager for Human Resources, and would have resolved at least some of the issues central to the agency’s analysis of the Workers’ right to TAA certification. See generally “Certifiably Broken,” 7 U. Pa. J. Lab. & Emp. L. at 822-23 (asserting that Labor Department investigations should be required to include, in addition to information supplied by employer, “objective, third party evidence” such as “trade-specific publications, trade data for an industry, consultations with industry experts, etc.,” and arguing that the absence of corroboration by such “third party sources” should be deemed “prima facie evidence that [the Labor Department] did not conduct a reasonable investigation”). D. The Impact of the Labor Department’s Cavalier Approach to Remands This case is troubling enough viewed in isolation. But it is even more disturbing when it is viewed in the context of other TAA cases appealed to the court in recent years. As Ameriphone noted, the Labor Department’s modus operandi increasingly is to seek a voluntary remand in TAA cases that are appealed to the court. Ameriphone, 27 CIT at -, 288 F.Supp.2d at 1359. Requests for voluntary remands have become all but routine. Counsel for the Government have elsewhere sought to defend the agency’s knee-jerk filing of motions for voluntary remand as “a reasonable and efficient opportunity for Labor to conduct further investigation as to whether the [denial of] certification ... is supported by substantial evidence.” But that reflects a curiously perverted view of the administrative and judicial processes. The Labor Department is obligated by statute to thoroughly investigate all TAA petitions and to compile complete records to support its determinations before cases reach the court. And the “substantial evidence” test is to be applied not by the agency, but—rather— by the court. Moreover, there are -a number of significant concerns inherent in the Labor Department’s practice of routinely seeking (and, for that matter, the court’s practice of reflexively granting) voluntary remands in TAA cases. One concern is that voluntary remands effectively enable the Labor Department to paint a misleading portrait of the calibre of its investigations and the bases for its determinations. By definition, a voluntary remand affords the Labor Department an opportunity to “doctor” the record of its initial investigation, by eliciting information that the agency should have obtained previously, and then using that information to “beef up” the administrative record before the agency’s determination is subjected to judicial review. By doing so, the Labor Department avoids much of the harsh criticism it would have drawn had a court reviewed the agency’s determination based solely on the record developed in the initial investigation. However critical of the Labor Department the TAA case law has been to date, there can be little doubt that it would be even more blistering if—in lieu of granting agency motions for voluntary remand—the courts instead denied such requests, forced the agency to attempt to defend its determinations on the basis of the meager record compiled in the course of its initial investigations, and based their first opinions in every case solely on that record, cataloguing the flaws and deficiencies in the investigation that the agency would have sought to cure had a voluntary remand been granted. In sum, the reported decisions of the court do not accurately reflect the Labor Department’s administrative processes. Through the procedural vehicle of voluntary remands, the agency is able to sweep much of the worst of its dirt under the rug. Delay is another critical issue. The Government’s position on the acceptability of routine requests for voluntary remands suggests that it believes that there is “no harm, no foul” inherent in such an approach. Nothing could be further from the truth. It is no answer for the Labor Department to “wait and see” whether a denial of TAA certification is challenged in the courts, and then—if it is—to seek a voluntary remand to belatedly conduct the thorough probe to which all petitioning workers are entitled by law at the administrative level. The Labor Department simply cannot pretend that certifying workers after a court case has been filed, and after a supplemental investigation has been conducted in the course of a voluntary remand, can ever even begin to make those workers whole and put them in the same position that they would have been in had the agency conducted a proper initial investigation and granted the workers timely