Source: https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/F2/613/1054/198144/
Timestamp: 2019-11-17 14:36:04
Document Index: 588699647

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 403', '§ 322', '§ 2', '§ 10', '§ 403', '§ 401', '§ 162', '§ 59', '§ 154', '§ 59', '§ 8', '§ 10', '§ 4']

National Wildlife Federation v. Clifford Alexander, Jr., in His Official Capacity Assecretary, Department of the Army, et al.north Dakota State Water Commission, Appellant, 613 F.2d 1054 (D.C. Cir. 1980) :: Justia
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National Wildlife Federation v. Clifford Alexander, Jr., in His Official Capacity Assecretary, Department of the Army, et al.north Dakota State Water Commission, Appellant, 613 F.2d 1054 (D.C. Cir. 1980)
U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit - 613 F.2d 1054 (D.C. Cir. 1980) Argued Oct. 2, 1979. Decided Dec. 7, 1979. As Amended Dec. 17, 1979 and Feb. 19, 1980
33 U.S.C. § 403 (1976). The water management districts commenced work on Channel "A" without any authorization from the Department of the Army. At the time, the Corps of Engineers declined to exercise jurisdiction over the project because its regulations provided that the permit requirement in section 10 would apply to work occurring outside the water itself only if it would "affect the course, location, or condition of the waterbody in such a manner as to impact on the navigable capacity of the waterbody." 33 C.F.R. § 322.3(a) (1) (1978).
In the landmark case of Gibbons v. Ogden, 22 U.S. (9 Wheat.) 1, 6 L. Ed. 23 (1824), the Supreme Court first held that the congressional power over interstate and foreign commerce includes regulation of navigation. In his historic opinion, Chief Justice Marshall wrote:
The year after Gibbons v. Ogden, the Court gave a much narrower reading to the admiralty clause. In The Steamboat Thomas Jefferson, 23 U.S. (10 Wheat.) 428, 6 L. Ed. 358 (1825), it held that jurisdiction over libels arising under maritime contracts would lie only if "the service was substantially performed, or to be performed, upon the sea, or upon the waters within the ebb and flow of the tide." Id. at 429. This result comported with the English common-law view of admiralty, which limited that jurisdiction to the oceans and tidal waters. Before the Court in The Thomas Jefferson was a libel, not an action arising under a federal statute regulating navigation. The Justices expressly reserved the question of whether Congress, under the commerce power, could extend admiralty-type remedies to occurrences on nontidal, inland waters. See id. at 430.
Despite the holding in The Thomas Jefferson, Congress in 1845 expanded the admiralty jurisdiction of the district courts to include certain types of cases arising on inland lakes and the waters connecting them. See Act of Feb. 26, 1845, ch. 20, 5 Stat. 726. The question of whether the admiralty clause permitted Congress to enlarge federal jurisdiction to occurrences on these nontidal waters came before the Supreme Court in the 1851 case of The Propeller Genessee Chief v. Fitzhugh, 53 U.S. (12 How.) 443, 13 L. Ed. 1058 (1851). The Court noted that the common-law rule limiting admiralty law to tidal waters made sense in England, an island in which all streams navigable in fact were also subject to the tides. The tidal standard prevailing in English courts thus was the equivalent of one using navigability as the test. Id. at 454-55. Moreover, before the advent of the steamboat, foreign commerce in America simply did not pass beyond the influence of the tides. The Court reasoned that The Thomas Jefferson was a product of the mentality of a day gone by and had to be reconsidered. It concluded:
Despite the wider federal power over navigation, a definition of navigable waters of the United States did not emerge before the latter part of the nineteenth century. In 1838 Congress enacted a statute requiring a federal license for any vessel carrying passengers or cargo on the "navigable waters of the United States." Act of July 7, 1838, ch. 191, § 2, 5 Stat. 304. Later legislation compelled a limited safety inspection for such a ship. Act of Aug. 30, 1852, ch. 106, 10 Stat. 61. It was not until 1870 that a case required the Supreme Court to define navigable waters of the United States. In The Daniel Ball, 77 U.S. (10 Wall.) 557, 19 L. Ed. 999 (1870), and The Montello, 78 U.S. (11 Wall.) 411, 20 L. Ed. 191 (1870), the Court interpreted the term as limiting the application of the statutes to vessels on waterways forming part of a continuous interstate water highway. The Water Commission relies heavily on these decisions to support its position that section 10 of the Rivers and Harbors Act of 1899 does not apply to Devils Lake.
