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Nature of Suit Code: 890
Nature of Suit: Other Statutory Actions
Cause of Action: 

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United States Court of Appeals 

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

Argued September 16, 2008 Decided January 23, 2009 

No. 07-5281 

ORION RESERVES LIMITED PARTNERSHIP, 

APPELLEE/CROSS-APPELLANT

v. 

KEN SALAZAR, SECRETARY, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF THE 

INTERIOR, ET AL., 

APPELLANTS/CROSS-APPELLEES

Consolidated with 07-5290 

Appeals from the United States District Court 

for the District of Columbia 

(No. 04cv00791) 

Robert H. Oakley, Attorney, U.S. Department of Justice, 

argued the cause for appellants/cross-appellees. With him on 

the briefs was Ellen J. Durkee, Attorney. R. Craig Lawrence, 

Assistant U.S. Attorney, entered an appearance. 

Donald L. Morgan argued the cause and filed the briefs 

for appellee/cross-appellant. 

USCA Case #07-5281 Document #1160528 Filed: 01/23/2009 Page 1 of 21
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Before: GINSBURG, GARLAND, and GRIFFITH, Circuit 

Judges. 

Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge GRIFFITH. 

GRIFFITH, Circuit Judge: This appeal involves a 

challenge by Orion Reserves Limited Partnership (Orion) to a 

decision of the Department of the Interior (Interior) 

invalidating 156 oil shale mining claims on federal land. The 

district court concluded that Interior’s decision was arbitrary 

and capricious. We reach the opposite conclusion, which is 

compelled by the Supreme Court’s holding in Hickel v. Oil 

Shale Corp., 400 U.S. 48 (1970), that when a party 

substantially fails to perform the assessment work required by 

federal law it loses its claim to mine oil shale. 

I. 

A. 

To encourage mining in the western United States, 

Congress enacted the General Mining Law of 1872 (Mining 

Law), 30 U.S.C. §§ 22–54 (2000), declaring valuable mineral 

deposits in federal lands “open to exploration and purchase,” 

id. § 22. The Mining Law provides that citizens may stake, or 

“locate,” claims to extract minerals without prior government 

permission and without paying royalties to the United States. 

Id. § 26. Claimants may also apply for purchase of a deed, or 

“patent,” conveying full legal title to the land on which their 

claims are located. Id. § 29. 

Even without a patent, claimants can maintain their 

mining rights indefinitely so long as they comply with 

federal, state, and local requirements. Id. §§ 26, 28. Among 

these obligations is a duty to perform annual assessment 

USCA Case #07-5281 Document #1160528 Filed: 01/23/2009 Page 2 of 21
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work. The Mining Law requires that “until a patent has been 

issued therefor, not less than $100 worth of labor shall be 

performed or improvements made during each year.” Id. § 28. 

When a claimant fails to perform this annual assessment 

work, his claim is “open[ed] to relocation . . . as if no location 

of the [mineral deposit] had ever been made.” Id. In other 

words, if a claimant does not complete the required annual 

labor or improvements, he will lose his rights in the land to a 

competing claimant who does. If, however, a claimant who 

has failed to perform assessment work later resumes work 

before anyone else has staked a competing claim, his original 

claim remains intact under a statutory exception known as the 

“resumption provision.” Id. After passage of the Mining Law, 

Interior promulgated regulations stating that failure to 

perform required annual assessment work would “subject a 

claim to relocation” unless the claimant “resumed work after 

such failure and before relocation.” Nature and Extent of 

Mining Claims, 37 Pub. Lands Dec. 757, 759 (1909). 

The Mineral Leasing Act of 1920 (Leasing Act), 30 

U.S.C. §§ 181–287, authorized Interior to take a more active 

role in regulating mining on federal lands. Replacing the 

system of location and patent for oil shale (and several other 

minerals), the Leasing Act requires new claimaints to lease 

mined land from the Secretary of the Interior and to pay the 

federal government annual rental fees and royalties to obtain 

“the privilege of mining, extracting and disposing of” 

valuable minerals. Id. § 241. Of relevance here, claims made 

under the Mining Law’s system of location and patent were 

preserved under a “savings clause,” provided those claims 

were “thereafter maintained in compliance with the laws 

under which initiated.” Id. § 193. Interior subsequently 

promulgated revised regulations with a preface noting that 

regulations associated with the Mining Law no longer apply 

to minerals, like oil shale, listed in the Leasing Act, “except 

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as to valid claims” existing at the enactment of the Leasing 

Act “and thereafter duly maintained pursuant to the law under 

which located.” Nature and Extent of Mining Claims, 49 Pub. 

