Opinion ID: 6353575
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Apache Stronghold’s Primary RFRA Argument

Text: With this background in mind, we turn to Apache Stronghold’s arguments. Apache Stronghold’s main argument is that the Land Exchange would hand Oak Flat over to Resolution Copper for the latter’s mining plan, thus incidentally making it “impossible” for Apache Stronghold’s members to worship on Oak Flat and thereby substantially burdening them. Even assuming that the Land Exchange would in fact make Apache Stronghold’s members worship “impossible,” this argument cannot succeed in light of Navajo Nation. The Land Exchange’s effect on Apache Stronghold’s members falls outside of the Sherbert/Yoder framework and thus outside of RFRA’s definition of a substantial burden. Under RFRA, the government imposes a substantial burden on religion in two—and only two—circumstances: when the government “force[s individuals] to choose between following the tenets of their religion and receiving a governmental benefit” and when the government “coerce[s individuals] to act contrary to their religious beliefs by the threat of civil or criminal sanctions.” Id. at 1070. Here, the government will do neither by transferring Oak Flat to Resolution Copper. No government benefits will be lost (as in Sherbert) nor will governmental penalties be imposed (as in Yoder). The Department of Agriculture will simply transfer ownership of a plot of government land to Resolution Copper. The Land Exchange’s “incidental effects” on the religious exercise of Apache Stronghold’s members, as significant as they may be to the Apache, “may make it more difficult [for them] to practice [their religion] but [will] have no tendency to coerce [the Apache] into 26 APACHE STRONGHOLD V. UNITED STATES acting contrary to their religious beliefs.” Lyng, 485 U.S. at 450–51. Hence, under RFRA the Land Exchange imposes no substantial burden and RFRA thus does not limit the government’s ability to complete the Land Exchange. This is true even if the Land Exchange makes worship on Oak Flat “impossible.” The government makes exercises of religion more difficult all the time. Doing so is not inherently coercive. As one example, the United States has a special visa program for “[m]inisters of [r]religion.” See Visas for Immigrant Religious Workers, U.S. Dep’t of State, https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/us-visas/immigrate/ visa-religious-workers.html (last visited June 15, 2022). When the government denies one of these visas, the government no doubt makes it more difficult for that minister’s following to exercise their faith. But the visa denial does not coerce those followers by threatening them with a negative outcome (i.e., a penalty or the denial of a governmental benefit) if they continue to worship despite that hardship. So too here: the Land Exchange does not coerce the Apache to abandon their religion by threatening them with a negative outcome. Accordingly, Apache Stronghold’s members have not established that they would suffer a substantial burden under RFRA. Apache Stronghold is not likely to succeed on its RFRA claim. Between them, Apache Stronghold and the dissent offer three arguments in response. First, the dissent argues that Navajo Nation misread RFRA and should have held that the definition of a “substantial burden” under RFRA extends beyond the Sherbert/Yoder framework. Second, both the dissent and Apache Stronghold contend that Navajo Nation contains exceptions that permit the panel to find a substantial burden here. And third, the dissent would hold that intervening Supreme Court precedent since Navajo Nation APACHE STRONGHOLD V. UNITED STATES 27 is “clearly irreconcilable” with Navajo Nation, permitting the panel to disregard Navajo Nation in its entirety. Miller v. Gammie, 335 F.3d 889, 893 (9th Cir. 2003) (en banc). None of these responses persuades us. The dissent first argues that Navajo Nation misread RFRA in concluding that RFRA defines a “substantial burden” as those burdens falling within the Sherbert/Yoder framework. As an initial matter, our en banc decision in Navajo Nation binds this panel—we cannot overrule Navajo Nation even if we do not agree with it. See Robbins v. Carey, 481 F.3d 1143, 1149 n.3 (9th Cir. 2007). But even considering the points that the dissent raises as grounds for overruling Navajo Nation, we find them unconvincing. At the outset, the dissent contends that RFRA was not “concern[ed]” with defining a “substantial burden” but instead with “ensuring that the compelling interest standard would be applied once a substantial burden had been demonstrated.” Dissent at 61. In support, the dissent notes that RFRA “offers no definition” of a “substantial burden.” Id. We do not agree. The two cases that RFRA explicitly cited and “restored”—Sherbert and Yoder—both defined the “compelling interest” test and set out the two burdens that satisfy the predicate “substantial burden” inquiry: a penalty imposed and a governmental benefit denied. Navajo Nation, 535 F.3d at 1069. Moreover, the phrase “substantial burden” was not defined in RFRA’s text but was a term of art in Free Exercise Clause doctrine that referred to those same two burdens set out in Sherbert and Yoder. See id. at 1074. With this background in mind, the best reading of RFRA’s text is that RFRA “restore[d]” both Sherbert and Yoder’s “compelling interest” test and their “substantial burden” inquiry. 