Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-caDC-10-05101/USCOURTS-caDC-10-05101-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Aera Energy LLC
Appellant
Kenneth Lee Salazar
Appellee
United States Department of the Interior
Appellee

Document Text:

United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

Argued January 24, 2011 Decided April 29, 2011

No. 10-5101

AERA ENERGY LLC,

APPELLANT

v.

KENNETH LEE SALAZAR, SECRETARY, UNITED STATES 

DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR AND UNITED STATES 

DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR,

APPELLEES

Consolidated with 10-5110

Appeals from the United States District Court

for the District of Columbia

(No. 1:08-cv-01614)

Steven J. Rosenbaum argued the cause for appellants. 

With him on the briefs was Joshua D. Greenberg.

Mary Gabrielle Sprague, Attorney, U.S. Department of 

Justice, argued the cause for federal appellees. With her on 

the brief were William B. Lazarus and David C. Shilton, 

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Attorneys. R. Craig Lawrence, Assistant U.S. Attorney, 

entered an appearance.

Before: ROGERS and TATEL, Circuit Judges, and 

WILLIAMS, Senior Circuit Judge.

Opinion for the court filed by Circuit Judge TATEL.

TATEL, Circuit Judge: In 1999, the Pacific Regional 

Director of the Interior Department’s Minerals Management 

Service caused four oil and gas leases off the California coast, 

for which appellants had originally paid the United States 

over $140 million, to expire. The Regional Director later 

testified that he based his decision solely on political 

considerations and that absent such considerations he would 

have instead extended the leases. Reviewing the matter de 

novo, however, the Interior Board of Land Appeals, acting 

without regard to political considerations and on the basis of 

scientific evidence, affirmed the original decision. The district 

court upheld that ruling, and appellants now appeal, arguing

that in order to cure the Regional Director’s original decision

of political taint, the Board should have adopted the decision 

the Regional Director says he would have made absent 

political influence. Because we agree with the district court 

that appellants received all they were entitled to—i.e., an 

agency decision on the merits without regard to extrastatutory, political factors—we affirm.

I.

Under the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act of 1953, 

the federal government has jurisdiction and control over the 

outer continental shelf, a zone which extends from the edge of 

state coastal waters to the border of international waters—

generally from 3 to 200 miles offshore and covering a total

area of some 1.76 billion acres. See 43 U.S.C. §§ 1331(a), 

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1332; Minerals Management Service, Report to Congress: 

Comprehensive Inventory of U.S. OCS Oil and Natural Gas 

Resources 3 (Feb. 2006), available at

http://www.boemre.gov/revaldiv/PDFs/FinalInventoryReport

DeliveredToCongress-corrected3-6-06.pdf. In recent years, 

crude oil extracted from the outer continental shelf has 

represented an increasingly large share of America’s domestic 

oil production, rising from under ten percent in 1981 to nearly

thirty percent in 2010. Energy Information Administration, 

Crude Oil Production (2011). Although the vast majority of 

outer continental shelf oil production occurs in the Gulf of 

Mexico, a limited amount also takes place off the California 

coast. Id. California’s small share is attributable at least in 

part to two circumstances: that the last California outer 

continental shelf lease sale occurred in 1984; and that since 

fiscal year 1991, Congress and the President have imposed a

series of moratoria on any new sales. Samedan Oil Corp. v. 

Minerals Mgmt. Serv., IBLA 2000-142 at 16 (Dec. 5, 2006) 

(“ALJ Op.”) (included at J.A. 717). Because all current and 

future oil and gas production on the California outer 

continental shelf must in all probability come from leases sold 

before 1984, the fate of those leases has become quite

important to both proponents and opponents of oil and gas 

drilling off the California coast. 

The Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act empowers the 

Secretary of the Interior to sell and administer oil and gas 

leases on the outer continental shelf, an authority that the 

Secretary largely delegated (at all times relevant to this case)

to the Minerals Management Service (“MMS”), which in turn 

delegated most of this authority to its regional offices. 43 

U.S.C. §§ 1334(a), 1337(b); 30 C.F.R. § 250.104 (1999); 

Dep’t of Interior, Departmental Manual, Part 118, § 5.8 (Apr. 

15, 2003); Dep’t of Interior, Department Manual, Part 118, 

§ 5.9 (Dec. 9, 1996). The Secretary has since abolished the

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Minerals Management Service and transferred its Outer 

Continental Shelf Lands Act responsibilities. Sec’y of 

Interior, Secretarial Order 3299 (May 19, 2010). But because 

that reorganization occurred after the relevant events in this 

case, we shall refer to MMS’s authority as it existed before 

the reorganization. 

Exercising that authority, MMS grants exclusive rights to 

explore for, develop, and produce oil and natural gas in 

exchange for an up-front bonus, annual rentals, and royalties 

on oil and natural gas actually produced for a “primary term”

of either five or ten years. 43 U.S.C. § 1337(a), (b). During 

the exploration stage, production or other operations on the 

lease may be “suspended” either at the request of the 

leaseholder or at the Service’s direction, which has the effect 

of extending the lease’s term for the suspension period. 43 

U.S.C. §§ 1334(a)(1); 1337(b)(5); 30 C.F.R. §§ 250.110, 

256.73 (1999). Leaseholders may voluntarily join multiple 

leases together into “units” by signing “unitization” 

agreements that must be approved by the Service. 43 U.S.C. 