Lands Dec. 58, 58 Note (1923). 

B. 

This case involves Orion’s attempt to patent 156 oil shale 

mining claims in Uintah County, Utah that its original 

predecessor-in-interest located between 1917 and 1919 under 

the Mining Law. It was not until 1988, however, that another 

of Orion’s predecessors filed patent applications for the 

claims. In the course of reviewing these applications, the 

Bureau of Land Management (BLM), a division of Interior, 

challenged two of Orion’s claims, alleging they were invalid 

because, among other things, Orion’s predecessors had failed 

to perform annual assessment work for significant periods of 

time. The parties agreed to put the matter on hold until 

Interior finished processing Orion’s other patent applications. 

The BLM continued its investigation of Orion’s claims and 

discovered a substantial number of years between 1920 and 

1970 in which no affidavits, required annually by state law as 

a record that assessment work was completed, were filed. 

Although work records differ for each of the 156 claims, with 

lapses apparently ranging from 18 to 50 years, it was not until 

1970 that Orion’s predecessors consistently performed at least 

$100 worth of assessment work each year and made the 

requisite filings. On this basis, the BLM declared Orion’s 156 

oil shale claims void. Crippled Horse Invs., L.P., 3833 

(UT932-OA) UMC65858 (Bureau Land Mgmt. Sept. 2, 1999) 

(Crippled Horse I). 

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 Orion appealed the BLM’s decision to the Interior Board 

of Land Appeals (IBLA).1

 Orion did not dispute the missing 

assessment work records, but argued that it had nevertheless 

preserved its claims under longstanding judicial and 

departmental interpretations of federal law, requiring only 

that Orion resume annual work at some time, which it had 

done. The IBLA rejected Orion’s argument and concluded 

that Supreme Court precedent requires that claimants 

“substantially satisfy” the Mining Law’s annual assessment 

work obligation in order to maintain claims under the Leasing 

Act’s savings clause. Crippled Horse Invs., L.P., 161 I.B.L.A. 

264, 273–74 (2004) (Crippled Horse II). Orion’s ultimate 

resumption of work in 1970 could not revive claims forfeited 

by its decades-long failure to perform the required annual 

assessment labor or improvements. Id. at 277. Orion’s failure 

to file work affidavits for numerous years made out a prima 

facie case that the work was not performed in those years. Id.

at 274–75. Because Orion did not proffer evidence that 

assessment work was in fact done in years for which no 

affidavits were filed, the IBLA held that its claims were 

invalid. Id. at 277. 

Orion brought suit in the United States District Court for 

the District of Columbia challenging the IBLA decision under 

the Administrative Procedure Act. The district court 

bifurcated the case, addressing first the merits of the IBLA 

decision and postponing until later Orion’s separate and 

contingent claim that Interior failed to process its patent 

applications in a timely fashion. On March 31, 2006, the court 

granted Orion’s motion for summary judgment, reasoning that 

Orion and its predecessors-in-interest were entitled to rely on 

 

1

 The IBLA is Interior’s review authority charged with deciding, on 

behalf of the Secretary, matters relating to the use and disposition 

of public lands and their resources. See 43 C.F.R. § 4.1(b)(3). 

USCA Case #07-5281 Document #1160528 Filed: 01/23/2009 Page 5 of 21
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the resumption exception to maintain their claims because 

Interior’s regulations allowed for such a resumption privilege 

when Orion resumed annual assessment work in 1970. Orion 

Reserves Ltd. P’ship v. Norton, No. 04-0791, slip op. at 8–12 

(D.D.C. 2006) (Norton).2 

On June 28, 2007, the district court took up the question 

whether Interior unreasonably delayed action on Orion’s 

patent applications. Orion Reserves Ltd. P’ship v. 

Kempthorne, 516 F. Supp. 2d 8 (D.D.C. 2007) (Kempthorne). 

The court concluded that “the delay in processing Orion’s 

patent applications ha[d] not been unreasonable,” especially 

given several administrative and congressional moratoria on 

claim processing, the unusually large size of the land at issue, 

limited BLM resources, and the complex legal issues 

involved. Id. at 14–15. The court remanded the proceedings to 

Interior for further action, but ordered the BLM to file 

quarterly reports detailing progress made in processing 

Orion’s patent applications. Id. at 16–17. 

