Opinion ID: 185305
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The ISDA

Text: 13 Yukon also argues that it is exempt from the NLRA pursuant to S 2(2) because that provision exempts the United States and here Yukon stepped into the shoes of and acts exactly for, and as, the United States because it operates a federal hospital pursuant to a government-togovernment compact authorized under the ISDA.  Additionally, Yukon argues that for the Board to assert jurisdiction over it would undermine the purpose of the ISDA, namely, to increase tribal self-governance. 14 In the decision under review the Board mentioned but dismissed the ISDA in a single sentence: 15 We further reject the Employer's contention that it is exempt from coverage because in light of the government-to-government Compact delegating Federal functions to the tribes on Federal property reserved and intended for that purpose, the Employer functions as an arm to [sic] the United States, and is, thus, an 'integral part of the government of the United States as a whole. 16 328 NLRB No. 101 at 4. The Board then repeated its conclusion that it has limited tribes' exemption under S 2(2) to situations in which the tribal enterprise is located on the reservation. Id. (emphasis in original). The Board appears simply to have misunderstood the tribe's argument here, which is that its exemption derives not from its own sovereignty as an entity akin to a State or political subdivision but, rather, from the exemption granted to the United States. For the Board to limit to the confines of an Indian reservation the exemption granted to the United States makes no sense. Additionally, the Board wholly failed to address Yukon's argument that asserting jurisdiction over the hospital would directly contraven[e] the ISDA's goal of increasing tribal self-governance. 17 As this court explained in New York Shipping v. Federal Maritime Commission, 854 F.2d 1338, 1370 (1988): 18 [A]n agency, faced with alternative methods of effectuating the policies of the statute it administers, (1) must engage in a careful analysis of the possible effects those alternative courses of action may have on the functioning and policies of other statutory regimes, with which a conflict is claimed; and (2) must explain why the action taken minimizes, to the extent possible, its intrusion into policies that are more properly the province of another agency or statutory regime. 19 The ISDA is undoubtedly intended to remove tribal programs from federal oversight. See Oklahoma Tax Comm'n v. Citizen Band Potawatomi Indian Tribe, 498 U.S. 505, 510 (1991) (noting that ISDA reflect[s] Congress'[s] desire to promote the goal of Indian self-government). Indeed, in the amendments to the ISDA enacted while this case was on review, the Congress renewed its commitment to Indian self determination. See Tribal Self-Governance Amendments of 2000, P.L. 106-260, 114 Stat. 711 S 2(3) (Aug. 18, 2000). 20 The Board's one-sentence rejection of Yukon's arguments from the ISDA both relies upon what, in this context, is an irrelevant distinction and ignores the Board's obligation to address and to minimize conflict with another statutory regime with which a disparity is claimed. Although the General Counsel of the Board, in her argument before this court, addressed in somewhat greater detail the Board's possible reasons for rejecting Yukon's arguments from the ISDA,  'courts may not accept appellate counsel's post hoc rationalizations for agency action.'  NLRB v. Metropolitan Life. Ins., 380 U.S. 438, 444 (1965) (quoting Burlington Truck Lines v. United States, 371 U.S. 156, 168 (1962)). 21 The Board's inadequate attention to the ISDA requires that we remand this matter to the agency for further consideration. See, e.g., Iowa v. FCC, 218 F.3d 756 (D.C. Cir. 2000) (remanding for agency to address potentially dispositive argument). On remand, the agency must determine whether Yukon qualifies as the United States for purposes of S 2(2); in reaching its conclusion, the Board will need to consider what allowance, if any, the NLRA must make in order to accommodate federal Indian law, as reflected in the ISDA. As we noted in New York Shipping, our review of such a determination remains a matter of checking the [Board] against the terms of the [labor] laws. This is precisely the type of appellate exercise governed by Chevron; our review must be correlatively deferential. 854 F.2d at 1364. It is for the agency, therefore, to consider the petitioner's argument in the first instance.