Source: https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/380/1
Timestamp: 2019-04-24 20:17:53+00:00

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Stewart L. UDALL, Secretary of the Interior, Petitioner, v. James K. TALLMAN et al.
Argued: Oct. 22 and 26, 1964.
See 380 U.S. 989, 85 S.Ct. 1325.
Charles F. Wheatley, Jr., Washington, D.C., for respondents.
At issue in this case is the effect of Executive Order No. 8979 and Public Land Order No. 487 upon the Secretary of the Interior's authority to issue oil and gas leases.
From the rejection of their applications, respondents appealed to the Director of the Bureau of Land Management and then to the Secretary of the Interior, both of whom affirmed the decision. 68 I.D. 256 (1961). Respondents then brought an action in the nature of mandamus, in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, to compel the Secretary to issue oil and gas leases to them. The District Court granted summary judgment in favor of the Secretary dismissing the complaint. The Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit reversed, holding that Executive Order No. 8979, the order creating the Moose Range in 1941, and Public Land Order No. 487, issued by the Secretary in 1948, 2 had withdrawn the lands in controversy from availability for leasing under the Mineral Leasing Act, and that the lands remained closed to leasing until they were reopened by a revised departmental regulation on August 14, 1958. The court therefore held that the Griffin applications, filed while the land was closed, were ineffective, rendering the leases issued on them nullities; the respondents, as the persons first making application after the promulgation of the 1958 regulation, were held to be entitled to the leases. 116 U.S.App.D.C. 379, 324 F.2d 411 (1963). We granted certiorari, 376 U.S. 961, 84 S.Ct. 1123, 11 L.Ed.2d 980.
We conclude that the District Court correctly refused to issue a writ of mandamus, and accordingly reverse the decision of the Court of Appeals. Since their promulgation, the Secretary has consistently construed both orders not to bar oil and gas leases; moreover, this interpretation has been made a repeated matter of public record. While the Griffin leases and others located in the Moose Range have been developed in reliance upon the Secretary's interpretation, respondents do not claim to have relied to their detriment upon a contrary construction. The Secretary's interpretation may not be the only one permitted by the language of the orders, but it is quite clearly a reasonable interpretation; courts must therefore respect it. McLaren v. Fleischer, 256 U.S. 477, 481, 41 S.Ct. 577, 578, 65 L.Ed. 1052; Bowles v. Seminole Rock Co., 325 U.S. 410, 413414, 65 S.Ct. 1215, 1217, 89 L.Ed. 1700.
The Mineral Leasing Act of 1920, 41 Stat. 437, 30 U.S.C. 181 et seq. (1958 ed.), gave the Secretary of the Interior broad power to issue oil and gas leases on public lands not within any known geological structure of a producing oil and gas field. Although the Act directed that if a lease was issued on such a tract, it had to be issued to the first qualified applicant, it left the Secretary discretion to refuse to issue any lease at all on a given tract. United States ex rel. McLennan v. Wilbur, 283 U.S. 414, 51 S.Ct. 502, 75 L.Ed. 1148. The Act excluded from its application certain designated lands, 3 but did not exclude lands within wildlife refuge areas.
The Kenai National Moose Range was created in 1941 by Executive Order No. 8979, 6 Fed.Reg. 6471, by which approximately two million acres of the public domain were set aside 'as a refuge and breeding ground for moose.' The order provided that '(n)one of the above-described lands excepting (a defined area) shall be subject to settlement, location, sale, or entry, or other disposition (except for fish trap sites) under any of the public-land laws applicable to Alaska * * *.' On November 8, 1947, the Secretary promulgated the first general regulation dealing with the issuance of oil and gas leases within wildlife refuges. It provided simply that such leases had to be subjected to an approved unit plan and contain a provision prohibiting drilling or prospecting without the advance consent of the Secretary. 12 Fed.Reg. 7334.
Had the Secretary thought that Public Land Order No. 487 had already withdrawn the lands covered by it from appropriation under the mineral-leasing laws, his reference to such laws in the 1951 orders would have been superfluous.
'6. Any of the lands described in paragraphs 4(a), 4(b) or 4(d) of this order then remaining unappropriated, shall become subject to such application, petition, selection, or other form of appropriation by the public generally as may be authorized by the public-land laws, including the mineral-leasing laws * * *.