Interior filed a timely notice of appeal and challenges the 

district court’s conclusion that Orion’s repeated and extended 

failure to perform annual assessment work did not forfeit its 

oil shale claims. Orion cross-appeals, arguing that Interior 

unreasonably delayed processing its patent applications. 

Orion has also lodged a “conditional cross-appeal” asking this 

court to consider several alternative grounds for affirmance in 

the event we conclude that the district court’s decision on the 

merits was in error. See Sea-Land Serv., Inc. v. Dep’t of 

Transp., 137 F.3d 640, 649 (D.C. Cir. 1998) (recognizing this 

 

2

 The court also held that Orion had waived its argument that the 

IBLA’s decision to invalidate the oil shale claims was barred by the 

statute of limitations in 28 U.S.C. § 2462 (2000), because it had 

failed to make this argument to the agency. Norton, slip op. at 6–7. 

USCA Case #07-5281 Document #1160528 Filed: 01/23/2009 Page 6 of 21
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circuit’s willingness to entertain an otherwise prevailing 

party’s conditional cross-appeal seeking affirmance on 

alternative grounds). 

 We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291 and review 

the summary judgment decision de novo. See Stolt-Nielsen 

Transp. Group Ltd. v. United States, 534 F.3d 728, 732 (D.C. 

Cir. 2008). Upon concluding that the district court’s decision 

on the merits was in error, we take up and find wanting each 

of Orion’s alternative arguments. We need not reach Orion’s 

unreasonable delay claim because we conclude that Orion’s 

mining claims are no longer valid and therefore no longer 

need patent processing. 

II. 

The IBLA’s determination that Orion had forfeited its oil 

shale mining claims, and the district court’s conclusion that it 

had not, turn on undisputed but different facts. The district 

court focused on the ultimate resumption of annual 

assessment work for each of the claims; the IBLA based its 

decision on the lengthy cessation of required assessment work 

over the course of several decades. The district court found 

the IBLA’s decision arbitrary and capricious because Orion’s 

predecessors resumed annual assessment work in 1970, at a 

time when Interior’s regulations “allowed for noncompliant 

claimants to remedy assessment work performance failures by 

resuming work.” Norton, slip op. at 8. It was not until 1993 

that Interior removed from its regulations any reference to the 

resumption exception and announced that a lapse in 

assessment work “causes the interest of the claimant(s) in the 

minerals subject to the mining laws to revert back to the 

public domain.” 43 C.F.R. § 3851.3(b) (1993). The district 

court concluded that, by effectively disavowing the 

longstanding resumption exception, Interior’s 1993 regulatory 

USCA Case #07-5281 Document #1160528 Filed: 01/23/2009 Page 7 of 21
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revision was a “change[] to the law” that could only work 

prospectively and could not reach back to undermine mining 

claims for which Orion’s predecessors had resumed work in 

1970. Norton, slip op. at 11. Interior’s application of this 

revised regulation to invalidate Orion’s claims was therefore 

“impermissibly retroactive.” Id. Consistent with Interior’s 

original regulations, the court suggested that Orion should get 

the benefit of the Leasing Act’s savings clause, which 

preserved the legal status quo for claims first made under the 

Mining Law. See id. at 9–10. According to this analysis, 

resumption of assessment work prior to any competing claim 

was sufficient to maintain Orion’s oil shale claims. 

The IBLA, by contrast, focused on the long cessation of 

annual assessment work. In doing so, it applied Mining Law 

and Leasing Act provisions, as interpreted by the Supreme 

Court in Hickel v. Oil Shale Corp., 400 U.S. 48 (1970), to 

Orion’s oil shale claims. See Crippled Horse II, 161 I.B.L.A. 

at 272–74. The Hickel Court emphasized that the Leasing Act 

“completely changed” the legal terrain regarding oil shale 

lands. 400 U.S. at 51. The Act put an end to private location 

of oil shale mining claims. As a result, claimants no longer 

feared other parties’ seeking to displace their idle claims; 

meaningful enforcement of the assessment work requirement 

could no longer depend on “the private initiative of 

relocators.” Id. at 56. Although the Leasing Act’s savings 

clause provides that individuals may preserve Mining Law 

claims “thereafter maintained in compliance with the laws 

under which initiated,” 30 U.S.C. § 193, the Court did not 

read the clause merely to preserve the status quo for Mining 

Law claims as against competing claims. Recognizing that 

unless Interior could directly challenge lapsed Mining Law 

claims, “the ‘maintenance’ provision of [the Leasing Act’s 

savings clause] becomes largely illusory,” the Court held that 

USCA Case #07-5281 Document #1160528 Filed: 01/23/2009 Page 8 of 21
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the power of enforcement had shifted to the federal 

government. Hickel, 400 U.S. at 56–57. 