Shortly after deciding The Daniel Ball, the Court faced a similar case in The Montello, 78 U.S. (11 Wall.) 411, 20 L. Ed. 191 (1870). The owners of this ship had failed to obtain a federal license and had violated the safety provisions of the 1852 law. They responded to a libel commenced by the United States by arguing that the steamer had been operating on the Fox River in Wisconsin, which, they asserted, was not a navigable water of the United States.
Congress enacted portions of the Rivers and Harbors Acts of 1890 and 1899 as a response to a series of cases in the mid-1800's, beginning with Willson v. Black-Bird Creek Marsh Co., 27 U.S. (2 Pet.) 245, 7 L. Ed. 412 (1829), and culminating with Williamette Iron Bridge Co. v. Hatch, 125 U.S. 1, 8 S. Ct. 810, 31 L. Ed. 629 (1888). In these cases the Supreme Court repeatedly had held that state legislatures could authorize the construction of bridges and other structures potentially obstructing local waters usable in interstate commerce, at least until Congress acted to prevent these actions.10 In Williamette Bridge, for example, the Court had noted:
Id. at 8, 8 S. Ct. at 815.
Responding to this line of cases, Congress appended to the 1890 appropriations bill for rivers and harbors several sections regarding the maintenance of navigable bodies of water. See United States v. Republic Steel Corp., 362 U.S. 482, 485-86, 80 S. Ct. 884, 4 L. Ed. 2d 903 (1960). The law as enacted forbade "the creation of any obstruction, not affirmatively authorized by law, to the navigable capacity of any waters, in respect of which the United States has jurisdiction . . . ." Rivers and Harbors Act of 1890 (1890 Act), ch. 907, § 10, 26 Stat. 426 (current version at 33 U.S.C. § 403 (1976)). The statute also required permission from the Secretary of War before one could build any wharf, pier, or dam, begin construction of a bridge, or "excavate or fill, or in any manner . . . alter or modify the course, location, condition, or capacity of the channel of (any) navigable water of the United States . . . ." Id. S 7 (current version at 33 U.S.C. §§ 401, 403 (1976)).
When words used in a statute had a well-settled judicial meaning at the time the statute was enacted, courts presume that the legislature intended to continue the existing interpretation in the new statute absent contextual or historical evidence to the contrary. E. g., Case v. Los Angeles Lumber Products Co., 308 U.S. 106, 115, 60 S. Ct. 1, 84 L. Ed. 110 (1939); The Abbotsford, 98 U.S. 440, 444, 25 L. Ed. 198 (1878). NWF and the federal defendants contend that this rule of statutory construction should not apply in this instance for two reasons.
Congress reacted to these broader regulations in 1976 by contracting the Corps' jurisdiction somewhat. First, it exempted three specific intrastate lakes from all the provisions of section 10. Water Resources Development Act of 1976, Pub. L. No.94-587, § 162, 90 Stat. 29 (codified at 33 U.S.C. § 59m (1976)). The Senate committee that proposed the exemptions, however, expressed its belief that these lakes and other bodies of water never had been meant to be subject to section 10. The committee stated that it had evaluated the problem only with respect to these particular lakes and indicated its intent to hold hearings on the more general problem of such waters the following year. See S.Rep.No.94-1255, 94th Cong., 2d Sess. 124-25 (1976). Second, Congress exempted from the wharf and pier provisions of section 10 any body of water located entirely within one state if its classification as a navigable water of the United States rested solely on its historical use. Water Resources Development Act of 1976, § 154 (codified at 33 U.S.C. § 59L (1976)).21
Unlike the 1972 Water Pollution Control Act, the Rivers and Harbors Act does not go on to define the meaning of navigable waters. As a result, the courts have been given primary responsibility for interpreting the meaning of the term. At the time of passage of the act, the essence of the definition was that the regulated waterway forms a continuous water link between States or countries over which commerce "is or may be carried on * * * in the customary modes," The Daniel Ball (10 Wall. 557, 563 (19 L. Ed. 999)). . . .