§ 1334(a)(4); 30 C.F.R. §§ 250.1300, 250.1301(a) (1999). 

The regulations in effect when the units at issue in this case 

were created required a unit to 

include the minimum number of leases or 

portions of leases required to permit one or 

more reservoirs or potential hydrocarbon 

accumulations to be served by an optimal 

number of artificial islands, installations, or 

other devices necessary for the efficient 

exploration or development and production of

oil and gas or other minerals.

30 C.F.R. § 250.50(b) (1986). In other words, for a lease to 

belong in a particular unit, the lease must overlie “one or 

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more [mineral] reservoirs or potential hydrocarbon 

accumulations.” In re Samedan Oil Corp., 173 IBLA 23, 39–

40 (2007) (“IBLA Op.”). Once a unit has been approved, all 

leases within the unit are generally extended as one. 30 C.F.R. 

§ 250.1301(g) (1999); MMS’s Answer to Aera’s Statement of 

Reasons 4–5, Feb. 26, 2001 (included at J.A. 295–96) 

(agreeing with Aera that in practice suspension requests have 

been handled at the unit, rather than the lease level). During 

the exploration stage, the Service also has authority to 

“contract” a unit by excluding all or part of one or more leases 

based on better understandings about the dimensions and 

qualities of the underlying mineral reservoir. IBLA Op., 173 

IBLA at 36, 40 (justifying that interpretation of the 

appropriate legal criteria for excluding leases from a unit 

based (1) on the regulations in effect when the units at issue in 

this case were formed, 30 C.F.R. § 250.50(b) (1987); (2) on 

the two corresponding unit agreements; and (3) especially on 

the preamble to the applicable regulations, Oil and Gas and 

Sulphur Operations in the Outer Continental Shelf, 45 Fed. 

Reg. 29,280, 29,281 (May 2, 1980), which states in relevant 

part, “After exploration has been completed, a better 

delineation of the mineral reservoir will be available, and 

adjustments prior to development and production may be 

warranted. In keeping with the minimum area standard, the 

portions of leased areas that do not overlie the more precisely 

delineated reservoir should be excluded from the unit area in 

an adjustment.”). If a completely excluded lease’s primary 

term has ended and if no other basis for extending that term 

applies, then that lease expires upon exclusion from the unit.

30 C.F.R. § 2501.1301(f) (1999). To summarize, a lease’s 

lifecycle begins with its primary term, during which it might 

be joined together with other leases into a unit, after which all 

leases within the unit might have operations “suspended” (and 

so have their terms extended), perhaps even multiple times, 

until, in some cases, the original lease is excluded—at which 

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point, assuming both the primary term and any subsequent 

suspensions have ended, the lease expires. Although this is 

hardly the only path a lease might follow—indeed many 

leases are extended by production—it is essentially what 

happened to the four leases involved in this case.

Their story begins in the early 1980s when Appellant 

Aera Energy paid $141 million for three of the leases, and 

Appellant Noble Energy’s predecessor paid $1.65 million for 

the fourth. All four leases were later unitized—Aera’s leases 

became part of the Santa Maria Unit and Noble’s became part 

of the Gato Canyon Unit. Prior to 1999, both units had 

operations suspended several times, first at the companies’

request and then between 1992 and 1999, at the Regional 

Office’s direction as part of a study known as the California 

Offshore Oil and Gas Energy Resources (“COOGER”) study.

The COOGER study “was designed to help MMS evaluate 

the operators’ exploration and development plans, as well as 

to provide local governmental entities in California with 

information regarding activities on the leased properties.”

Amber Resources Co. v. United States, 538 F.3d 1358, 1365

(Fed. Cir. 2008). During the study period, Dr. J. Lisle Reed, 

MMS’s Pacific Regional Director, ordered the simultaneous 

suspension of operations for all forty undeveloped California 

leases—with the last COOGER suspension expiring in 

August 1999. 

Anticipating the end of the COOGER study, Reed

informed both Aera and Noble in December 1998 that if they 

wished to extend their units, they would need to submit new 

suspension requests, which they did. Then in June 1999, 

setting in motion the events at issue in this case, Reed told 

both companies that his office would be evaluating whether 

any units should be “contracted.” Over the ensuing months, 

Aera and Noble made their case against contraction by 

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presenting scientific and historical data to the Regional staff.

Reed then notified Aera and Noble of his decision: “we have 

determined that the geological and geophysical data and 

interpretation no longer support inclusion of [the four leases] 

within the Santa Maria [and Gato Canyon] Unit[s].” 

Accordingly, Reed excluded the four leases, causing them to 

expire. Simultaneously, he granted suspension requests for the 

remaining leases in each unit.