In the context of this new government leasing regime, the 

Hickel Court concluded that to preserve a Mining Law claim, 

a claimant must substantially comply with the assessment 

work requirement. See id. at 56–57. The Court held that 

“token assessment work or assessment work that does not 

substantially satisfy” the Mining Law’s annual work 

requirement “is not adequate to ‘maintain’ the claims” under 

the Leasing Act’s savings clause. Id. at 57. To allow 

claimants to keep their claims despite long lapses in 

assessment work would “defeat the policy that made the 

United States, as the prospective recipient of royalties, a 

beneficiary of these oil shale claims.” Id. 

Hickel’s “substantial compliance” standard governs 

Orion’s sustained failure to complete the required annual 

assessment work. Applying this standard, the IBLA properly 

concluded that Orion’s decades-long lapse in performing 

assessment work did not substantially satisfy the statutory 

work requirement, regardless of its ultimate resumption of 

annual work. See Crippled Horse II, 161 I.B.L.A. at 277; see 

also Exxon Mobil Corp. v. Norton, 346 F.3d 1244, 1252 (10th 

Cir. 2003) (upholding a finding that gaps in assessment work 

throughout much of the period between 1929 and 1974 

indicated a lack of substantial compliance with annual work 

requirements); Cliffs Synfuel Corp. v. Norton, 291 F.3d 1250, 

1261 (10th Cir. 2002) (concluding that there was a clear lack 

of substantial compliance when assessment work was not 

performed between 1930 and 1977). 

The district court’s contrary conclusion is wrong because 

it missed the effect of Hickel. The court erroneously applied 

Interior’s original regulations to Orion’s claims even though 

USCA Case #07-5281 Document #1160528 Filed: 01/23/2009 Page 9 of 21
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those regulations are inconsistent with the statutory 

requirements as explained in Hickel.

3

 The authority to issue 

regulations is not the power to make law, and a regulation 

contrary to a statute is void. Manhattan Gen. Equip. Co. v. 

Comm’r of Internal Revenue, 297 U.S. 129, 134 (1936) (“A 

regulation which . . . operates to create a rule out of harmony 

with the statute is a mere nullity.”). Because the Supreme 

Court determined that the Mining Law and the Leasing Act 

together require “substantial compliance” with assessment 

work obligations to maintain oil shale claims, any contrary 

directive in Interior’s past regulations offers no protection to a 

noncompliant claimholder like Orion. 

The district court also mistakenly held that Interior 

violated principles of retroactivity when it attempted “to 

invalidate [Orion’s] claims for lapses in assessment work that 

occurred before either the amended regulation or the Hickel 

decision came into existence.” Norton, slip op. at 8. It is true 

that, as a general rule, regulations may only be applied 

prospectively, but the IBLA relied on Hickel and not on any 

of Interior’s regulations. See Crippled Horse II, 161 I.B.L.A. 

at 273–74. Supreme Court decisions are given retroactive 

effect absent a clear statement from the Court to the contrary. 

See Harper v. Va. Dep’t of Taxation, 509 U.S. 86, 97 (1993) 

(“When this Court applies a rule of federal law to the parties 

 

3

 In order to make its policies “consistent with the law” as 

interpreted in Hickel, 37 Fed. Reg. 17,836 (1972), Interior 

promulgated regulations in 1972 specifying that failure to perform 

annual assessment work would render a mining claim “subject to 

cancellation” by the government, 43 C.F.R. § 3851.3(a) (1972). In 

1993 Interior further revised its regulations to remove any reference 

to the resumption exception and to clarify that a lapse in assessment 

work “causes the interest of the claimant(s) in the minerals subject 

to the mining laws to revert back to the public domain.” 43 C.F.R. 

§ 3851.3(b) (1993).

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before it, that rule is the controlling interpretation of federal 

law and must be given full retroactive effect . . . as to all 

events, regardless of whether such events predate or postdate 

our announcement of the rule.”). There is no suggestion in 

Hickel that the decision would have anything other than 

retroactive effect.4

 The IBLA properly applied Hickel’s 

“substantial compliance” standard to invalidate Orion’s oil 

shale mining claims. 