Respondents make much of the italicized language, which does appear to be inconsistent with the Department's prior interpretation of Public Land Order No. 487 and its actual leasing practices. However, on October 14, 195535 days after it was promulgated but before it went into effect, and years before the respondents entered the picturePublic Land Order No. 1212 was amended to delete the references to the mineral-leasing laws. 20 Fed.Reg. 7904.
When bills were introduced in Congress early in 1956 to restrict oil and gas leasing in wildlife refuges, the House Committee on Merchant Marine and Fisheries and the Subcommittee on Merchant Marine and Fisheries of the Senate Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce held extensive hearings thereon. The bills as introduced only forbade the Secretary to 'dispose of' lands in wildlife refuges, and the question arose during the hearings whether that language would apply to the issuance of oil and gas leases. A representative of the Department asserted, without contradiction, that the granting of an oil and gas lease was not a 'disposition' and would not be affected by the language as proposed. Hearings before the House Committee on Merchant Marine and Fisheries on H.R. 5306, etc., 84th Cong., 2d Sess., p. 98. An amendment was accordingly proposed specifically restricting oil and gas leasing. Neither committee reported favorably on the bills. However, the House Committee submitted a report stating that it had been decided to try, for an experimental period of time, an arrangement whereby each proposed alienation or relinquishment of any interest the Fish and Wildlife Service had in lands under its jurisdiction would be submitted to the Committee, which would within 60 days approve or disapprove the action contemplated. H.R.Rep.No. 1941, 84th Cong., 2d Sess., pp. 1213. This resolution of the issue suggests that the Committee accepted the Department's view that the Secretary had pre-existing authority to grant oil and gas leases in the Moose Range, and was concerned only with the way in which he exercised his discretion.
'In Alaska, there is at the present time only one area which is now subject to the Mineral Leasing Act where oil and gas is known to exist in paying quantities, this being on the Kenai Peninsula as previously described. If prior to the effective date of this act, the producing structure on the Kenai is defined, then the holders of upland leases in such areas might be forced to compete for areas beneath adjacent lakes and streams. The committee felt that this result would work to the disadvantage of those lessees and developers who have gone ahead and developed this area * * *.' S.Rep. No. 1720, 85th Cong., 2d Sess., p. 5, U.S.Code Cong. and Adm. News 1958, p. 2895.
The bill was subsequently enacted into law. 72 Stat. 322 (1958), 48 U.S.C. 456 and 30 U.S.C. § 251 (1958 ed.).
'The balance of the lands within the Kenai National Moose Range are subject to the filing of oil and gas lease offers * * *. Offers to lease covering any of these lands which have been pending and upon which action was suspended in accordance with the regulation 43 CFR 192.9(d) will now be acted upon and adjudicated in accordance with the regulations.
The agreement was noted in the Anchorage land office on August 4, 1958, and 10 days later respondents filed their applications.
Soon after the issuance of the regulation and the implementing order, the pending applications were acted upon; within the next two months, 294 leases covering 621,234 acres were issued in the area subject to Executive Order No. 8979, in response to applications (including those of the Griffin lessees) filed in 1954 and 1955. When these figures are added to those covering leases issued prior to 1958 (primarily those in the Swanson River area), it appears that in the area subject to Executive Order No. 8979, the Secretary issued a total of 331 leases covering 696,680 acres on applications filed during the period the Court of Appeals held that the area was closed to leasing. Thus, prior to the commencement of the instant suit, the Secretary had leased substantially the entire area in controversy; 11 the Solicitor General further assures us that the lessees and their assignees had, in turn, expended tens of millions of dollars in the development of the leases.
When faced with a problem of statutory construction, this Court shows great deference to the interpretation given the statute by the officers or agency charged with its administration. 'To sustain the Commission's application of this statutory term, we need not find that its construction is the only reasonable one or even that it is the result we would have reached had the question arisen in the first instance in judicial proceedings.' Unemployment Comm's of Territory of Alaska v. Aragon, 329 U.S. 143, 153, 67 S.Ct. 245, 250, 91 L.Ed. 136. See also e.g., Gray v. Powell, 314 U.S. 402, 62 S.Ct. 326, 86 L.Ed. 301; Universal Battery Co. v. United States, 281 U.S. 580, 583, 50 S.Ct. 422, 74 L.Ed. 1051. 'Particularly is this respect due when the administrative practice at stake 'involves a contemporaneous construction of a statute by the men charged with the responsibility of setting its machinery in motion; of making the parts work efficiently and smoothly while they are yet untried and new." Power Reactor Development Co., v. International Union of Electricians, 367 U.S. 396, 408, 81 S.Ct. 1529, 1535, 6 L.Ed.2d 924. When the construction of an administrative regulation rather than a statute is in issue, deference is even more clearly in order.