While Reed was considering the suspension requests,

“[California’s] Governor, other State and local officials, 

including California Coastal Commission members, and 

various Congressional members expressed opposition to or 

concern over development of the 40 undeveloped California 

[outer continental shelf] leases, with some advocating for 

their termination.” ALJ Op. at 16–17 (included at J.A. 717–

18). For example, on June 16, 1999, Senator Diane Feinstein 

wrote to the Secretary of the Interior to “indicate my strong 

opposition to any extension by the Minerals Management 

Service of leases for the 40 undeveloped underwater tracts off 

the coasts of California . . . and [to] urge [the Secretary] to 

terminate these leases without any further extensions.” 

Suspecting that politics had influenced Reed’s decision 

and disagreeing with the negative assessment of the leases’ 

production potential, Aera and Noble appealed to the Interior 

Board of Land Appeals (“IBLA”)—“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.” Orion Reserves Ltd. P'ship v. Salazar, 553 

F.3d 697, 700 n.1 (D.C. Cir. 2009) (citing 43 C.F.R. 

§ 4.1(b)(3)). The companies offered seven “independent 

reasons” that Reed’s decision “should be reversed as a matter 

of law” including that the decision was “unduly tainted by 

impermissible political considerations,” that they had received 

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inadequate notice “that the decision on [their] latest [unitwide] suspension request[s] would entail a re-evaluation of 

the prospectivity of individual leases,” and that “[t]he [four] 

leases are highly prospective.” Aera and Noble also asked the 

IBLA to order an evidentiary hearing before an administrative 

law judge if it found the record inadequate to evaluate these 

arguments.

The IBLA decided that Reed’s “conclusory findings” 

were “fundamental[ly] flaw[ed].” In re Samedan Oil Corp., 

163 IBLA 63, 69 (Sept. 7, 2004). But because it also found 

that the record required further factual development, it

referred Aera and Noble’s appeals to an administrative law 

judge for an independent evidentiary hearing covering not just 

the evidence considered by MMS at the time of Reed’s 

decision, but also any evidence available to the agency at that 

time. Id. at 70–71; In re Samedan Oil Corp., IBLA 2005-166, 

IBLA 2005-167, at 2–4 (May 11, 2005). MMS moved for 

reconsideration, arguing against holding a hearing and 

suggesting instead a remand to the Pacific Regional Director 

to issue a new decision. In response, Aera and Noble pressed 

the IBLA to proceed as planned and to issue a de novo 

decision based on the administrative law judge’s proposed 

fact findings, which the IBLA ultimately agreed to do. 

The administrative law judge held a thirteen day hearing, 

which focused primarily on the potential for commercial 

production of oil and gas from the four excluded leases but 

which also included evidence regarding political influence

over the original decision making process. Most significantly

for our purposes, Reed testified that his decision was based

not on the merits, but on politics. According to Reed, his 

immediate supervisor told him that it “would be politically 

very important to cancel some of the tracts” as a show of 

“good faith to California officials” who vocally opposed 

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drilling off the California coast. Reed Dep. 10:04:18–36, Mar. 

24, 2005 (included at J.A. 362). Excluding the four leases 

“would help her in carrying on the credibility of the region 

and her work in Washington.” Reed Dep. 11:21:20–26 

(included at J.A. 374–75). In particular, she hoped it would 

“appease[]” California politicians, helping her to preserve the 

remaining thirty-six undeveloped leases. Reed Dep. 11:22:28–

:23:16 (included at J.A. 375–76).

In addition, Reed explained that absent these political 

considerations, he would have reached the opposite 

decision—i.e., he would have left the four leases in their units 

and granted Aera and Noble’s suspension requests. Reed Dep. 

9:58:12–46, 10:06:10–52, 11:39:46–52 (included at J.A. 361, 

363, 379). In saying this, Reed acknowledged that his 

subordinates, unaware of any political pressure and primarily 

responsible for analyzing the relevant scientific data, had 

concluded “that the excluded leases did not qualify for 

continued inclusion in their respective units . . . [and] that the 

excluded leases were ‘marginal.’ ” ALJ Op. at 19 (included at

J.A. 720). Even so, Reed testified “that regardless of the 

degree of marginality, he would not have removed the leases 

from their respective units.” Id. Explaining why he disagreed

with his subordinates, Reed said that “cancellation of the 

leases would result in lost rental revenue for the Government 

and a lost opportunity for development of possible 

hydrocarbon accumulations, given his opinion that . . . there 

was little hope of leasing the tracts again for years in light of 

the leasing moratorium and political climate.” Id. In addition,

Reed insisted “that the [geological] data was susceptible to 

different interpretations.” Id. at 18 (included at J.A. 719).

The administrative law judge found Reed’s testimony 

about whether political considerations played a role in the 

exclusion decision “convincing[,] . . . unrebutted[,] and . . . 

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credible.” Id. But with respect to the leases’ geological 

potential and the propriety of excluding them, the 

administrative law judge found Reed to be a less reliable 

witness than his subordinates. Id. at 19 (included at J.A. 720). 