III. 

As part of its conditional cross-appeal, Orion offers 

several alternative reasons why we should affirm the district 

court’s grant of summary judgment. These include three 

separate arguments that the IBLA decision was arbitrary and 

capricious or unsupported by substantial evidence. See 5 

U.S.C. § 706(2) (2006). “‘The scope of review under the 

“arbitrary and capricious” standard is narrow and a court is 

not to substitute its judgment for that of the agency.’” Mount 

Royal Joint Venture v. Kempthorne, 477 F.3d 745, 753 (D.C. 

Cir. 2007) (quoting Motor Vehicle Mfrs. Ass’n v. State Farm 

Mut. Auto. Ins. Co., 463 U.S. 29, 43 (1983)). We uphold the 

IBLA’s determinations so long as the Board “engaged in 

reasoned decisionmaking and its decision is adequately 

explained and supported by the record.” N.Y. Cross Harbor 

R.R. v. Surface Transp. Bd., 374 F.3d 1177, 1181 (D.C. Cir. 

2004) (internal quotation marks omitted). Likewise, because 

substantial evidence means “such relevant evidence as a 

reasonable mind might accept as adequate to support a 

conclusion,” Palace Sports & Entm’t, Inc. v. NLRB, 411 F.3d 

 

4

 Indeed, the Court indicated in its remand order that the 

“substantial compliance” test applied to claims for which 

assessment work had lapsed in the early 1930s, long before the 

Court’s decision. See Hickel, 400 U.S. at 58.

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212, 220 (D.C. Cir. 2005) (internal quotation marks omitted), 

we reverse an agency’s decision “only when the record is so 

compelling that no reasonable factfinder could fail to find to 

the contrary,” Highlands Hosp. Corp. v. NLRB, 508 F.3d 28, 

31 (D.C. Cir. 2007) (internal quotation marks omitted). 

A. 

Rather than contest Interior’s evidence that it failed for 

many years to perform annual assessment work, Orion argues 

that its resumption of work in 1970 was sufficient to maintain 

its oil shale claims, notwithstanding Hickel. But Orion 

misreads Hickel, which made clear that the Mining Law’s 

resumption exception—the linchpin of Orion’s argument—did 

not survive the Leasing Act. 

Citing to language from two early Supreme Court cases 

that applied the maintenance provision of the Leasing Act’s 

savings clause, Orion argues that the resumption exception 

remains in force. In Wilbur v. Krushnic, 280 U.S. 306 (1930), 

the Supreme Court suggested that a lapse in assessment work 

does not automatically forfeit a Mining Law claim, but only 

renders it subject to loss by relocation. Id. at 317. Noting that 

the claimant had only failed to perform assessment work for a 

single year and had fully resumed work before anyone 

contested its claim, the Court concluded that “no relocation 

can be made if work be resumed after default and before such 

relocation.” Id. Similarly, in Ickes v. Virginia-Colorado 

Development Corp., 295 U.S. 639 (1935), the Court rejected 

Interior’s attempt to invalidate mining claims during a 

fourteen-month lapse in assessment work. Noting that the 

claimant had not only stated its intention to resume work but 

also made arrangements to do so, the Court concluded that the 

temporary work failure “gave the government no ground of 

forfeiture.” Id. at 646. 

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 As noted above, the Hickel Court reexamined the annual 

assessment work requirement in the context of the new 

leasing regime, concluding that the Leasing Act “makes the 

United States the beneficiary of all claims invalid for lack of 

assessment work.” Hickel, 400 U.S. at 57. Because Hickel

involved mining claims that Interior had cancelled for lack of 

assessment work rather than lapsed claims for which a 

claimant had resumed work, id. at 50, the Court did not have 

occasion to address the Mining Law’s resumption right with 

any specificity. Nevertheless, the Court’s holding makes clear 

that, regardless of whether assessment work has resumed, the 

only relevant inquiry concerns the actual work performed: 

[W]e now hold that token assessment work, or 

assessment work that does not substantially satisfy the 

requirements of 30 U.S.C. § 28, is not adequate to 

“maintain” the claims within the meaning of [the savings 

clause] of the Leasing Act. 

Id. at 57. In practice, the Court noted, this means “compliance 

with ‘everything’ under 30 U.S.C. § 28, which taken literally 

would mean assessment work of $100 ‘during each year.’” Id.

at 56. Although the Court suggested that not “every default in 

assessment work,” however minimal or excusable, will 

automatically “cause the claim to be lost,” it concluded that 

successful claimants must show “substantial compliance” 

with the annual requirement. Id. at 57. 

