this bid protest regarding cooperative agreement there is an important place for cooperative agreements in federal contracting and the f g c a which has been on the books since the one nine hundred seventy s establishes when agencies should use cooperative agreements versus grants versus particular ment's and even in c m s a case where the government ultimately lost even see amounts recognized that co operative agreements are not subject the answer to your question your honor it is found in the touchstone of the f c c a which is the principal purpose test which says that if the principal purpose of the relationship between the agency and the contracting party is to acquire goods or services for the direct benefit and use of the agency that is a partner and that's what the court found  s based on the particular record evidence in one case there was evidence that the government was essentially outsourcing contracting officer duties to a third party to save the government from having to do that work itself ok in this case what we have is the most indirect of all benefits that could be said of any cooperative agreement which is that the government could be doing what the cooperator is doing and the co op and the cooperate of agreement furthers the agency's overall mission that is that is the case in every single cooperative agreement and cannot be under the f t c a its principal purpose the there is the conservation of wildlife resources on wildlife refuges is is of sufficient importance that the agency has been specifically granted authority to enter into cooperate agreements for the purpose of stimulating private conservation activity to further the statutory goals and that's the principal purpose indeed be the only purpose of these corporate agreements is to stimulate the private activity to further the federal statutory goal of wildlife conservation out the court below at page eight zero two two zero thirty three specific we said that the administrative record demonstrate looked at it led astray to record and came to the conclusion that the principal purpose was something other than what you're saying today but certainly review that is a fact finding how do we review that and what standards actually i would submit that that particular finding supports that the principal purpose was to stimulate the private cooperators to engage in the conservation activity to further the federal is a a question of fact that the trial court did not make any specific back finding about the agency's principal purpose because the agency inside the trial court refused to recognize the dichotomy between cooperative agreements and particular ment's for purposes of the tucker act so what the trial court should have done was it should have reviewed under a rational basis standard of review the agency's policy judgment about what was the most appropriate instrument to use in light of the agency's principal purpose in entering into the relationship and i want to make the only principal purpose that's apparent on this record is to stimulate these private co operating farmers to engage in conservation activity to further the overall sesh torrie goal does prior to that the status of mind of the department of the interior for example which even predates roosevelt and the national park service and so on the  all logging is done in a fashion such that the land can be used repeatedly in a beneficial fashion there is a there is undoubtedly around or a long history of  government encouraging private and public partnerships to conserve wildlife and our nation's national natural resource we knew of all resources that's right and this case has major consequences for contracted ministration throughout the federal government because for chairmans are governed by one body of law prince we seek in the far and assistance agreements like cooperate agreements are governed by a separate body of law largely found in title to the c f r and this is going to relate for example the grazing rights is it very well could your honor and congress intended for agencies to exercise discretion in making these policy judgments about which path to choose the part german path or the question differently montag and the trial court's decision curtailed that discretion by making virtually any co operative agreement subject to perturb long procedure and i ask you about that just following that up can you just talk a little about the ram the relief in particular relief granted in this case the injunction and how that works states they call the national quite a ways to they not i'm sorry i'm not a follower of the national flyway the game birds yes the margaret tory birds especially canadian geese are implicated here hope for getting the havoc this may or may not create because the government has taken one path that knowledge someone might say that that's the wrong path if it were to get one of the h taking the example in this case are very poor fit for this particular program because there is substantial involvement in the performance process where the government is involved in decision making about what plants to crop and when to harvest them and how to tend them and then and all those decisions that go into the performance process those would conceivably be changes under changes cause under the foreign approach your main contact where the government is going to be liable for changing the terms of performance every time that  permutations in the world of government contracting where the government needs flexibility in order to administer federal statutes and achieve federal statutory goals i don't hear from the other side thank you to fulfill the mission one of which was to provide for the conservation of migratory vor bird and that step then you move into the next requirement which was conservations life and this case the service an act that planned the statute requires that it follow that plan and that plan set out a number of alternatives one of which was alternative to which was adopted by the service an alternative to require that the service call all the stipulations in the form in compatibility determination in the comforts of comprehensive conservation plan so it's a mix of statute as well as as actions taken by the fish and wildlife services for him the cape that farming within the refugees is done to fulfill a statutory mandy  mandate to provide for conservation principle of migratory birds the service also for both refuges enacted compliment of plans which recognise there is no other means to fulfill the mission and the third alternative was what was actually adopted which is the the co operative farming agreement program under which the service contracts with farmers to grow crops on national wildlife  refuge lands in exchange for a crop sharing the farmer typically received seventy five percent of the crop and the and the service received twenty five percent of the crop which it uses to feed birds and so it's in the consider other definitions in related statutes such as for example that f g c and you offer the same approach in your brief you don't consider those other definitions can  government yes must use a particular legal instrument to pick your contract this court has already addressed what the scope of the court of federal claims jurisdiction or the administrative dispute resolution act one thousand nine hundred six was and what it did response resource conservation and this is the quote the a d r expanded the jurisdiction of the court of penalties to hear big protest cases ultimately giving the court exclusive jurisdiction to review the full range of it's the government as argue there is no discord between them this course you give consideration the congress has used different terms in different actions the federal district courts had jurisdiction earl it was called the to disappointed betters to challenge  the existing jurisdiction of district court to hear big protest cases could not have been constrained by the federal grant property women act that was an acted so one team seventy eight scandal predates that by years this court  discusses what the result should be when the government establishes an intermediary relationship where the government has a statutory obligation to perform some function and lift the aid of third parties for the conservation of wildlife including the feeding of migratory birds and that the service couldn't perform the function itself in fact contemplated doing so but poor budgetary reasons the principal purpose was to wire prop your services for the direct benefit and use the government to direct benefit as its government did not have to use its own personnel at a greater cost to perform the function and ultimately what like sierra club a group that was volunteering to provide services for the purpose of feeding the migratory birds the key there your honor is that is a voluntary aspect of that and one of the national wildlife refuge and  i'm not aware of any any statute that requires the your land management to make land available for for grazing for its own benefit just like to make a couple of very quick points first with respect to the statutory mandate argument that was just made there is no statutory mandate to farm any particular refuge land or to feed any particular birds the statutory scheme specifically in the co ordination act gives the agency the option of proceeding either directly administering this public land or to use co operative agreements and an official wildlife act that was discussed earlier congress specifically gave extremely broad cooperative agreement authority to the agency for using co operative agreements in the context of refuge and i looking at the long run in addition to community partnerships which this is exactly the kind of community partnership that congress had in mind was the agency partnering with private  farmers to stimulate the private activity to further the federal statutory goal also judge well it with respect to your question about whether there's any authority that section one one one is the be all and end all of talk or actor stiction with respect to the meaning of the term for chairman it's a distributed solution borrowed from section one eleven in title forty one but i never said that that was the exclusive source of that they only place that the congress had spoken about the concept of for germans and in fact prior to the passage of that provision you had the f t cia which made a clear distinction about in the context of tucker actress diction protesting an award in connection with the rent if not a picture meant contract so that it is a distinction without a difference finally with respect to the principal purpose i would just like to impress upon the court that this is something that congress intended to be a basic policy level decision for the agency to exercise its discretion and that question that back question should have been reviewed on a rational basis standard by the trial court the trial court did not do that in this case and supplanted its judgment for the policy judgment of the agency because