relief, within the 40 days mandated by statute. Marathon Ashland aptly noted: “TAA cases are different from most litigation before this court. This is not a situation, such as in customs or antidumping duty cases, where a bond can be posted to cover anticipated cost and reduce liability.” Former Employees of Marathon Ashland Pipeline, LLC v. Chao, 27 CIT -, -, 277 F.Supp.2d 1298, 1313 (2003) (“Marathon Ashland II’), rev’d on other grounds, 370 F.3d 1375 (Fed.Cir.2004). As one lawyer put it, “It’s one thing to see delays in cases involving dumping products on the U.S. market, it’s quite another to see delays where people are being denied basic [TAA] assistance so that they can find jobs.” “Analysis & Perspective,” BNA Int’l Trade Reporter, at 796. Indeed, as Chevron III emphasized, “as a general principle, the effectiveness of trade adjustment assistance depends upon its timeliness.” Chevron III, 27 CIT at -, 298 F.Supp.2d at 1349 (emphasis added); see also Whitin Machine Works, 554 F.2d at 502 (criticizing Labor Department’s “administrative footdragging,” and emphasizing that “Congress apparently was interested not only in granting benefits but also in ensuring that, to the maximum extent feasible, the benefits were received during the periods in which they were most needed”) (emphasis added). See generally “Certifiably Broken,” 7 U. Pa. J. Lab. & Emp. L. at 818 (noting that, “by the time a case reaches the [Court of International Trade], ... it is likely already too late for ... the workers”) (footnotes omitted). Thus, the consequences of Labor Department delays in certification can be profound—sometimes, quite literally, life-or-death: There is a very human face on [TAA] cases. Workers who are entitled to trade adjustment assistance benefits but fail to receive them may lose months, or even years, of their lives. And the devastating personal toll of unemployment is well-documented. Anxiety and depression may set in, with the loss of self-esteem, and the stress and strain of financial pressures. Some may seek refuge in drugs or alcohol; and domestic violence is, unfortunately, all too common. The health of family members is compromised with the cancellation of health insurance; prescriptions go unfilled, and medical and dental tests and treatments must be deferred (sometimes with life-altering consequences). And college funds are drained, then homes are lost, as mortgages go unpaid. Often, marriages founder. Id, 27 CIT at -, 298 F.Supp.2d at 1349 (emphasis added) (footnote omitted). Cf. Cleveland Board of Education v. Loudermill, 470 U.S. 532, 548-51, 105 S.Ct. 1487, 84 L.Ed.2d 494 (1985) (Marshall, J., concurring in part) (spelling out the cost—in human terms—of unemployment, in context of discussion of pre-termination due process to which public employees may be entitled). In the case at bar, at least one of the four representative plaintiff Workers who filed this action still had not found full-time employment more than one full year after his termination at BMC, resulting in “significant'hardship for [his] family.” In an attempt to make ends meet, he had no choice but to liquidate his retirement account, and his wife was forced to start working. See S.A.R. 55. Even so, they count themselves among the lucky few, because at least her job offers health insurance coverage. Id As in Chevron, “[t]he record here—perhaps mercifully— does not reveal the current employment status of ... [the scores of other displaced BMC] Workers, or how (and with what success) ... [they] have endeavored to support themselves and their families” since they lost their jobs. See Chevron III, 27 CIT at -, 298 F.Supp.2d at 1349. Delay was thus the major concern of the Workers here, from the very inception of this action. See, e.g., Plaintiffs’ Reply to Defendant’s Response to Plaintiffs’ Comments on Remand Results, at 2 (noting that “timing was of singular concern to Plaintiffs”). Accordingly, for example, the Workers conditioned their consent to the Government’s motion for a voluntary remand on the entry of a detailed order requiring the Labor Department, on remand, “to undertake a comprehensive review of all issues relevant to determining whether [the Workers] are eligible for TAA benefits,” and mandating that the remand results be filed within 60 days. See Plaintiffs’ Response to Government’s Second Amended Motion to Remand Case at 4 (emphasis added). The Workers were understandably concerned about the prospect of protracted delays associated with the “ping-pong” phenomenon, where a case repeatedly bounces back and forth between