The administrative law judge offered three reasons for this

credibility determination: first, “no rule or written policy . . . 

permits unitization based upon [two of Reed’s rationales—]

the fact that the Government may lose rental revenue or that a 

lease may not be released for many years,” id.; second, “the 

purpose of unitization is not to extend leases,” id.; and third, 

Reed “was less qualified than [his subordinates] by training 

and relative familiarity with the relevant data to render an 

opinion on whether the excluded leases should have been 

removed from their respective units,” id. In addition, the 

administrative law judge made extensive findings regarding 

the exploration histories of the four leases, the companies’ 

future exploration and development plans, and the likelihood 

that the leases contained potential hydrocarbon 

accumulations. He concluded that the companies’ exploration 

efforts on the four leases had essentially ended and that based 

on data collected during that now-completed exploration 

period, it was unlikely that any of the leases contained 

potential hydrocarbon accumulations.

The IBLA then issued a final decision in which it adopted 

the administrative law judge’s fact findings. The “key issue” 

the Board addressed, which had been “the focal point of the 

hearing proceedings, was whether the evidence available to 

MMS at the time of the decisions formed a reasonable basis 

for the decisions to remove the leases from their respective 

units.” IBLA Op., 173 IBLA at 38–39. To answer that 

question, the IBLA laid out the proper legal criteria for unit 

contractions. Notably, the IBLA rejected two criteria that 

Aera and Noble had championed and that Regional Director 

Reed had testified he would have considered but for politics: 

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“the potential loss of rental revenue and the minimal 

likelihood of tract releasing.” Id. at 37. Instead, the IBLA 

explained that once exploration is complete, as it essentially 

was for these four leases, “contraction of a unit area is 

appropriate if the evidence does not show the requisite strong 

possibility of the presence of a hydrocarbon accumulation on 

the excluded leases.” Id. at 41. Because “[t]he [administrative 

law] judge’s factual findings and the record as a whole clearly

demonstrate that the excluded leases do not contain potential 

hydrocarbon accumulations” the IBLA upheld the exclusion 

decision. Id. at 44 (emphasis added).

The IBLA also considered whether the exclusion 

decisions “were unduly tainted by impermissible political 

considerations.” Id. at 38. The Board first observed that “Dr. 

Reed did not review or evaluate the data himself, but relied on 

the analysis of his staff who were not instructed that the 

excluded leases needed to be terminated or that any particular 

result was desired and who reached the decision that the 

leases should be excluded based strictly on the seismic, well 

log, and other geological and geophysical data” and that 

“MMS’s technical staff was more qualified than Dr. Reed by 

training and relative familiarity with the relevant data.” Based 

on those observations, the Board concluded “that the 

decision-making process and actual decision-makers [i.e.,

Reed’s subordinates] were sufficiently insulated from the 

political pressure to obviate the need to set aside the MMS’s 

decisions.” Id. In addition, the IBLA concluded that “the 

record developed during the hearing process clearly supports 

MMS’s decisions to exclude the leases from their respective 

units.” Id. (emphasis added). In other words, as discussed 

above, because Aera and Noble had failed to show a “strong 

possibility” of hydrocarbon accumulation on the excluded 

leases based on a fresh and politically untainted evidentiary 

record, the decision to exclude those leases was correct.

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Seeking to overturn the IBLA’s decision—which, 

significantly for the issue in this case, represents Interior’s 

final agency action for the purposes of judicial review, Orion 

Reserves Ltd., 553 F.3d at 707–08—Aera and Noble brought 

suit in the United States District Court for the District of 

Columbia under the Administrative Procedure Act, 5 U.S.C. 

§ 706. Although their complaint included both a political 

influence claim and allegations that the IBLA’s factual 

findings and choice of legal criteria were arbitrary, capricious, 

an abuse of discretion, and contrary to law, the companies

pursued only the political influence claim at summary 

judgment. The district court agreed with Aera and Noble that 

Reed, not his subordinates, was the MMS’s actual 

decisionmaker and that the IBLA therefore erred when it 

concluded that MMS’s original decision had been insulated 

from improper political influence because that influence did 

not extend to those subordinates. Aera Energy LLC v. Salazar, 

691 F. Supp. 2d 25, 33–34 (D.D.C. 2010); Noble Energy, Inc. 

v. Salazar, 691 F. Supp. 2d 14, 21–22 (D.D.C. 2010). 

Treating that error as harmless, however, the district court 

granted summary judgment to the Secretary, reasoning that 

the IBLA, which was not subject to improper political 

influence, had “authority to stand in the shoes of the Secretary 

and to review decisions de novo when it finds that those 

decisions are not properly supported.” Aera Energy, 691 F. 

Supp. 2d at 36; Noble Energy, 691 F. Supp. 2d at 24; see also 

5 U.S.C. § 706. By exercising that authority and finding 

“ ‘that the leases were properly excluded from the units 

because they lack the potential hydrocarbon accumulations 

necessary for continued inclusion in the units[,]’ ” the IBLA 

cured the Regional Director’s decision of its improper 

political taint. Aera Energy, 691 F. Supp. 2d at 36 (quoting 

IBLA decision); Noble Energy, 691 F. Supp. 2d at 24 (same).

Accordingly, the district court upheld the IBLA’s exclusion 

decision.