42 U.S.C. § 2000bb(b)(1). RFRA both explicitly 28 APACHE STRONGHOLD V. UNITED STATES adopted Sherbert and Yoder’s “compelling interest” test and, in the same sentence, used the term of art “substantial burden,” a related concept also based on those two cases. Id. It would make no sense for RFRA to do all of this, only to silently reject the definition that those same two cases gave that same term of art. We thus have no need to concoct our own definition of a “substantial burden,” distinct from the one that Congress chose. The dissent also argues that Navajo Nation’s “substantial burden” definition “lacks a basis in pre-Smith precedent.” Dissent at 64. Not so. The dissent has identified some cases where courts may have suggested that Free Exercise Clause violations could fall outside of the Sherbert/Yoder “substantial burden” framework. But the two cases that RFRA specifically “restore[d]” and cited in its very text were indeed Sherbert and Yoder. 42 U.S.C. § 2000bb(b)(1). Relying on that statutory text, Navajo Nation rightly focused on the burdens on religion imposed in those two cases. Moreover, the cases that the dissent cites all predate Lyng, which confirmed that under Free Exercise doctrine, the Sherbert/Yoder framework defines the scope of a “substantial burden.” See Lyng, 485 U.S. at 449 (noting that the government imposes no substantial burden unless “affected individuals [are] coerced by the Government’s action into violating their religious beliefs” or “governmental action penalize[s] religious activity by denying any person an equal share of the rights, benefits, and privileges enjoyed by other citizens”). Before Lyng made this clear, it is perhaps not surprising that Free Exercise cases occasionally diverged from that framework. Further, and as noted above, the Supreme Court’s postLyng but pre-Smith Free Exercise doctrine reinforces Navajo Nation’s understanding of the scope of a “substantial APACHE STRONGHOLD V. UNITED STATES 29 burden.” Pre-Smith, the Free Exercise Clause applied only when the government “placed a substantial burden” on religious exercise. Hernandez, 490 U.S. at 699. And a “substantial burden” referred only to burdens within the Sherbert/Yoder framework. See Lyng, 485 U.S. at 449; Jimmy Swaggart Ministries, 493 U.S. at 391–92. With the above in mind, we also reject the dissent’s suggestion that Navajo Nation “constricted” the definition of a “substantial burden” relative to pre-Smith Free Exercise Clause doctrine. Dissent at 67. As just shown, and setting aside the potential outliers that the dissent identified, preSmith Free Exercise Clause doctrine already defined a “substantial burden” as only those burdens that fall within the Sherbert/Yoder framework: coercion caused by the government either imposing a penalty or denying a benefit. See Lyng, 485 U.S. at 449; Jimmy Swaggart Ministries, 493 U.S. at 391–92. So, when Navajo Nation recognized that this same framework also defines the scope of a “substantial burden” under RFRA, Navajo Nation did not narrow or constrict the definition of a “substantial burden.” Rather, Navajo Nation stayed faithful to a substantial burden’s already settled scope. The dissent also points to the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (“RLUIPA”), 42 U.S.C. § 2000cc et seq, as evidence that “the definition of ‘substantial burden’ [under RFRA] includes the denial of access to religious locations and resources.” Dissent at 69. RLUIPA imposes RFRA’s “compelling interest” test on substantial burdens on religion in two specific contexts: prison and local land use regulation. See 42 U.S.C. §§ 2000cc, 2000cc-1. Yet we disagree with the dissent here too: RLUIPA’s definition of a “substantial burden” casts no doubt on how 30 APACHE STRONGHOLD V. UNITED STATES Navajo Nation defined that term as to RFRA. We have previously interpreted a “substantial burden” under RLUIPA to be defined not by the Sherbert/Yoder framework but by the “plain meaning” of the phrase “substantial burden.” San Jose Christian Coll. v. City of Morgan Hill, 360 F.3d 1024, 1034 (9th Cir. 2004). But unlike RFRA, RLUIPA’s text does not even mention, much less cite, either Sherbert or Yoder. Compare 42 U.S.C. §§ 2000cc, 2000cc-1, with id. § 2000bb. So Navajo Nation’s key inference—that a “substantial burden” under RFRA is defined by the burdens in Sherbert and Yoder—does not carry over to RLUIPA. While a “substantial burden” under RLUIPA is defined by the “plain meaning” of the phrase “substantial burden,” San Jose Christian Coll, 360 