the Labor Department and the court as a result of the agency’s standard “piecemeal” approach to the investigation of TAA petitions. Among other things, the Workers voiced concerns that the time consumed by the litigation process would itself “dimin[ish] ... the benefits [they could] expect to receive should they ultimately prevail.” See Plaintiffs’ Response to Government’s Second Amended Motion to Remand Case at 2. In later seeking an extension of time of an additional 60 days to file the results of the voluntary remand, the Government induced the Workers’ consent to the requested extension of time—and the Court’s entry of an order granting that extension—with express, unequivocal assurances that “in the event petitioners are certified in this case, the petitioners would be entitled to receive full TRA benefits regardless of the date they are certified.” See Defendant’s Consent Motion for an Extension of Time to File Remand Results, at 3-4; see also Letter from Counsel for Plaintiffs to the Court (Feb. 11, 2005) (“Given the Government’s representation, Plaintiffs consented to an extension of time, expressly predicated on their belief that, should théy prevail, they would not be prejudiced as a result of [that extension]”). The Workers therefore expressed dismay that the Labor Department’s Revised Remand Determination makes no reference to the assurances given earlier by the Government. The Workers have urged the Court to “expressly order[ ], in accordance with Defendant’s representation, that Plaintiffs, having been certified, are entitled to receive full TRA benefits, regardless of the date of their certification.” See Plaintiffs’ Comments on Defendant’s Determination on Remand, at 1-2. For its part, the Government responded with the (admittedly sophisticated and measured) legal equivalent of the playground taunt, “MYOB” (“Mind Your Own Business”). Specifically, the Government maintains that the Court lacks jurisdiction to grant the Workers’ request: [Although the Court may sustain a determination or remand the case to Labor for further fact finding or explanation, no provision [in 19 U.S.C. § 2395] allows the trial court to specify the level of benefits to which a certified petitioner may be eligible. Accordingly, although Labor confirms that the delay from litigation will not affect the calculation of benefits ..., the Court lacks the authority to dictate whether the petitioners will, in fact, receive “full” TRA benefits .... [Defendant’s] Response to Plaintiffs’ Comments In Response to Labor’s Remand Determination, at 3. See Defendant’s Memorandum of Law in Response to the May 12, 2005 Order, at 3 (characterizing as “inappropriate” the Court’s inquiry into the effects, if any, of litigation delays on relief ultimately available in a TAA case). It is, of course, true that the statutory scheme generally vests the state courts with jurisdiction over disputes concerning the specific TAA benefits to which individual members of a certified group of former employees are entitled. See 19 U.S.C. § 2311(d); UAW v. Brock, 477 U.S. 274, 285, 106 S.Ct. 2528, 91 L.Ed.2d 228 (1986). But 19 U.S.C. § 2311(d) is not the forbidding, impenetrable citadel that the Government seeks to depict. See, e.g., UAW v. Brock, 816 F.2d 761, 768 (D.C.Cir.1987); Hampe v. Butler, 364 F.3d 90, 93 (3d Cir.2004). Even assuming arguendo that the court—in a run-of-the-mill TAA case— lacks the authority to “expressly order[ ], ... that Plaintiffs, having been certified, are entitled to receive full TRA benefits, regardless of the date of their certification,” it is clear beyond cavil that “a court always retains jurisdiction to supervise and administer its own docket.” Arvinmeritor, Inc. v. United States, 29 CIT -, -, 2005 WL 1958804 at * 1 (2005). See also, e.g., Landis v. North American Co., 299 U.S. 248, 254-55, 57 S.Ct. 163, 81 L.Ed. 153 (1936) (invoking “the power inherent in every court to control the disposition of the causes on its docket with economy of time and effort for itself, for counsel, and for litigants,” involving “the exercise of judgment” on the part of the court); L.E.A. Dynatech, Inc. v. Allina, 49 F.3d 1527,1530 (Fed.Cir.1995) (same). Thus, to the extent that the time consumed by litigation may operate in any fashion to limit the effectiveness of any relief that may ultimately be awarded in a TAA case, the court is duty-bound-—particularly in light of the remedial nature of the TAA statute—to expedite its proceedings, limiting the number and the duration of remands, and otherwise keeping the parties (particular