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Aera and Noble now appeal. We review the district 

court’s decision to grant summary judgment de novo. Novicki 

v. Cook, 946 F.2d 938, 941 (D.C. Cir. 1991).

II.

In support of the claim that they are entitled to have their 

four leases reinstated, Aera and Noble advance three principal

arguments. First, they claim that our precedent required the 

IBLA to adopt the decision Reed would have made absent 

political considerations. Second, they contend that under 

Department regulations and past Board decisions, the IBLA 

“neither can nor does substitute its judgment and discretion 

for that of the administrative decision maker—here, the MMS 

Regional Director,” Dr. J. Lisle Reed. Pet’r’s Br. 48. Finally, 

the companies argue that the IBLA erred when it treated 

Reed’s subordinates instead of Reed as MMS’s actual 

decisionmaker.

We agree with Aera and Noble that Reed was the 

relevant decisionmaker for MMS’s original decision and that 

in concluding otherwise, the IBLA erred. But the Board 

offered an independent basis for rejecting the companies’ 

political influence claims, and if that alternative is adequate,

then, as the district court found, the Secretary’s error was 

harmless. See 5 U.S.C. § 706. We thus turn to Aera and 

Noble’s first two arguments, which challenge the adequacy of 

the alternative basis for the Board’s decision. 

The Secretary urges us to bar Aera and Noble from 

pursuing either argument because “[d]uring the administrative 

appeal proceeding, [the companies] expressly and repeatedly 

requested an evidentiary hearing before an [administrative 

law judge] and a de novo decision by the IBLA.” Resp’t’s Br. 

57. We agree with the Secretary that because Aera and Noble

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successfully convinced the IBLA, over MMS’s objections, to 

order an evidentiary hearing and make a de novo decision and 

failed to offer an alternative argument about the scope of the 

Board’s authority, it would be unfair to allow Aera and Noble 

now to advance the clearly inconsistent theory that the IBLA 

lacked de novo decision making authority. See New 

Hampshire v. Maine, 532 U.S. 742, 749 (2001) (“Where a 

party assumes a certain position in a legal proceeding, and 

succeeds in maintaining that position, he may not thereafter, 

simply because his interests have changed, assume a contrary 

position . . . .” (internal quotation marks omitted)); id. at 750 

(explaining that judicial estoppel may be appropriate when a 

party’s “later position [is] clearly inconsistent with its earlier 

position[,] . . . the party has succeeded in persuading a court 

to accept that party’s earlier position[, and] the party seeking 

to assert an inconsistent position would derive an unfair 

advantage or impose an unfair detriment on the opposing 

party if not estopped” (internal citations and quotation marks 

omitted)). In any event, we are dubious about that theory 

given that the Secretary has expressly “reserved” authority to 

take over and render a final decision about matters arising 

under the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act, 43 C.F.R. 

§ 4.5(a)(1); that Department regulations authorize the IBLA 

to “decide [administrative appeals] as fully and finally as 

might the Secretary,” 43 C.F.R. § 4.1 (emphasis added); and 

that the IBLA “may, on its own motion, refer any case to an 

administrative law judge for a hearing on an issue of fact,” 43 

C.F.R. § 4.415 (2004). 

That said, the Secretary gives us no basis for barring the 

companies from pursuing their first theory—that to remove 

political taint from Reed’s decision, the IBLA should have 

reinstated the four leases, rather than evaluating whether to 

exclude them from their units. From the very beginning of the 

administrative appeal process, Aera and Noble identified 

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improper political influence as an “independent reason” to set 

aside Reed’s exclusion decision. Aera’s Statement of Reasons 

1 (included at J.A. 273) (emphasis added). Indeed, the IBLA 

itself treated the companies’ political influence claim as a 

separate and distinct issue. IBLA Op., 173 IBLA at 38. That 

theory is thus best understood as an alternative argument, and

a party that presents two “alternative arguments . . . 

abandon[s]” neither. See Busse Broad. Corp. v. FCC, 87 F.3d 

1456, 1461 (D.C. Cir. 1996).

With these threshold matters behind us, this case boils 

down to one issue: when politics has impermissibly infected 

an agency decision, what steps must the agency take to cure 

the taint? On this subject, we have several key cases, from 

which three related principles emerge. 

First, political pressure invalidates agency action only 

when it shapes, in whole or in part, the judgment of the 

ultimate agency decisionmaker. Thus, in our first political 

influence case, D.C. Federation of Civic Ass’ns v. Volpe, we 

asked whether “extraneous pressure intruded into the [agency 

decisionmaker’s] calculus of consideration.” 459 F.2d 1231, 

1246 (D.C. Cir. 1971). Similarly, in ATX, Inc. v. U.S. 

Department of Transportation, we explained that “judicial 

evaluation of pressure must focus on the nexus between the 

pressure and the actual decision maker” rather than on the 

pressure alone. 41 F.3d 1522, 1528 (D.C. Cir. 1994). Volpe is 

representative of this principle. There, we overturned the 

Department of Transportation’s approval of the much 

debated, never-built Three Sisters Bridge between 

Washington, D.C. and Virginia because Transportation 

Secretary Volpe had approved the bridge only after 

Representative Natcher, Chairman of the Subcommittee on 

the District of Columbia of the House Appropriations 

Committee, threatened to withhold money for the construction 

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of the City’s subway system unless the bridge was built. 