"Since this involves an interpretation of an administrative regulation a court must necessarily look to the administrative construction of the regulation if the meaning of the words used is in doubt. * * * (T)he ultimate criterion is the administrative interpretation, which becomes of controlling weight unless it is plainly erroneous or inconsistent with the regulation." Bowles v. Seminole Rock Co., 325 U.S. 410, 413414, 65 S.Ct. 1215, 1217, 89 L.Ed. 1700.
In the instant case, there is no statutory limitation involved. While Executive Order No. 8979 was issued by the President, he soon delegated to the Secretary full power to withdraw lands or to modify or revoke any existing withdrawals. See Executive Order No. 9146, 7 Fed.Reg. 3067; Executive Order No. 9337, 8 Fed.Reg. 5516; Executive Order No. 10355, 17 Fed.Reg. 4831. Public Land Order No. 487 was issued by the Secretary himself.
Moreover, as the discussion in Section I of this opinion demonstrates, the Secretary has consistently construed Executive Order No. 8979 and Public Land Order No. 487 not to bar oil and gas leases.
'It may be argued that while these facts and rulings prove a usage, they do not establish its validity. But government is a practical affair, intended for practical men. Both officers, lawmakers, and citizens naturally adjust themselves to any longcontinued action of the Executive Department, on the presumption that unauthorized acts would not have been allowed to be so often repeated as to crystallize into a regular practice. That presumption is not reasoning in a circle, but the basis of a wise and quieting rule that, in determining the meaning of a statute or the existence of a power, weight shall be given to the usage itself,even when the validity of the practice is the subject of investigation.' United States v. Midwest Oil Co., 236 U.S. 459, 472473, 35 S.Ct. 309, 313, 59 L.Ed. 673.
The reference in Executive Order No. 8979 to the 1926 and 1927 statutes also lends support to the Secretary's interpretation. For both statutes relate to leasing rather than alienation of title; it would be reasonable to infer from their specific addition that 'disposition' was not intended to encompass leasing. 16 The Secretary also might reasonably have been influenced by a belief that in view of his overriding discretionary authority to refuse to issue an oil and gas lease on a given tract whenever he thought that granting a lease would undercut the purposes of the withdrawal, inclusion of such leases in the withdrawal order would have been unnecessary. Cf. Haley v. Seaton, 108 U.S.App.D.C. 257, 281 F.2d 620 (1960).
Respondents' reliance upon Wilbur v. United States ex rel. Barton, 60 App.D.C. 11, 46 F.2d 217 (1930), aff'd sub nom. United States ex rel. McLennan v. Wilbur, 283 U.S. 414, 51 S.Ct. 502, 75 L.Ed. 1148, is misplaced. Involved in Wilbur was the meaning of language contained in the Pickett Act, 36 Stat. 847 (1910), 43 U.S.C. 141 (1958 ed.).
'In aid of proposed legislation affecting the use and disposition of the petroleum deposits on the public domain, all public lands in (a defined area of over 3 million acres in California and Wyoming) are hereby temporarily withdrawn from all forms of location, settlement, selection, filing, entry, or disposal under the mineral or nonmineral public-land laws. * * *' U.S. Geological Survey, Bull. 623, H.R. Doc. No. 868, 64th Cong., 1st Sess., 135 (1916); quoted, 236 U.S., at 467, 35 S.Ct., at 311.
The Mineral Leasing Act of 1920 changed the procedure for acquiring oil and gas rights in public lands: the Secretary was empowered to issue prospecting permits and required, in the event a discovery was made under the permit, to issue a lease which entitled the lessee to extract the mineral, but gave him no right in the land itself. 17 From 1920 on, therefore, the language of the Pickett Act no longer technically encompassed leasing. Nonetheless, it was clear that the Act had been specifically designed to legitimize orders like the 1909 withdrawal order. The Court of Appeals reasonably concluded in Wilbur that the fact that Congress had in 1920 changed the procedurefrom 'location' to 'leasing'for acquisition of oil and gas rights afforded no reason for concluding that they had thereby intended to cut back the power granted in 1910. 60 App.D.C. at 1415, 46 F.2d, at 220221. Thus neither that holding by the Court of Appeals nor this Court's affirmance in any way casts doubt upon the reasonableness of the Secretary's interpretation of the orders at bar, which were drafted long after the Mineral Leasing Act had done away with location as a means of acquiring oil and gas rights.