The Mining Law’s resumption exception was thus 

replaced by Hickel’s “substantial compliance” test, and 

Orion’s reliance on prior cases suggesting a resumption right 

that survived the Leasing Act is misplaced. Although the 

Hickel Court did not explicitly overrule Krushnic and 

Virginia-Colorado, it concluded that those cases reflect “a 

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judicial attitude of fair treatment for claimants who have 

substantially completed the assessment work required.” Id. at 

52. Significantly, the Court characterized all statements from 

those prior cases in conflict with the discussion and holding in 

Hickel as “dicta.” Id. at 57. Krushnic and Virginia-Colorado

are best understood to signify no more than that a minor or 

brief default in assessment work does not necessarily “cause 

the claim to be lost.” Id. 

The IBLA was therefore correct to base its decision upon 

“the quantum of the actual assessment work performed and 

the length of time the claimant failed to meet the annual 

assessment work required by the Mining Act,” Crippled 

Horse II, 161 I.B.L.A. at 274 (quoting Cliffs Synfuel, 291 

F.3d at 1259). That Orion resumed assessment work before 

Interior moved to invalidate its claims is not, on the facts of 

this case, even relevant. Given evidence of Orion’s decadeslong noncompliance with the annual work requirement, the 

IBLA had good reason to invalidate its oil shale claims under 

Hickel’s “substantial compliance” test. 

B. 

Orion also contends that the IBLA erred in failing to 

consider its intent to maintain the 156 oil shale claims at 

issue. We disagree. Hickel made a showing of intent 

irrelevant when a claimant has substantially failed to perform 

required assessment work. See 400 U.S. at 57. In an effort to 

avoid the force of Hickel, Orion makes much of a subsequent 

case, United States v. Locke, 471 U.S. 84 (1985), which 

addressed a different statute and a different issue. In the 

course of distinguishing an annual filing deadline in the 

Federal Land Policy and Management Act (FLPMA), 43 

U.S.C. § 1744 (2000), from the Mining Law’s assessment 

work requirement, the Locke Court suggested that 

USCA Case #07-5281 Document #1160528 Filed: 01/23/2009 Page 14 of 21
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it was open to the Court to conclude in Hickel that 

Congress had intended to make the assessment work 

requirement merely an indicium of a claimant’s specific 

intent to retain a claim. Full compliance with the 

assessment work requirements would establish 

conclusively an intent to keep the claim, but less than full 

compliance would not by force of law operate to deprive 

the claimant of his claim. Instead, less than full 

compliance would subject the mine owner to a case-bycase determination of whether he nonetheless intended to 

keep his claim. 

Locke, 471 U.S. at 101–02. The thrust of Hickel’s holding 

was not altered by Locke, which merely rejected a lower 

court’s reliance on Hickel in finding that a December 31 filing 

had “substantially complied” with the FLPMA requirement to 

file “on or before December 30.” Id. at 100. The Locke Court 

emphasized that “[f]ailure to comply fully with the physical 

requirement that a certain amount of work be performed each 

year is significantly different from the complete failure to file 

on time documents that federal law commands be filed.” Id. at 

101. The Court noted that although the mining laws at issue in 

Hickel “do not clearly provide that a claim will be lost for 

failure to meet the assessment work requirements,” id., thus 

leaving open the possibility of an “intent” standard for 

invalidation, the FLPMA “explicitly provides that failure to 

comply with the applicable filing requirements leads 

automatically to loss of the claim,” id. at 102. Rather than 

offering an authoritative interpretation of Hickel, the Court 

was simply rejecting an argument that the FLPMA filing 

deadline is susceptible to an intent analysis. Locke did not 

disturb the substantial compliance inquiry. Indeed, the Court 

specifically noted that only “if an individual complied 

substantially but not fully with the requirement” might he 

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“under some circumstances be able to retain possession of his 

claim.” Id. at 101. In the absence of substantial compliance, 

intent (or any other factor) is irrelevant. 

Orion’s claims are invalid because its predecessors did 

not substantially comply with the annual assessment work 

requirement. Unlike the brief, fourteen-month pause in 

assessment work that led the Virginia-Colorado Court to 

consider the claimant’s stated intention and preparations to 

resume work, 295 U.S. at 643, the decades-long absence of 

required annual improvements to Orion’s mining claims did 

not “substantially satisfy” the statutory work requirements, 

Hickel, 400 U.S. at 57. When a claimant has not substantially 

satisfied the annual assessment work requirement, his intent is 

immaterial.