Volpe, 459 F.2d at 1245–49.

Second, even where political considerations have tainted 

agency action, we have consistently given the agency an 

opportunity to issue a new, untainted decision. For example, 

in Volpe we expressly rejected the notion that “remand would 

be futile . . . since the agency can only repeat the process it 

purports already to have undertaken: namely, considering the 

project solely on its merits,” id. at 1247 n.84, and instead sent 

the case back to the agency for a new decision. Likewise, in 

Koniag, Inc., Village of Uyak v. Andrus, we concluded that a 

letter from Congressman Dingell to the Secretary of the 

Interior had compromised the appearance of impartiality in 

the Secretary’s determination that several Native Alaskan 

villages were ineligible to take land and revenues under the 

Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act. 580 F.2d 601 (D.C. 

Cir. 1978) (“Koniag I”). Yet we rejected the remedy that the 

district court had ordered—reinstatement of “the last 

untainted decision” within the agency. Id. at 604. “[A] remand 

to the Secretary, rather than a reinstatement of the [untainted] 

decisions, is the proper remedy,” we explained, because even 

“[a]ssuming the worst—that the letter contributed to the 

Secretary’s decision in these cases—we cannot say that 3 1⁄2 

years later, a new Secretary in a new administration is thereby 

rendered incapable of giving these cases a fair and 

dispassionate treatment.” Id. at 611.

We have applied these two principles in cases where

politics threatened to or did, as here, intrude on intermediate 

agency decisions. In such situations, so long as the agency 

successfully insulated its final decisionmaker from the effects 

of political pressure, we have allowed the agency’s final 

decision to stand—as though we had reviewed, reversed, and 

remanded the intermediate decision and then received a new 

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petition for review from the agency’s subsequent decision.

For example, in Press Broadcasting Co. v. FCC, we upheld a 

Commission decision notwithstanding that the Mass Media 

Bureau, the office that first decided the issue, was exposed to 

ex parte contacts from a congressional staffer. 59 F.3d 1365 

(D.C. Cir. 1995). As we explained, because the Mass Media 

Bureau had recused itself and because the full Commission, 

which had not been subjected to any improper influence, then 

rendered a fresh decision, that decision was free of taint. Id. at 

1369–70.

Third, our political influence cases emphasize the value 

of “establish[ing] ‘a full scale administrative record which 

might dispel any doubts about the true nature of [the 

agency’s] action.’ ” ATX, 41 F.3d at 1528 (quoting Volpe, 458 

F.2d at 1249) (second alteration in the original). We first 

made this point in Volpe, explaining that the agency could 

“insulate itself from extraneous pressures unrelated to the 

merits of the question . . . perhaps by compiling a full-scale 

administrative record, utilizing fully intra-agency review 

procedures, and consulting with other agencies and planning 

groups.” Volpe, 458 F.2d at 1239 n.84. Likewise, in ATX, we 

upheld the Department of Transportation’s denial of an 

application to operate a new airline because the agency’s 

decisionmakers, though aware of vociferous congressional 

opposition to the application, had “insulated [their] own 

decision making process” by ordering an evidentiary hearing 

before an administrative law judge and by “issu[ing] a lengthy 

opinion based on . . . [and] fully supported by the 

[administrative] record.” 41 F.3d at 1528. These steps ensured 

the “decision was clear [and] open to scrutiny.” Id.

Applied to this case, these principles require that we

reject Aera and Noble’s challenge. Notwithstanding that 

political considerations concededly drove Reed’s decision, 

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Aera and Noble have offered no evidence that political 

pressure affected the Department’s ultimate decisionmaker—

the IBLA—or the administrative law judge who issued the 

proposed fact findings on which the IBLA based its decision. 

See Orion Reserves Ltd., 553 F.3d at 700 n.1 (noting that an 

IBLA decision is the Department’s final decision). Moreover, 

at Aera and Noble’s urging, the IBLA took just the sort of 

steps to cure even the appearance of political impropriety that 

we have encouraged or credited in our previous cases—

namely, ordering a formal evidentiary hearing based on

evidence known to MMS’s Regional office, as well as 

evidence available at the time of the decision, and then 

issuing a de novo decision based on that factual record. 

Granting Aera and Noble the relief they seek—the decision 

Reed would have made absent political pressure rather than 

the decision the IBLA did make—would thus thwart the 

Department’s effort to cure the political taint that infected 

Reed’s original decision.