The placement of the fish trap exception'(except for fish trap sites)'a phrase admittedly not relating to alienation of title to land, does tend to cut against the Secretary's interpretation of Executive Order No. 8979. However, it appears that the exception was designed to assure the Alaskans, whose livelihood is largely dependent on the salmon catch, that they could continuedespite the orderto use fish traps. Cf. Organized Village of Kake v. Egan, 369 U.S. 60, 82 S.Ct. 562, 7 L.Ed.2d 573. Since it was a reassurance not technically necessary and therefore not functionally related to any part of the regulation, it is no surprise to find it carelessly placed. Compare Executive Order No. 8857, 6 Fed.Reg. 4287, establishing the Kodiak National Wildlife Refuge. We do not think the position of the fish trap exception is sufficient to justify a court's overturning the Secretary's construction as unreasonable.
Public Land Order No. 487 withdrew the lands it covered from 'settlement, location, sale or entry,' but contained no reference to 'other disposition.' Nor did it contain anything analogous to the fish trap exception. The reasonableness of the Secretary's interpretation of Public Land Order No. 487 therefore follows a fortiori from the reasonableness of his construction of Executive Order No. 8979.
Mr. Justice DOUGLAS and Mr. Justice HARLAN took no part in the decision of this case.
Lease offers are processed in the order of filing and a lease on a given tract is issued as soon as an acceptable offer is reached. In the instant case, the Secretary's order of August 2, 1958, 23 Fed.Reg. 5883, directed that all lease offers filed within 10 days of August 14, 1958, would be treated as simultaneously filed, and that a public drawing would be held to determine the priorities among them. See 43 CFR § 295.8 (1964). The drawing was held on September 4, 1959, and respondents prevailed. Thus their offers were processed before all other offers filed between August 14 and August 24, 1958; upon processing, however, it was discovered that the land was already covered by the leases issued to the Griffin lessees.
Public Land Order No. 487 encompassed the land for which respondent Coyle applied; the land for which the other nine respondents filed is covered by Executive Order No. 8979.
Section 1 of the Act excludes 'lands acquired under the Act known as the Appalachian Forest Act, approved March 1, 1911 ( 36 Stat. 961), and those in incorporated cities, towns, and villages and in national parks and monuments, those acquired under other Acts subsequent to February 25, 1920, and lands within the naval petroleum and oil-shale reserves, except as hereinafter provided * * *,' 41 Stat. 437438 (1920), as amended, 60 Stat. 950 (1946), 30 U.S.C. 181 (1958 ed.).
See Public Land Order No. 751 of August 29, 1951, 16 Fed.Reg. 9044, which withdrew 160 acres for the Civil Aeronautics Administration, and 88.86 acres for townsite purposes, and Public Land Order No. 778 of December 29, 1951, 17 Fed.Reg. 159, which withdrew a number of tracts, aggregating 4,280 acres, for the use of the Army.
See memorandum, February 15, 1954, Director, Bureau of Land Management, to Assistant Secretary of the Interior; memorandum, August 12, 1955, Director, Bureau of Land Management, to Area Administrator, Area 4 (Alaska); 102 Cong.Rec. A6582.
Rep. Alaska Gov. 6061 (1955); see also Rep. Secy. Int. 65 (1953).
It appears that the Bureau regarded the amended regulations as automatically vacating the 1953 suspension order; however, upon the almost immediate introduction in Congress of bills further to restrict leasing in wildlife refuges, the field offices were directed once again to withhold final action on lease applications. See Richard K. Todd et al., 68 I.D. 291, 298 (1961).
In further support of the claim that the 1955 regulation is worthless as an indication of the pre-existing status of the lands covered thereby, respondents urge that Appendix B listed 'wildlife refuges which were closed by the terms of the orders creating them.' However, of the 176 refuges listed in Appendix B, respondents point to only one; the Salt Plains in Oklahoma. Moreover, only a small part of the Salt Plains (543 acres out of over 30,000) was specifically withdrawn from appropriation under the mining and mineral-leasing laws. Public Land Order No. 144, 8 Fed.Reg. 9430. It is therefore doubtful that a simple listing in Appendix B of the 'Salt Plains,' large parts of which were admittedly open to leasing prior to 1955, was intended to open the small area closed by Public Land Order No. 144.