C. 

Orion also argues that the IBLA improperly inferred 

from missing annual assessment work affidavits that Orion 

did not perform required work during those years. But Orion 

has failed to produce any evidence that assessment work in 

fact took place in years when no affidavits were filed. In order 

to maintain its mining rights, a claimant must comply with 

applicable federal, state, and local requirements. See 30 

U.S.C. § 26. Utah law, to which Orion’s claims are subject 

because they are located in Utah, requires that a claimowner 

who has performed assessment work must, within thirty days, 

file an affidavit stating “that the annual assessment work 

required to maintain the claim was performed.” UTAH CODE 

ANN. § 40-1-6(2)(c) (2008). Although the Utah Supreme 

Court held that failure to file a required affidavit does not 

result in loss of a mining claim when there is other 

compelling evidence that the assessment work had in fact 

been performed, Murray Hill Mining & Milling Co. v. 

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Havenor, 66 P. 762, 765 (Utah 1901), the statutorily required 

affidavit is considered “prima facie evidence of the facts 

stated in the affidavit,” UTAH CODE ANN. § 40-1-6(3). 

It was therefore reasonable for the IBLA to conclude that 

the absence of affidavits made out “a prima facie case that 

none were filed because the work was not performed,” 

Crippled Horse II, 161 I.B.L.A. at 274. This approach is 

consistent with longstanding department practice. See, e.g., 

United States v. Haskins, 59 I.B.L.A. 1, 102 (1981) 

(concluding that a lack of assessment work records 

“established a prima facie case that the work had not been 

performed”). That Orion filed affidavits for some years, but 

not others, strengthens the inference that assessment work 

was recorded when it was in fact performed. 

To be sure, failure to file affidavits does not conclusively 

demonstrate a failure to conduct assessment work, and the 

IBLA considered the absence of affidavits to be nothing more 

than prima facie evidence, shifting the burden to Orion “to 

produce countervailing evidence of assessment work 

performed.” Crippled Horse II, 161 I.B.L.A. at 275. Orion 

had ample opportunity to produce evidence of work, but it 

failed to do so before the IBLA, in the district court, and on 

appeal. We determine that the IBLA’s conclusion that Orion 

did not substantially comply with the assessment work 

requirement was supported by substantial evidence. 

 

IV. 

In its motion for summary judgment, Orion argued that 

Interior was barred from invalidating its claims by 28 U.S.C. 

§ 2462, which provides that a “proceeding for the 

enforcement of any civil . . . forfeiture, pecuniary or 

otherwise, shall not be entertained unless commenced within 

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18 

five years from the date when the claim first accrued . . . .” 

The district court correctly concluded that because Orion 

failed to raise this statute of limitations defense during the 

administrative proceedings, it had waived this argument. 

Norton, slip op. at 6–7; see also Salt Lake Cmty. Action 

Program v. Shalala, 11 F.3d 1084, 1087 (D.C. Cir. 1993) 

(identifying “the well-settled premise that objections to 

agency proceedings must be presented to the agency ‘in order 

to raise issues reviewable by the courts’” (quoting United 

States v. L.A. Tucker Truck Lines, Inc., 344 U.S. 33, 37 

(1952))). 

 Orion now seeks to excuse its failure to raise this defense 

before the IBLA by suggesting that the BLM decision was 

based on Utah (rather than federal) law. In reality, the BLM 

decision was grounded in federal law. The decision identified 

relevant provisions of the Mining Law and the Leasing Act, 

discussed applicable federal regulations, and cited the 

Supreme Court’s decision in Hickel as the legal basis for 

Interior’s invalidation of the oil shale claims. See Crippled 

Horse I, slip op. at 1–2. Orion’s excuse therefore fails, and its 

statute of limitations argument was forfeited. 

V. 

