thank you your honour's my name's aaron whalen and i represent the chilcat indian village of caught on and the other plaintiffs in this case i would like to reserve five minutes for rebuttal and i have all watched for that this case is about the  obligation to the fullest extent possible when it acts under any statute d whether the agency met that obligation when it entirely refused to consider its potential impacts of eventually mine development when approving concent ins final stage of mineral exploration and how those impacts would affect the chilcat valley where so many of the my clients depend on the natural resources to mine in the interest of time today i'd like to focus on two issues that there is a refusal to consider development in x also violates the committed acts requirement because at this final stage of exploration development was recently forseeable with respect to our connected actions argument we rest on the graces and i'm available to answer any questions you  secretary or the application it would trigger an automatic segregation that would be a kind of basis even under the defendant's interpretation of the bureau's regulations to deny the exploration plan at issue here in other words the agency has authority to seek that withdrawal at any time not just in the context of land management planning and and then having requested withdrawal assuming its application is approved by the secretary and has authority under its own  authority the bureau couldn't essentially ignore that it was giving up that authority that it was risking a loss of that authority by approving this exploration in other contexts when the agency final stage of exploration which will cross the threshold or will likely cross the threshold of committing to ultimate development in other words is the commitment that is the issue in concern and the reason that  intertwined with the notion that you know at some point the future production is actually a consequence you've crossed and i'm trying to figure out why you think you have this particular record and some seem said st of all that this was approximately a five year plan and that at the end of that five year plan it would be prepared to make a decision assuming continued as a result prepared to make a decision whether to go no go decision bell but the way that the money at functions by the time the company makes that decision it will have already done the exploration needed quietly ringback to have made a valuable discovery and by that point the agency has lo it is and yet regardless of whether it's a function of the mind act the fact that it's a function might act as something that the bureau has to be aware of when acting under the mining act and all that need to require the agency to just make a decision  that the government's inability to fully ascertain the precise extent of the effects of development essentially is not a justification for failing to estimate those effects might be before irrevocably and although the commitment here is well as i mentioned before projecting out development and past even before exploration has begun is something the agency is skilled at doing has f members that do and does all the time in other contexts analogous like oil and gas  and that information at that stage isn't perfect and isn't required to be or it might be a range of impacts for example a range of possible development and a question that a z s answer with that is is anything within this range acceptable and assuming it is then and the agency can proceed to make a decision agency is aware though that range of impacts nothing in that range is acceptable given the importance of the natural resources y withdrawal if the program because the bureau has refused entirely to look at those and any manner whatsoever you're right question i'd like to mention if you can just you know stage of exploration it all exploration is early in the stage of the mind lifecycle which includes engineering extraction processing enclosure all which can take decades and the last stage  jones your honor mentioned so in that case there was no risk that the authority would transfer because the mining was taking place on state lands and so there wasn't a risk of a loss already and there was less information available and and here were two cumulative effects arguments in that case one was about general statements the company had made about a desire to increase mining across the entire organ coast and obviously that is  specific and the information we have here which i find exploration at at a single site and the other was whether the agency should have included an analysis of say a company was not currently pursuing any development at that's not the case here