F.3d at 1034, Navajo Nation correctly held otherwise as to RFRA. The dissent also equates the two contexts covered by RLUIPA—prisons and local land regulation—to situations involving “Native American sacred sites located on government land.” Dissent at 62. In all three contexts, the dissent contends, the government substantially burdens religion by “denying access” to “religious locations and resources.” Id. at 63. But while RLUIPA covers the first two contexts (again, prisons and local land regulation), the third context—the context actually at issue here—falls to RFRA. Compare 42 U.S.C. §§ 2000cc, 2000cc-1, with id. § 2000bb-1. RFRA’s definition of a “substantial burden” thus governs here, regardless what the dissent’s RLUIPA cases say, because the Land Exchange involves neither prisons nor local land regulation. See also Navajo Nation, 535 F.3d at 1077 (“RLUIPA is inapplicable to this case . . . . RLUIPA applies only to government land-use regulations of private land—such as zoning laws—not to the government’s management of its own land.”). For all these reasons, we APACHE STRONGHOLD V. UNITED STATES 31 reject the dissent’s argument that Navajo Nation misread the scope of a “substantial burden” under RFRA. Second, Apache Stronghold and the dissent both argue that even under Navajo Nation, the Land Exchange may substantially burden religious exercise. Both reach this conclusion two ways. Neither approach persuades us. They first seize onto a statement from Navajo Nation that any “burden imposed on the exercise of religion short of that described by Sherbert and Yoder is not a ‘substantial burden’ within the meaning of RFRA,” 535 F.3d at 1070 (emphasis added), and argue that the Land Exchange constitutes a substantial burden because it imposes a “greater burden on religious exercise” than that imposed in Yoder or Sherbert. Dissent at 71. Shorn of context, the “short of” phrase to which the dissent and Apache Stronghold point might conceivably support their interpretation. But considered with the rest of the opinion, that phrase does not. Properly understood, Navajo Nation did not set out a quantitative floor for a “substantial burden” such that all “greater” burdens qualify. Rather, Navajo Nation singled out two specific qualitative burdens—denying a benefit or imposing a penalty—that together form the complete universe of “substantial burdens” under RFRA. For evidence, look no farther than the sentence immediately before the “short of” phrase, which reads: “Under RFRA, a ‘substantial burden’ is imposed only when individuals are forced to choose between following the tenets of their religion and receiving a governmental benefit (Sherbert) or coerced to act contrary to their religious beliefs by the threat of civil or criminal sanctions (Yoder).” Navajo Nation, 535 F.3d at 1069–70 (emphasis added). Further proving this point, immediately after the “short of” phrase Navajo Nation applies the test that it announced in the preceding sentences: 32 APACHE STRONGHOLD V. UNITED STATES “[T]here is no ‘substantial burden’ on the Plaintiffs’ exercise of religion in this case. The [challenged government action] does not force the Plaintiffs to choose between following the tenets of their religion and receiving a governmental benefit, as in Sherbert. The [challenged action] also does not coerce the Plaintiffs to act contrary to their religion under the threat of civil or criminal sanctions, as in Yoder.” Id. at 1070. Navajo Nation did not further ask if the Forest Service had imposed a burden greater than that imposed in Sherbert or Yoder, reinforcing that such a step is not necessary. Other passages in Navajo Nation similarly belie the dissent and Apache Stronghold’s reading of the case. 9 Accurately read, Navajo Nation recognized that the government imposes a substantial burden under RFRA only when the government denies the delivery of a benefit (as in Sherbert) or imposes a penalty (as in Yoder). The “short of” language did not change the character or type of government action that is required to constitute a “substantial burden” under RFRA. Apache Stronghold and the dissent contend also that both Navajo Nation and Lyng are limited to cases where the government action would interfere with “subjective spiritual experience,” not cases where the government “objectively and severely interfere[s] with a plaintiff’s access to religious locations or resources.” Dissent at 72 (quoting Navajo Nation, 535 F.3d at 1063). (Apache Stronghold’s 9 See, e.g., Navajo Nation, 535 F.3d. at 1075 (“In the pre-Smith cases adopted in RFRA, the Supreme Court has found a substantial burden on the exercise of religion only when the burden fell within the Sherbert/Yoder framework.”) (emphasis added); id. at 1067 (“The presence of recycled wastewater on the Peaks does not coerce the Plaintiffs to act contrary to their religious beliefs under the threat of sanctions, nor does it condition a governmental benefit upon conduct that would violate their religious beliefs, as required to establish a ‘substantial burden’ on religious exercise under RFRA.” (emphasis added)). APACHE STRONGHOLD V. UNITED STATES 33 formulation of the same idea is that Navajo Nation and Lyng do not apply to cases involving a “physical impact” on land.) Because Resolution Copper’s mining plan would have such an “objective” or “physical” impact here, they argue that Navajo Nation and Lyng do not control. True enough, in dicta, Navajo Nation pointed out that the challenged government action would not make any “places of worship . . . inaccessible” or physically affect any “religious ceremonies.” 