Sievers

MEMORANDUM **

Carroll Sievers petitions for review of the order of the Department of Labor’s Administrative Review Board (“ARB”) denying his complaint under the Whistle-blower Protection Provision of the Wendell H. Ford Aviation Investment and Reform Act for the 21st Century (“AIR 21”), 49 U.S.C. § 42121 . The facts are known to the parties, and we do not repeat them here except as necessary.

I

We review the ARB’s decision pursuant to the Administrative Procedure Act (“APA”). Id. § 42121(b)(4)(A). Under the APA, “the ARB’s legal conclusions must be sustained unless they are arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion, or otherwise not in accordance with law, and its findings of fact must be sustained unless they are unsupported by substantial evidence in the record as a whole.” Calmat Co. v. U.S. Dep’t of Labor, 364 F.3d 1117, 1121 (9th Cir.2004) (citing 5 U.S.C. § 706 (2)).

*203 We review the decision of the ARB, not the decision of the Administrative Law Judge (“ALJ”), id., and we defer to the inferences that the ARB derives from the evidence, not to those of the ALJ, Mackowiak v. Univ. Nuclear Sys., Inc., 735 F.2d 1159, 1162 (9th Cir.1984).

“Substantial evidence is more…