Although one can conclude, as NWF and the federal defendants would have us do, that congressional inaction implies approval, "(l)ogically several equally tenable inferences could be drawn from the failure of the Congress to adopt an amendment . . . including the inference that the existing legislation already incorporated the offered (amendment)." United States v. Wise, 370 U.S. 405, 411, 82 S. Ct. 1354, 8 L. Ed. 2d 590 (1962), Quoted in Wilderness Society v. Morton, 156 U.S.App.D.C. 121, 138 n.44, 479 F.2d 842, 859 n.44 (D.C. Cir.) (en banc) (Wright, J.), Cert. denied, 411 U.S. 917, 93 S. Ct. 1550, 36 L. Ed. 2d 309 (1973).22 Indeed, one just as easily could point to the 1974 case of Hardy Salt Co. v. Southern Transportation Co., 501 F.2d 1156 (10th Cir.), Cert. denied, 419 U.S. 1033, 95 S. Ct. 515, 42 L. Ed. 2d 308 (1974), and conclude that Congress instead was acquiescing to the ruling of the Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit that navigable waters of the United States requires an interstate connection by water. In sum, we do not believe that Congress's failure to correct all the problems it has found with the Corps' new regulations suggests ratification of the provisions it has not yet addressed. Rather, we believe its voiced dissatisfaction with them indicates disagreement.
NWF and the federal defendants also argue that section 10 is a remedial statute that courts should construe broadly to effect the general congressional intent behind it. See, e. g., Wyandotte Transportation Co. v. United States, 389 U.S. 191, 201, 88 S. Ct. 379, 19 L. Ed. 2d 407 (1967); United States v. Republic Steel Corp., 362 U.S. 482, 491, 80 S. Ct. 884, 4 L. Ed. 2d 903 (1960). We do not believe, however, that reading the statute broadly can avoid the history of the phrase "navigable waters of the United States," a history that gives that term a specific meaning.
The Court expressly found that Congress had based the 1845 statute solely on the admiralty clause and not on its commerce power. See 53 U.S. (12 How.) at 451-53. The final decision to uphold the provision thus rested entirely on the breadth of the admiralty clause. A modern Court might receive more favorably an argument that Congress may exercise an enumerated power under U.S.Const. art. I, § 8 by giving federal courts jurisdiction to hear certain kinds of cases. See National Mut. Ins. Co. v. Tidewater Transfer Co., 337 U.S. 582, 588-604, 69 S. Ct. 1173, 93 L. Ed. 1556 (1949) (opinion of Jackson, J.)