Aera and Noble argue that this case differs from the 

decisions discussed above in two critical respects. First, the 

companies point out that none of those cases contains explicit 

evidence of political taint whereas here Reed himself admits 

he would have reached the companies’ preferred decision 

absent political considerations. But because the same legal 

principles apply regardless of whether the political taint is 

admitted or inferred, it is irrelevant that the evidence of 

political influence is more direct here than in our previous

decisions. And in any event, in several cases the evidence was 

adequate to convince us that political pressure warranted, or 

could have warranted, invalidating agency decisions. See 

Press Broad., 59 F.3d at 1370 & n.9 (noting “we might well 

have” reversed the agency because of “congressional ex parte 

interference in the administrative process” had the agency not 

corrected its mistake by issuing a new and untainted 

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decision); see also Koniag I, 580 F.2d at 610–11 (remanding 

to the agency, in part, because political pressure 

“compromised the appearance of the Secretary’s 

impartiality”); cf. Volpe, 459 F.2d at 1245 (stating the position 

of the opinion’s author (but only for himself) that “the impact 

of th[e] [political] pressure [was, in that case,] sufficient, 

standing alone, to invalidate the Secretary’s action”).

Second, Aera and Noble insist that this case is unique 

because without political influence the IBLA never would 

have had the opportunity even to consider “contracting” the 

companies’ units. Given that only “adversely affected” parties

can appeal a Regional Director’s decision, there would, they 

emphasize, have been no party to appeal had Reed left the 

leases in their units and granted the companies’ suspension 

requests. 30 C.F.R. § 290.2. In contrast, our other cases have 

all had “parties on both sides,” making it “inevitable that . . .

the lower level official’s decision would . . . be appealed” to 

higher level decisionmakers within the agency. Reply Br. 19 

(contrasting this case with Koniag I). Moreover, the 

companies explain that unlike the suspension decisions, which 

came in response to requests from Aera and Noble, the 

“contraction” decision was discretionary—that is, Reed had

no obligation even to consider it and likely would never have 

done so but for politics. This too distinguishes our other cases 

in which “an application for Government approval had been 

submitted; a decision had to be rendered; and the question 

was whether political influence tainted the decision.” Reply 

Br. 16 (contrasting this case with Press Broadcasting and 

ATX). The companies thus contend that unlike aggrieved 

parties in our previous cases, they cannot be placed in a 

politically untainted position unless the agency gives effect to 

the decision Reed would have made. 

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Aera and Noble are correct that the circumstances 

presented here are in certain respects unlike those in our 

previous cases. But we are unconvinced that these differences 

warrant adopting a wholly new approach to curing political 

interference in agency decision making. We have never even 

hinted that to cure a decision of political taint, an agency must 

determine, and give effect to, the decision that would have 

been made had politics not intruded. Indeed, even though 

Koniag I lacks the unique features of this case, the district 

court there took an approach very much like that advocated by 

Aera and Noble—namely, reinstatement of a subordinate 

official’s untainted decision—out of concern over the 

lingering effects of past political interference. See Koniag, 

Inc. v. Kleppe, 405 F.Supp. 1360, 1370–73 (D.D.C. 1975).

Although we could have either affirmed the district court or 

ordered a remedy analogous to the one Aera and Noble now 

seek—by requiring the Department of the Interior to ascertain

and implement the decision the previous Secretary would 

have made absent politics—we instead gave the new 

Secretary a chance to issue a fresh untainted decision. See 

Koniag I, 580 F.2d at 610–11. Likewise, in Volpe we required 

an agency redo, rather than an investigation into a politically 

untainted alternative universe. See Volpe, 459 F.2d at 1247 

n.84.

This approach makes sense. Were we to adopt the 

companies’ position, anyone believing that politics had

influenced an agency decision would presumably demand an 

evidentiary hearing to determine not only whether politics 

actually did influence the decision, but also what the decision 

would have been absent political interference. Such hearings 

would be both complex and burdensome. More troubling, 

such an approach would effectively empower officials no 

longer responsible for the original, politically driven

decision—and as in this case perhaps no longer even 

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employed by the agency—to control agency policy. 

Undoubtedly, some officials would take such an opportunity 

to offer a revisionist history, and determining what would 

have happened but-for political interference would be no easy 

task. Consider, for example, that applying Aera and Noble’s 

rule in Koniag would have meant asking a former Secretary 

from a different administration who failed to insulate his 

decision from political influence to dictate the case’s 

outcome, instead of handing the task to the then-incumbent 

Secretary.

Moreover, accepting the companies’ argument would 

mean forcing the IBLA to adopt a “special” procedure 

exclusively for political influence cases. After all, the IBLA 

ordinarily has de novo review authority (or, at least, Aera and 

Noble are estopped from arguing otherwise, see supra 13–14), 

and “de novo” review ordinarily means that an appellate body 

provides its own answers to questions presented on appeal 

rather than ones based on what the original decisionmaker 

would have done. Requiring the IBLA to mechanically 

impose Reed’s hypothetical decision would thus deviate from 

the Board’s ordinary practice. But we have never required a 

special procedure and instead have encouraged agencies to 

adapt established internal procedures to render fresh untainted 

decisions. See, e.g., Press Broad., 59 F.3d at 1370 

(concluding that the FCC had cured an earlier, tainted 

decision because the Commission issued a de novo decision 

after the tainted agency staff had been recused); ATX, 41 F.3d 

at 1528 (observing that the Secretary of Transportation’s 

decision to order a full-evidentiary hearing was 

“unobjectionable;” indeed, it “was an appropriate response to 

[congressional] pressure”). Indeed, in Koniag we expressly 

rejected judicial tinkering with the procedures an agency 

normally uses to correct its own errors. 580 F.2d at 610–11

(concluding that remand to the Secretary for a new decision 

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rather than reinstatement of the last, untainted decision within 

the agency was appropriate). 

