Opinion ID: 740436
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: MBTA Issues.

Text: 11 The Wildlife Association seeks judicial review of the timber sales under the Administrative Procedure Act, 5 U.S.C. §§ 701 et seq. As a matter of pleading, APA review is a single claim for relief under Fed.R.Civ.P. 8(a). But the Wildlife Association's amended complaint made this lawsuit unnecessarily convoluted by improperly pleading a separate Claim for Relief under each federal statute that, in the Wildlife Association's view, the Forest Service has violated. Thus, its Sixth Claim for Relief alleged that approval of the Buffalo River Timber Sales violates the Migratory Bird Treaty Act (16 U.S.C. § 703 et seq.). After the district court denied preliminary injunctive relief under WSRA, the Wildlife Association filed a second motion for a preliminary injunction, seeking to enjoin implementation of the timber sales on the ground that the Forest Service failed to obtain an MBTA special purpose permit from the United States Fish and Wildlife Service. The district court denied the motion, concluding that it does not have jurisdiction over a separate MBTA claim. One week later, the court granted the Forest Service partial summary judgment and dismissed the Wildlife Association's Sixth Claim for Relief. The Wildlife Association appeals both orders. 12 The Wildlife Association argues that the APA confers jurisdiction to grant injunctive relief under the MBTA. The district court correctly concluded that the Wildlife Association's MBTA claim is barred by Defenders of Wildlife v. Administrator, E.P.A., 882 F.2d 1294 (8th Cir.1989). In Defenders, plaintiffs alleged that the agency violated MBTA when it terminated a proceeding commenced under another statute, known as FIFRA, to cancel strychnine pesticide registrations. After noting that MBTA does not create private rights of action, we rejected plaintiffs' assertion that the APA conferred jurisdiction to consider this claim. Although the APA may state the scope of review, 5 U.S.C. § 706, FIFRA still provides the mechanism for obtaining judicial review. Thus, the APA does not operate separately from FIFRA, but instead as a part of FIFRA. 882 F.2d at 1302-03. In this case, the Wildlife Association's Sixth Claim for Relief fails for the same reason. The Forest Service approved the timber sales acting under the National Forest Management Act (NFMA), 16 U.S.C. §§ 1600 et seq. Jurisdiction to review the sales is conferred by NFMA, not the APA. See Preferred Risk Mut. Ins. Co. v. United States, 86 F.3d 789, 792 (8th Cir.1996). 13 This case differs from Defenders in one important respect. In Defenders, EPA declined to take pesticide registration action under the governing statute, FIFRA. Plaintiffs did not seek review of that failure to act under FIFRA, no doubt because such a challenge would be contrary to the general principle that an agency's decision not to take enforcement action [is] presumed immune from judicial review under [5 U.S.C.] § 701(a)(2). Heckler v. Chaney, 470 U.S. 821, 832, 105 S.Ct. 1649, 1656, 84 L.Ed.2d 714 (1985), followed in Lincoln v. Vigil, 508 U.S. 182, 192-93, 113 S.Ct. 2024, 2031-32, 124 L.Ed.2d 101 (1993). Here, on the other hand, the timber sales are final agency actions subject to judicial review under NFMA. One issue in conducting that review is whether the Forest Service's actions under NFMA are arbitrary, capricious, or contrary to law because the agency ignored or violated its obligations under MBTA. The district court did not address this issue in denying preliminary injunctive relief, perhaps because the Wildlife Association did not squarely raise it. But the issue has been raised on appeal and deserves our attention. 14 Congress passed MBTA in 1918 to implement a treaty between the United States and Great Britain protecting migratory birds in North America. See generally Missouri v. Holland, 252 U.S. 416, 40 S.Ct. 382, 64 L.Ed. 641 (1920). MBTA makes it unlawful, except as permitted by regulations, to pursue, hunt, take, capture, kill, possess, sell, barter, purchase, ship, export, import, transport, or carry specified migratory birds or their nests or eggs. 16 U.S.C. §§ 703, 704. MBTA is a criminal statute: any person, association, partnership, or corporation who violates MBTA or its regulations is guilty of a misdemeanor and may be fined up to $500 and imprisoned for up to six months; those who knowingly take or sell migratory birds in violation of the Act are guilty of a felony. 16 U.S.C. § 707(a), (b). 15 In this case, the Wildlife Association alleges, and the Forest Service concedes, that logging under the timber sales will disrupt nesting migratory birds, killing some. The Wildlife Association argues that the sales therefore violate MBTA's absolute prohibition against killing or taking nesting birds unless the Forest Service obtains a permit under the Fish and Wildlife Service regulations implementing MBTA. We disagree. 