Finally, Orion argues that Interior’s failure to provide 

notice and a hearing prior to invalidating its oil shale claims 

violated Orion’s right to due process. According to Orion, the 

BLM should have afforded it the opportunity to respond with 

documentation as part of an administrative contest 

proceeding, and the IBLA should have held an evidentiary 

hearing before invalidating Orion’s mining claims. Interior 

argues that it followed longstanding department policy and 

practice in concluding, with respect to Orion’s claims, that 

“no contest pursuant to 43 C.F.R. 4.451-1 or hearing pursuant 

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19 

to 43 C.F.R. 4.415 is necessary where the material facts are 

undisputed.” Crippled Horse II, 161 I.B.L.A. at 277; see also

Woods Petroleum Co., 86 I.B.L.A. 46, 55 (1985) (concluding 

that the department need only grant a hearing “when there are 

significant factual or legal issues remaining to be decided and 

the record without a hearing would be insufficient for 

resolving them” (quoting Stickelman v. United States, 563 

F.2d 413, 417 (9th Cir. 1977))). We give “substantial 

deference” to an agency’s interpretation of its own 

regulations, “only setting it aside if the plain language of the 

regulation or ‘other indications of the [agency’s] intent’ 

require another interpretation.” Fabi Constr. Co. v. Sec’y of 

Labor, 508 F.3d 1077, 1080–81 (D.C. Cir. 2007) (quoting 

Thomas Jefferson Univ. v. Shalala, 512 U.S. 504, 512 

(1994)). 

It is the IBLA’s decision and not the BLM’s initial action 

that binds the agency and formally extinguished Orion’s 

mining claims. See Nat’l Wildlife Fed’n, 145 I.B.L.A. 348, 

362 (1998) (noting that the IBLA is “delegated responsibility 

to decide for the Department ‘as fully and finally as might the 

Secretary’ appeals regarding use and disposition of the public 

lands and their resources” (quoting 43 C.F.R. § 4.1 (2005))); 

see also Pennaco Energy, Inc. v. U.S. Dep’t of Interior, 377 

F.3d 1147, 1156 n.5 (10th Cir. 2004) (“The IBLA issues the 

DOI’s final and binding decision, not the BLM.”). The IBLA 

reviewed the BLM’s determination de novo. Although the 

IBLA had discretionary authority to grant an evidentiary 

hearing, see 43 C.F.R. § 4.415, Orion failed to request one, 

and there is no indication that Orion was foreclosed in any 

way from submitting documents or other evidence in its 

defense during the IBLA proceedings. See Timothy J. 

Bottoms, 150 I.B.L.A. 200, 216 (1999) (finding that due 

process was “satisfied without an administrative hearing” 

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20 

when the claimant had adequate “opportunities to submit 

documentary and other evidence to BLM and this Board”). 

Orion has also failed to identify any evidence that created 

a dispute as to material fact requiring resolution through a 

formal evidentiary hearing. See KernCo Drilling Co., 71 

I.B.L.A. 53, 56 (1983) (“A hearing is necessary only where 

there is a material issue of fact requiring resolution through 

the introduction of testimony and other evidence. In the 

absence of such an issue, no hearing is required.”).5

 Although 

Orion advanced arguments about the proper inferences that 

may be drawn from an absence of work affidavits, it failed to 

introduce any evidence suggesting that assessment work was 

actually performed in years when no affidavit was filed. 

Without a factual conflict, the IBLA had no reason to grant 

Orion an evidentiary hearing. See Woods Petroleum, 86 

I.B.L.A. at 55 (refusing to grant a hearing when “the dispute 

did not involve facts, but involve[d] the proper application 

and interpretation of those facts”); see also Codd v. Velger, 

429 U.S. 624, 627 (1977) (per curiam) (holding that if a 

hearing “mandated by the Due Process Clause is to serve any 

useful purpose, there must be some factual dispute”); Conoco 

Inc. v. FERC, 90 F.3d 536, 543 n.15 (D.C. Cir. 1996) 

(concluding that the APA requires agencies “to hold hearings 

only when the disputed issues may not be resolved through an 

examination of written submissions” (quoting Envtl. Action v. 

FERC, 996 F.2d 401, 413 (D.C. Cir. 1993))). Given Orion’s 

 

5

 The IBLA’s interpretation of when an evidentiary hearing is 

required is consistent with the regulatory text, 43 C.F.R. § 4.415, 

and accords with other department determinations of what due 

process requires in similar circumstances, see, e.g., Taylor Energy 

Co. Phillips Petroleum, 148 I.B.L.A. 286, 295 (1999) (finding that 

IBLA appeal proceedings satisfied due process in circumstances 

when “the record does not reflect sufficient factual issues to 

warrant a hearing”).

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failure to identify any meaningful factual dispute, the agency 

proceedings provided sufficient process and Orion’s due 

process challenge to the IBLA decision fails. 

VI. 

For the foregoing reasons, the judgment of the district 

court is 

Reversed.

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