535 F.3d at 1063. Similarly, dicta in Lyng states that “[n]o sites where specific rituals take place were to be disturbed.” 485 U.S. at 454. But neither case is as narrow as the dissent and Apache Stronghold suggest. Neither Navajo Nation nor Lyng turned on whether the challenged government action “objectively” interfered with religious exercise or “physically” affected sacred land. The rule that Navajo Nation drew from RFRA’s text and from “Sherbert, Yoder, and federal court rulings prior to Smith” was clear: “Under RFRA, a ‘substantial burden’ is imposed only when individuals are forced to choose between following the tenets of their religion and receiving a governmental benefit (Sherbert) or coerced to act contrary to their religious beliefs by the threat of civil or criminal sanctions (Yoder).” Id. at 1069–70 (emphasis added). This rule contains no exception for when the government neither imposes a penalty nor denies a benefit but “objectively” or “physically” interferes with religious exercise. A close examination of the claimed burden on religion in Lyng further refutes the dissent and Apache Stronghold’s argument. It was true that “[n]o sites where specific rituals take place were to be disturbed.” Lyng, 485 U.S. at 454. But those opposed to the government action argued that “the proposed road w[ould] ‘physically destroy the environmental conditions and the privacy without which the 34 APACHE STRONGHOLD V. UNITED STATES [American Indian] religious practices [could not] be conducted.’” Id. at 449. And even so—despite this “objective,” “physical” impact that could “virtually destroy” the American Indians’ “ability to practice their religion,” the Supreme Court found no substantial burden there. 10 See id. In sum, we cannot differentiate between physical and intangible damage to religious sites as Apache Stronghold asks because the Sherbert/Yoder framework turns on the nature of government action, not on the severity of the government’s encroachment on a religious site. See Lyng, 485 U.S. at 451 (noting that the substantial burden inquiry “cannot depend on measuring the effects of a governmental action” on religious exercise”); Navajo Nation, 535 F.3d at 1070 n.12 (“[I]n Yoder, it was not the effect . . . on the children’s subjective religious sensibilities that constituted the undue burden on the free exercise of religion. Rather, the undue burden was the penalty of criminal sanctions on the parents.”); accord Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc., 573 U.S. 682, 723–24 (2014) (noting that courts have “have no business addressing” whether the RFRA substantial burden analysis changes if a religious adherent would only be forced 10 Apache Stronghold also notes that in Lyng, the Supreme Court remarked that “a law prohibiting the Indian [plaintiffs] from visiting the Chimney Rock area would raise a different set of constitutional questions.” 485 U.S. at 453. But the full sentence reads: “The Constitution does not permit government to discriminate against religions that treat particular physical sites as sacred, and a law prohibiting the Indian respondents from visiting the [sacred] area would raise a different set of constitutional questions.” Id. Context thus makes clear that the Court was referring to discriminatory prohibitions on access. And even if Apache Stronghold were right that a nondiscriminatory access prohibition raises a “different set” of legal questions than those covered in Lyng, Navajo Nation answers those questions. Again, unless the government imposes a penalty or denies a benefit, the government imposes no substantial burden under RFRA. See Navajo Nation, 535 F.3d at 1069–70. APACHE STRONGHOLD V. UNITED STATES 35 to participate in a religiously prohibited act in an “attenuated” way). If any doubts about Navajo Nation’s meaning survive the arguments above, the many Ninth Circuit cases that have applied Navajo Nation put those doubts to rest. These cases—including one written by the author of the dissent— betray no confusion about Navajo Nation’s “substantial burden” holding: “Under RFRA, a ‘substantial burden’ is imposed only when individuals are forced to choose between following the tenets of their religion and receiving a governmental benefit . . . or coerced to act contrary to their religious beliefs by the threat of civil or criminal sanctions.” Fazaga v. Fed. Bureau of Investigation, 965 F.3d 1015, 1061 (9th Cir. 2020) (Berzon, J.) (emphasis added) (quoting Navajo Nation, 535 F.3d at 1069–70), rev’d on other grounds by 142 S. Ct. 1051 (2022). 