Finally, applying Aera and Noble’s framework would in 

some cases mean an agency would have to adopt a decision 

the agency itself considers unlawful. This very case illustrates 

the problem. The IBLA determined not only that exclusion 

was appropriate under the correct legal standard, but also that 

two of the criteria Reed would have relied on to maintain the 

leases—“potential loss of rental revenue” and “the minimal 

likelihood of tract releasing”—were impermissible 

considerations. IBLA Op., 173 IBLA at 37; ALJ Op. at 19

(included at J.A. 720). Accordingly, were the IBLA to impose 

Reed’s decision, it would effectively be embracing the very 

factors it believed were impermissible, a decision we would 

normally find arbitrary and capricious. Cf. Allentown Mack 

Sales & Serv., Inc. v. NLRB, 522 U.S. 359, 374 (1998) (“It is 

hard to imagine a more violent breach of th[e] requirement [of

reasoned decision making] than applying a rule of primary 

conduct or a standard of proof which is in fact different from 

the rule or standard formally announced.”); Alaska Prof’l 

Hunters Ass'n v. FAA, 177 F.3d 1030, 1034 (D.C. Cir. 1999)

(requiring an agency to conduct notice and comment 

rulemaking before significantly revising a definitive 

interpretation of the agency’s regulations). Yet that is exactly 

what Aera and Noble would have us require as a matter of

law. 

Resisting the significance of the IBLA’s determinations, 

Aera and Noble point out that the Board made no “explicit 

finding” that Reed’s hypothetical decision would have been 

unlawful and point to purportedly “ample bases for his 

conclusions” in his testimony. Pet’r’s 28(j) Letter 1–2, Jan. 

28, 2011. But even assuming some of Reed’s rationales would 

have been appropriate, the companies do not dispute that 

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Reed would have based his politically untainted decision on 

considerations the IBLA subsequently determined were 

inappropriate. In any event, we think it hardly surprising that 

the IBLA made no “explicit finding” about the lawfulness of a 

decision Reed never made, particularly given that our case 

law nowhere even hints that de novo review must include 

such an inquiry. That said, because the Board made no 

“explicit finding,” we have highlighted the flaws in Reed’s 

decision not as a basis to affirm, but merely to illustrate the 

bizarre results that embracing the companies’ theory could 

produce. 

Of course, this might well have been a different case had 

the companies also advanced traditional Administrative 

Procedure Act claims alleging, for example, that the 

Department violated its own procedural or substantive 

requirements for “contracting,” or even considering whether 

to contract, a unit. Certainly, courts reviewing agency 

decisions involving political interference must be attuned to 

the heightened possibility that political influence will have

caused agencies to cut corners. In this case, Aera and Noble 

made several such arguments to the IBLA, including that 

there was sufficient evidence that each lease contained 

mineral deposits to warrant their continued inclusion and that 

the companies had received inadequate notice that the 

Regional office would be considering whether to “contract” 

the units. The Board rejected these arguments. Significantly, 

it also implicitly rejected any argument that evaluating 

whether to contract the units at that time would have been 

improper, explaining that once exploration is essentially 

complete, as in the case of these four leases, it is appropriate 

under agency regulations to assess the available scientific 

evidence to determine whether leases should continue to be 

included in their units. But because Aera and Noble failed to 

challenge these conclusions on appeal, we must assume the

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procedural and substantive soundness of the Department’s

decision. Given that assumption, Aera and Noble were 

entitled to nothing more than what they received—an agency 

decision on the merits uninfluenced by political 

considerations.

III.

We are keenly aware that administrative agencies making 

important and sometimes controversial decisions are often

buffeted by political pressure. Indeed, public advocacy plays a 

healthy role in our system. Accordingly, “we have never 

questioned the authority of congressional representatives to 

exert pressure, and we have held that congressional actions 

not targeted directly at [agency] decision makers—such as 

contemporaneous hearings—do not invalidate an agency 

decision.” ATX, 41 F.3d at 1528 (citing Volpe, 459 F.2d at 

1249 and Koniag, 580 F.2d at 610) (emphasis added). But 

sometimes political pressure crosses the line and prevents an 

agency from performing its statutorily prescribed duties.

When that occurs, we have repeatedly declined to stand in the 

agency’s shoes and take over its decision making function. 

Instead, we have directed the agency to use the traditional 

administrative tools at its disposal to render a politically 

untainted decision. Such an approach follows from the 

distinct roles Congress has assigned to administrative 

agencies and the courts: for agencies, to reach reasoned 

decisions based on the relevant statutory factors; and for the 

courts, to ensure that those agencies properly carry out their 

statutory responsibilities. Having found that the IBLA 

fulfilled its role, we have fulfilled ours and so affirm. 

So ordered.

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