16 Initially, we note that MBTA's plain language prohibits conduct directed at migratory birds--pursue, hunt, take, capture, kill, possess, and so forth. The government argues that the statute imposes strict liability on violators, except for felony violations, which under a recent amendment must be done knowingly. Strict liability may be appropriate when dealing with hunters and poachers. But it would stretch this 1918 statute far beyond the bounds of reason to construe it as an absolute criminal prohibition on conduct, such as timber harvesting, that indirectly results in the death of migratory birds. Thus, we agree with the Ninth Circuit that the ambiguous terms take and kill in 16 U.S.C. § 703 mean physical conduct of the sort engaged in by hunters and poachers, conduct which was undoubtedly a concern at the time of the statute's enactment in 1918. Seattle Audubon Soc'y v. Evans, 952 F.2d 297, 302 (9th Cir.1991); accord Mahler v. United States Forest Serv., 927 F.Supp. 1559, 1573-74 (S.D.Ind.1996); Citizens Interested in Bull Run, Inc. v. Edrington, 781 F.Supp. 1502, 1509-10 (D.Or.1991). 17 In addition, we agree with the Forest Service that MBTA does not appear to apply to the actions of federal government agencies. MBTA sanctions apply to any person, association, partnership, or corporation, 16 U.S.C. § 707(a). Since, in common usage, the term 'person' does not include the sovereign, statutes employing the phrase are ordinarily construed to exclude it. United States v. Cooper Corp., 312 U.S. 600, 604, 61 S.Ct. 742, 743, 85 L.Ed. 1071 (1941); see Will v. Michigan Dept. of State Police, 491 U.S. 58, 64, 109 S.Ct. 2304, 2308, 105 L.Ed.2d 45 (1989). The Wildlife Association argues that MBTA must apply to federal agencies if our Nation is to meet its obligations under the 1916 treaty. But the government's duty to obey the treaty arises from the treaty itself; the statute extends that duty to private persons. This is confirmed by Article VIII of the treaty: The High Contracting Powers agree themselves to take, or propose to their respective appropriate law-making bodies, the necessary measures for insuring the execution of the present Convention. CONVENTION BETWEEN THE UNITED STATES & GREAT BRITAIN FOR THE PROTECTION OF MIGRATORY BIRDS, Art. VIII, 39 Stat. 1702, 1704 (1916) (emphasis added). 18 Our conclusions about the apparent scope of MBTA are necessarily tentative because we lack the views of the Fish and Wildlife Service, the agency charged with administering and enforcing that statute. This regulatory vacuum exposes the most serious flaw in the Wildlife Association's claim that the timber sales violate MBTA. The Wildlife Association argues that the Forest Service must apply for and obtain the special purpose permit described in the Fish and Wildlife Service's MBTA regulations. But the permitting regulation, though potentially broad, does not on its face apply to the Forest Service or other federal agencies. See 50 C.F.R. § 21.27. The Wildlife Association has no authority suggesting that the Fish and Wildlife Service generally requires the Forest Service to obtain this permit for its timber sales. Nor has the Fish and Wildlife Service expressed that view in this proceeding, before either the agency or the reviewing courts, for example, by seeking to intervene or submitting a brief amicus curiae. 19 In substance, the Wildlife Association urges this court to enjoin timber sales because the Forest Service did not obtain a permit that the Fish and Wildlife Service does not require. Thus, the Wildlife Association's real dispute is with the Fish and Wildlife Service, for that agency's failure to enforce MBTA against Forest Service timber sales in the manner the Wildlife Association desires. But the Wildlife Association has not asserted that claim, which would run afoul of the Heckler v. Chaney presumption that agency failure to take enforcement action is not subject to APA review. Whatever the reason the Fish and Wildlife Service does not require the Forest Service to obtain MBTA permits, this enforcement policy is committed to agency discretion and is not a proper subject of judicial review. 20 For the foregoing reasons, the district court's orders of April 8, 1996, and July 29, 1996, denying the Wildlife Association's motions for a preliminary injunction are affirmed. Because the reasons for denying injunctive relief under MBTA are inextricably intertwined with the district court's August 5, 1996, order dismissing the Wildlife Association's Sixth Claim for Relief, we have jurisdiction to consider the Wildlife Association's interlocutory appeal of that order, and it too is affirmed.