11 11 See also Does v. Wasden, 982 F.3d 784, 794 n.3 (9th Cir. 2020) (“Under RFRA, by contrast, ‘a “substantial burden” is imposed only when individuals are forced to choose between following the tenets of their religion and receiving a governmental benefit . . . or are coerced to act contrary to their religious beliefs by the threat of civil or criminal sanctions.’” (quoting Navajo Nation, 535 F.3d at 1069–70)); Oklevueha Native Am. Church of Hawaii, Inc. v. Lynch, 828 F.3d 1012, 1016 (9th Cir. 2016) (“[W]e have held that a substantial burden under RFRA exists in a context such as this one ‘only when individuals are . . . coerced to act contrary to their religious beliefs by the threat of civil or criminal sanctions . . . .’” (quoting Navajo Nation, 535 F.3d at 1070)); RuizDiaz v. United States, 703 F.3d 483, 486 (9th Cir. 2012) (“We have held that the government imposes a substantial burden ‘only when individuals are forced to choose between following the tenets of their religion and receiving a governmental benefit or coerced to act contrary to their religious beliefs by the threat of civil or criminal sanctions.’” (quoting Navajo Nation, 535 F.3d at 1070)); Snoqualmie Indian Tribe v. FERC, 545 F.3d 1207, 1214–15 (9th Cir. 2008) (“[W]e have not found any evidence demonstrating that Snoqualmie Tribe members will lose a 36 APACHE STRONGHOLD V. UNITED STATES As the dissent notes, none of these post-Navajo Nation cases addressed the precise facts at issue here. Dissent at 72 n.4. None need have. RFRA defined a “substantial burden” according to the Sherbert/Yoder framework. See Navajo Nation, 535 F.3d at 1069–70. This is an across-the-board definition that applies in all cases under the statute, not a “restricted railroad ticket, good for th[at] day and train only.” Smith v. Allwright, 321 U.S. 649, 669 (Roberts, J., dissenting) (1944). And dispositive here, this definition contains no exceptions for burdens on religion thought to be quantitatively “greater” than the burdens in Sherbert and Yoder or for burdens that neither impose a penalty nor deny a benefit but “objectively” or “physically” interfere with religious exercise in an incidental way. Apache Stronghold (but not the dissent) also points to a scattered set of cases that apply a definition of “substantial burden” in a manner broader than the Sherbert/Yoder framework. 12 But for a variety of reasons, these cases do not government benefit or face criminal or civil sanctions for practicing their religion. We therefore hold that . . . FERC’s decision relicensing the project . . . does not impose a substantial burden under RFRA on the tribal members’ ability to exercise their religion, as we have defined substantial burden in Navajo Nation.”). 12 Apache Stronghold also argues briefly that RFRA’s legislative history supports its reading of the statute. Regardless whether legislative history is a valid tool of statutory interpretation, neither House reports nor “discussion in Congress” can overcome RFRA’s clear text and explicit statutory purpose, as applied in Navajo Nation. See 42 U.S.C. § 2000bb(b); Navajo Nation, 535 F.3d at 1069–70 (“Under RFRA, a ‘substantial burden’ is imposed only when individuals are forced to choose between following the tenets of their religion and receiving a governmental benefit (Sherbert) or coerced to act contrary to their religious beliefs by the threat of civil or criminal sanctions (Yoder).”). And in any event, other legislative history, were we to consider it, APACHE STRONGHOLD V. UNITED STATES 37 affect our interpretation of Navajo Nation. As an initial matter, even were courts from other circuits to take approaches different than ours in Navajo Nation, Navajo Nation binds this panel and this Circuit. 13 But turning to the substance of the in-circuit cases that Apache Stronghold cites, they either interpret RFRA but predate Navajo Nation 14 or interpret not RFRA but RLUIPA instead. 15 To the extent our pre-Navajo Nation RFRA cases defined a “substantial burden” differently than did Navajo Nation, our later en banc decision in Navajo Nation controls. See Robbins, 481 F.3d at 1149 n.3. And the RLUIPA cases are similarly unpersuasive. As we have explained, we have interpreted RFRA and RLUIPA to apply different substantial burden standards. Compare Navajo Nation, 535 F.3d at 1069–70 (“Under RFRA, a ‘substantial burden’ is supports the government’s position instead. See S. Rep. No. 103-111, at 9 (1993) (“[P]re-Smith case law makes it clear that strict scrutiny does not apply to government actions involving only management of internal Government affairs or the use of the Government’s own property or resources.” (emphasis added)). 