Respondents seeks to capitalize on the fact that although the Swanson River Unit was not located in any of the areas designated in Appendix B of the 1955 regulation, the applicants submitted, and obtained Service approval of, a detailed operating program for the unit. There are at least two possible explanations for the submission of the plan. First, the Fish and Wildlife Service could at any time designate areas not listed in Appendix B in which leasing 'might seriously impair or destroy' conservation purposes and accordingly require advance approval of operating programs for them. Submission of a plan as to the Swanson River Unit might have been regarded as a means of insuring that the Service would not so designate the area. Second, the Secretary had directed his subordinates to withhold final action on lease applications pending a further revision of the regulations. The applicants may have submitted the plan in order to persuade the Department and the House Committee that the proposed leasing was consistent not only with existing regulations but also with any that were likely to be adopted.
Hearings before the Senate Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs on H.R. 8054, 85th Cong., 2d Sess., p. 77.
In announcing the order, the Secretary warned that there would be little land available to new applicants: 'Most of these lands are now covered by applications that will be adjudicated under the regulations of the Department.' Department of the Interior Press Release, July 25, 1958.
Respondents point to the fact that in a Press Release dated January 29, 1958, announcing the forthcoming (August) order, the Secretary had indicated that he was 'opening' a part of the Moose Range to leasing. The choice of this term is wholly understandable in view of the facts that general instructions to local offices not to take final action on lease applications had been outstanding since 1953, and that the regulations of January 8, 1958, had provided that no new applications would be accepted for filing until a subsequent order was issued specifying the lands which would not be subject to leasing. Therefore, the order of August 2, 1958, did, in these two senses, 'open' the Range to leasing.
In the area excepted from Executive Order No. 8979 but encompassed by Public Land Order No. 487, the total number of leases issued on applications filed before the revocation of the latter order was 74 covering 116,878 acres.
See Ex parte Endo, 323 U.S. 283, 303, n. 24, 65 S.Ct. 208, 89 L.Ed. 243; Boesche v. Udall, 373 U.S. 472, 482483, 83 S.Ct. 1373, 10 L.Ed.2d 491; cf. Peters v. Hobby, 349 U.S. 331, 345, 75 S.Ct. 790, 99 L.Ed. 1129; but cf. Brooks v. Dewar, 313 U.S. 354, 360361, 61 S.Ct. 979, 85 L.Ed. 1399.
The failure of the court below to attach proper significance to the administrative practice seems to be attributable to the fact that it was misinformed concerning that practice. The respondents' brief in the Court of Appeals stated that '(n)o leases issued for any lands within the Kenai Range between 1941 and 1958' (p. 30), and that '(t)he discovery as well as the increased activity were in areas of the Peninsula outside of the Kenai National Moose Range' (p. 40).
This view is taken in Hoffman, Oil and Gas Leasing on the Public Domain, p. 33 (1951).
Reference to the language of other withdrawal orders is not very fruitful. Amici curiae list 173 Executive and Public Land Orders issued between 1940 and 1952 which contained language expressly barring mineral leasing. Brief for Marathon Oil Co. and Union Oil Co. of California as amici curiae, pp. 6A7A. However, respondents list 146 orders issued between 1936 and 1959 expressly permitting mineral leasing. Brief for Respondents, pp. 7a10a.
The Court of Appeals sought to explain the reference to the 1926 and 1927 Acts by construing the phrase 'any of the public-land laws applicable to Alaska' to mean laws applicable both throughout the country and in Alaska, and opined that the 1926 and 1927 Acts were specifically added because they had application only in Alaska. However, the Secretary's interpretation of 'any of the public-land laws applicable to Alaska' (as including, inter alia, laws relating to public lands located only in Alaska) is at least as natural as the Court of Appeals' interpretation (limiting the phrase to laws applicable throughout the country) and is beyond cavil a 'reasonable' interpretation, which is the test the Court of Appeals should have been applying. Moreover, the Court of Appeals' conclusion that 'disposition' was meant to include leasing renders the words 'or to classification and lease,' initiating the reference to the Acts of 1926 and 1927, superfluous.
In 1935, the prospecting permit procedure was eliminated and the present direct leasing procedure substituted. Act of August 21, 1935, 49 Stat. 676677, 30 U.S.C. 223, 226 (1958 ed.).
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