On remand, the circuit court found that the river in its natural state was not navigable due to numerous rapids. The Supreme Court, however, concluded that because improvements and portages permitted it to be used in commerce and because the river emptied into Green Bay, it was a navigable water of the United States. The Montello, 87 U.S. (20 Wall.) 430, 22 L. Ed. 391 (1874)
For other cases, see those cited in Williamette Iron Bridge Co. v. Hatch, 125 U.S. at 8-9, 8 S. Ct. 810
The river itself has never ceased to be a navigable water way of the United States, is now and always has been such; and what is a navigable water way of the United States has been precisely defined by the Supreme Court in the case of (The) Daniel (Ball), 10 Wallace 557 (19 L. Ed. 999):
In so concluding, we find ourselves in agreement with the two other circuits that have addressed this question. See Minnehaha Creek Watershed Dist. v. Hoffman, 597 F.2d 617 (8th Cir. 1979); Hardy Salt Co. v. Southern Transp. Co., 501 F.2d 1156 (10th Cir.), Cert. denied, 419 U.S. 1033, 95 S. Ct. 515, 42 L. Ed. 2d 308 (1974)
We also find support for this conclusion in the Supreme Court's very recent decision in Kaiser Aetna v. United States, --- U.S. ----, 100 S. Ct. 383, 62 L. Ed. 2d 332 (1979). In this case, the Court held that the federal government could not require the owners of a pond, concededly a navigable water of the United States under § 10 because of its connection with the Pacific Ocean, to open it for public use without receiving just compensation. Justices Blackmun, Brennan, and Marshall dissented from this result. In passing, they noted that in determining whether simply being a navigable water of the United States carries with it a requirement of public access, "we quickly may cast aside any distinction based on the qualifying phrase 'of the United States.' As prior cases demonstrate, this phrase is intended to draw the line between waters that may be navigated only intrastate, and those that are subject to navigation in interstate and foreign commerce." Id. at ---- n.4, 100 S. Ct. at 388 n.4 (Blackmun, J., joined by Brennan and Marshall, JJ., dissenting) (citing, Inter alia, The Daniel Ball) .
See, e. g., Philadelphia Co. v. Stimson, 223 U.S. 605, 32 S. Ct. 340, 56 L. Ed. 579 (1912)
See Utah v. United States, 403 U.S. 9, 91 S. Ct. 1775, 29 L. Ed. 2d 279 (1971); United States v. Appalachian Elec. Power Co., 311 U.S. 377, 61 S. Ct. 291, 85 L. Ed. 243 (1940); Arizona v. California, 283 U.S. 423, 51 S. Ct. 522, 75 L. Ed. 1154 (1931); United States v. Utah, 283 U.S. 64, 51 S. Ct. 438, 75 L. Ed. 844 (1931); Economy Light & Power Co. v. United States, 256 U.S. 113, 41 S. Ct. 409, 65 L. Ed. 847 (1921); Leovy v. United States, 177 U.S. 621, 20 S. Ct. 797, 44 L. Ed. 914 (1900). In all these cases, the bodies of water had obvious interstate links by water or the controlling legal standard did not require such a connection. Thus, the Court's decision turned solely on whether they were navigable in fact
NWF and the federal defendants rely to some degree on The Katie, 40 F. 480 (S.D. Ga. 1889), Writ of prohibition denied sub nom. In re Garnett, 141 U.S. 1, 11 S. Ct. 840, 35 L. Ed. 631 (1890). That case, however, arose under a statute applying to "all sea-going vessels, and also to all vessels used on lakes or rivers or in inland navigation . . . ." Act of June 19, 1886, ch. 421, § 4, 24 Stat. 79. The court upheld this language against a constitutional challenge by finding that the commerce power reached all vessels carrying goods that originated in or were destined for other states. The opinion at no time construed a statute using the words "navigable waters of the United States." Thus, The Katie stands only for the proposition that Congress Has power to regulate wholly intrastate lakes that have no interstate connections, a point that the Water Commission concedes. This holding still does not answer the question of whether Congress Has exercised that power
For a discussion of these changes and their application in certain other areas of Corps regulation, see Power, The Fox in the Chicken Coop: The Regulatory Program of the U. S. Army Corps of Engineers, 63 Va. L. Rev. 503, 513-21 (1977)
In Wilderness Society this court used Congress's having voted down an amendment as evidence of its intent. 156 U.S.App.D.C. at 138, 479 F.2d at 859. The court stated that it could infer intent from such an affirmative stand but expressed hesitancy over drawing similar conclusions from Congress's taking no action whatsoever. Id. at 138 n.44, 479 F.2d at 859 n.44 (citing National Automatic Laundry & Cleaning Council v. Shultz, 143 U.S.App.D.C. 274, 291, 443 F.2d 689, 706 (D.C. Cir. 1971)). In the case before us now, we have no instance of express congressional rejection of amendments to narrow the definition of navigable waters of the United States, only proposals on which no action was taken, one way or the other