13 As a three-judge panel, we are bound by circuit precedent like Navajo Nation. See Robbins, 481 F.3d at 1149 n.3. We thus cannot rely on conflicting out-of-circuit cases like Comanche Nation v. United States, No. 08-00849, 2008 WL 4426621 (W.D. Okla. Sept. 23, 2008), and Yellowbear v. Lampert, 741 F.3d 48 (10th Cir. 2014). 14 See, e.g., United States v. Antoine, 318 F.3d 919 (9th Cir. 2003); Mockaitis v. Harcleroad, 104 F.3d 1522 (9th Cir. 1997). 15 See, e.g., Johnson v. Baker, 23 F.4th 1209 (9th Cir. 2022); Jones v. Slade, 23 F.4th 1124 (9th Cir. 2022); Int’l Church of Foursquare Gospel v. City of San Leandro, 673 F.3d 1059 (9th Cir. 2011); Greene v. Solano Cnty. Jail, 513 F.3d 982 (9th Cir. 2008); Guru Nanak Sikh Soc’y of Yuba City v. County of Sutter, 456 F.3d 978 (9th Cir. 2006); Warsoldier v. Woodford, 418 F.3d 989 (9th Cir. 2005); San Jose Christian Coll. v. City of Morgan Hill, 360 F.3d 1024 (9th Cir. 2004). 38 APACHE STRONGHOLD V. UNITED STATES imposed only when individuals are forced to choose between following the tenets of their religion and receiving a governmental benefit (Sherbert) or coerced to act contrary to their religious beliefs by the threat of civil or criminal sanctions (Yoder).”), with San Jose Christian Coll., 360 F.3d at 1035 (holding that under RLUIPA, the government imposes a “substantial burden” on religion when it “imposes a ‘significantly great’ restriction or onus” on religious exercise). Apache Stronghold’s RLUIPA cases thus give us no guidance for how to interpret the phrase “substantial burden” under RFRA. 16 Last, the dissent argues that Navajo Nation is “clearly irreconcilable” with recent Supreme Court precedent, allowing the panel to ignore Navajo Nation entirely. Dissent at 74 (quoting Miller, 335 F.3d at 900). Miller does permit Ninth Circuit panels to treat as “effectively overruled” any Ninth Circuit cases that are “clearly irreconcilable” with “intervening Supreme Court authority.” 335 F.3d at 900. But the “‘clearly irreconcilable’ requirement ‘is a high standard.’” Fed. Trade Comm’n v. Consumer Def., LLC, 926 F.3d 1208, 1213 (9th Cir. 2019) (quoting Rodriguez v. AT & T Mobility Servs. LLC, 728 F.3d 975, 979 (9th Cir. 2013)). If, as a panel, “we can apply our precedent consistently with that of the higher authority, we must do so.” Consumer Def., 926 F.3d at 1213. In our view, Navajo Nation is fully reconcilable with the Supreme Court’s recent cases. The dissent highlights 16 Apache Stronghold responds to this point by claiming that RFRA and RLUIPA impose the “same standard.” Holt v. Hobbs, 574 U.S. 352, 358 (2015) (quoting Gonzales v. O Centro Espírita Beneficente Uniõ do Vegetal, 546 U.S. 418, 436 (2006)). We address this point below. See post at 39–40. APACHE STRONGHOLD V. UNITED STATES 39 Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc., 573 U.S. 682 (2014), Holt v. Hobbs, 574 U.S. 352 (2015), and Ramirez v. Collier, 142 S. Ct. 1264 (2022). To this list we add Tanzin v. Tanvir, 141 S. Ct. 486 (2020), a case that Apache Stronghold cites, and Trinity Lutheran Church of Columbia, Inc. v. Comer, 137 S. Ct. 2012 (2017). When we compare these cases to Navajo Nation, we do not see any clear irreconcilability. Turning first to Hobby Lobby, that case does not contradict Navajo Nation’s “substantial burden” holding. Hobby Lobby held that closely held corporations can maintain a RFRA claim but it provided no comprehensive definition of “substantial burden.” See 573 U.S. at 719. In fact, Hobby Lobby framed a substantial burden in precisely the way Navajo Nation did: Hobby Lobby suffered a substantial burden because it would have had to “pay an enormous sum of money” to the government—a government penalty—“if [it] insist[ed] on providing insurance coverage in accordance with their religious beliefs.” Id. at 726. As the dissent rightly notes, Hobby Lobby made clear that RFRA claims need not perfectly track pre-Smith Free Exercise doctrine in every single way. RFRA plaintiffs are not limited to those who “fell within a category of plaintiffs [who] had brought a free-exercise claim that [the Supreme] Court entertained in the years before Smith” because RFRA did not “merely restore[ the Supreme] Court’s pre-Smith decisions in ossified form.” Id. at 715–16. But Navajo Nation did not assume otherwise. Rather, Navajo Nation observed that RFRA, by its own terms, “restore[d]” pre-Smith Free Exercise doctrine in a single, limited way: it incorporated Sherbert and Yoder’s “compelling interest test” and predicate “substantial burden” inquiry. 42 U.S.C. § 2000bb(b)(1); Navajo Nation, 535 F.3d at 1068. So, because “we can apply [Navajo Nation] 40 APACHE STRONGHOLD V. UNITED STATES consistently with [Hobby Lobby],” “we must do so.” Consumer Def., 926 F.3d at 1213. Next is Holt. There, the Supreme Court stated that RLUIPA “allows prisoners ‘to seek religious accommodations pursuant to the same standard as set forth in RFRA.’” 574 U.S. at 358 (quoting Gonzales v. O Centro Espírita Beneficente Uniõ do Vegetal, 546 U.S. 418, 436 (2006)). From this connection, the dissent argues that RFRA, like RLUIPA, recognizes a “substantial burden” “when the government denies access to religious locations or resources.” Dissent at 64. But we do not read Holt’s dicta to support the dissent’s position. This quotation from Holt is best read as applying to the “compelling interest” test— that is, the stage of the RFRA (and RLUIPA) analysis at which individuals “seek religious accommodations” and have those accommodations assessed against the government’s justification—not as applying to the predicate “substantial burden” stage. The dissent seems to recognize this nuance as well, observing that “RLUIPA sets forth the ‘same standard’ for evaluating governmental justifications for imposing substantial burdens on religion as RFRA— strict scrutiny.” Dissent at 68–69. Further, the actual “substantial burden” standard that Holt applied matches the Sherbert/Yoder framework almost perfectly. Holt challenged a prison grooming policy that required him to “shave his beard and thus to ‘engage in conduct that seriously violates his religious beliefs.’” Holt, 574 U.S. at 361 (quoting Hobby Lobby, 573 U.S. at 720). If Holt violated that policy, he would “face serious disciplinary action” and the Supreme Court reasoned that “[b]ecause the grooming policy puts [Holt] to this choice, it substantially burdens his religious exercise.” Id. The Sherbert/Yoder “substantial burden” framework includes situations when APACHE STRONGHOLD V. UNITED STATES 41 individuals are “coerced to act contrary to their religious beliefs by the threat of civil or criminal sanctions.” Navajo Nation, 535 F.3d at 1070. The government action in Holt— requiring a prisoner to violate his religious beliefs or “face serious disciplinary action,” 574 U.S. at 361—falls squarely within that framework. So here, too, “we can apply our precedent consistently with that of the higher authority.” Consumer Def., 926 F.3d at 1213. For similar reasons, we dismiss the dissent’s appeal to Ramirez. First, Ramirez was a RLUIPA case, not a RFRA case. And more pointedly, the scope of a “substantial burden” under either statute was explicitly not at issue. The government “d[id] not dispute that any burden [its] policy impose[d] on Ramirez’s religious exercise [wa]s substantial,” and Ramirez accordingly provided no analysis whatsoever concerning the scope of a substantial burden. 17 142 S. Ct. at 1278. Instead, the Court simply cited Holt, which (as noted above) framed a “substantial burden” consistent with those discussed in Navajo Nation. See id.; ante at 40–41; Holt, 574 U.S. at 361. Finally, Apache Stronghold points to Tanzin v. Tanvir, 141 S. Ct. 486 (2020), in which the Supreme Court held that RFRA “permits litigants . . . to obtain money damages against federal officials in their individual capacities.” Id. at 17 The dissent suggests that both Ramirez’s “locution” and ultimate outcome in Ramirez’s favor indicate that the Supreme Court agreed with the government’s waiver on the “substantial burden” issue. Dissent at 70 n.3. The outcome sheds no light here: Ramirez would have also prevailed had the Court merely accepted the government’s concession. And as for the Supreme Court’s locution, we take the Court at its word: the scope of a “substantial burden” on religion was “not [in] dispute” in Ramirez, 142 S.Ct. at 1278, so Ramirez neither created nor implied a “substantial burden” rule that can be compared with Navajo Nation’s. 42 APACHE STRONGHOLD V. UNITED STATES 493. If such a citation sounds irrelevant, that’s because it is. The district court below dismissed the plaintiffs’ RFRA claims on the sole basis that “RFRA does not permit monetary relief,” id. at 489; the Supreme Court rejected that argument without discussing what constitutes a “substantial burden” under RFRA. True, Tanzin explained that a “damages remedy . . . is also the only form of relief that can remedy some RFRA violations” and noted that “[f]or certain injuries . . . effective relief consists of damages, not an injunction.” Id. at 492. But that is as far as the case went. Tanzin did not hold that a “substantial burden” extends beyond the Sherbert/Yoder framework or even say as much in dicta. We also reject the idea that Tanzin implied any substantial burden holding through its choice of lower-court cases to cite. Tanzin included a “See, e.g.,” citation to DeMarco v. Davis, 914 F.3d 383 (5th Cir. 2019), a Free Exercise Clause case involving a prison officials’ destruction of a prisoner’s personal property—his legal and religious books. 18 See id. at 389–90. From that citation, Apache Stronghold divines the principle that the government can violate RFRA through the “destruction of religious property,” purportedly including government-owned real property (i.e., land). But the DeMarco citation supported the unremarkable proposition that “[f]or certain injuries . . . effective relief consists of damages, not an injunction.” Id. at 492. This proposition has nothing to do with what qualifies as a substantial burden under RFRA. And in any 18 That “See, e.g.,” citation also included Yang v. Sturner, 728 F. Supp. 845 (D.R.I.), withdrawn 750 F. Supp. 558 (D.R.I. 1990), a Free Exercise Clause case involving an autopsy of a man whose parents’ religion holds that autopsies “are a mutilation of the body.” 750 F. Supp. at 558. APACHE STRONGHOLD V. UNITED STATES 43 event, we are skeptical that the Supreme Court would revolutionize the scope of a “substantial burden” on religion—as plainly set out in cases like Lyng—through its choice of cases in a string citation. If we expect Congress not to “hide elephants in mouseholes,” Whitman v. Am. Trucking Ass’ns, 531 U.S. 457, 468 (2001), we should hold the Supreme Court to the same standard. We also add an overarching consideration that further supports our conclusion that Navajo Nation and the Supreme Court’s decisions cited by the dissent can be reconciled. We must read Hobby Lobby, Holt, Ramirez, and Tanzin in conjunction with the Supreme Court’s other precedents. And the Supreme Court reaffirmed as recently as 2017 that a “substantial burden” on religion is still defined by the Sherbert/Yoder framework recognized in Navajo Nation. In Trinity Lutheran Church of Columbia, Inc. v. Comer, the Supreme Court quoted Lyng’s “substantial burden” rule: even actions that “would interfere significantly with private persons’ ability to pursue spiritual fulfillment according to their own religious beliefs” pose “no free exercise violation . . . [if] the affected individuals were not being ‘coerced by the Government’s action into violating their religious beliefs.’” 137 S. Ct. 2012, 2020 (2017) (quoting Lyng, 485 U.S. at 449). That reasoning matches ours here perfectly. So when the dissent’s cases and Trinity Lutheran are taken together, as they must be, they cast no doubt on the scope of the Sherbert/Yoder framework or on Navajo Nation’s “substantial burden” holding. 19 Given that we 19 In the dissent’s view, Trinity Lutheran “does not imply the Court would reach the same result [as it did in Lyng] in a case in which the government controlled access to religious resources and entirely denied a plaintiff access to those resources.” Dissent at 73. To the contrary: Trinity Lutheran must imply that result. Trinity Lutheran quotes Lyng’s 44 APACHE STRONGHOLD V. UNITED STATES decline to apply our past precedents only when more recent Supreme Court decisions are “clearly irreconcilable” with those precedents, Miller, 335 F.3d at 893, we must apply Navajo Nation here and we do so without hesitation. We thus conclude that under Navajo Nation, the Land Exchange does not substantially burden Apache Stronghold within the meaning of RFRA, even if the Land Exchange does make it “impossible” for Apache Stronghold’s members to worship on Oak Flat. Apache Stronghold is unlikely to succeed on its RFRA claim and the district court was right to so find. We acknowledge that this is a harsh result for Apache Stronghold’s members. But it is the result that RFRA commands. And for multiple reasons, this result is necessary. As we observed in Navajo Nation, were the definition of “substantial burden” under RFRA any broader than the Sherbert/Yoder framework, “any action the federal government were to take, including action on its own land, would be subject to the personalized oversight of millions of citizens.” Navajo Nation, 535 F.3d at 1063. Limiting RFRA violations to government action that makes an exercise of religion “impossible” or “deny access” to a religious site unequivocal “substantial burden” rule: There is “no free exercise violation . . . [if] the affected individuals were not being ‘coerced by the Government’s action into violating their religious beliefs.’” Trinity Lutheran, 137 S. Ct. at 2020 (quoting Lyng, 485 U.S. at 449). And as discussed above, the Land Exchange may incidentally prevent religious exercise on Oak Flat but involves no coercion. See ante at 25–26; see also Lyng, 485 U.S. at 450–51 (rejecting the view that the “incidental effects of government programs, which may make it more difficult to practice certain religions but which have no tendency to coerce individuals into acting contrary to their religious beliefs, require government to bring forward a compelling justification for its otherwise lawful actions”). APACHE STRONGHOLD V. UNITED STATES 45 does little to reduce that risk. We recognize that currently, Apache Stronghold objects only to the Land Exchange, and not also to the presence on Oak Flat of hikers, climbers, and other recreational users who now use the land. But other religions have stricter requirements, and a wide array of government or government-authorized actions could, in some worshippers’ views, render “impossible” exercises of religion or otherwise obstruct the land on which those exercises would take place. In Lyng, in fact, the government project took care not to disturb any “sites where specific rituals [took] place,” but to the worshippers, the planned paved road would still “physically destroy the environmental conditions and the privacy without which the[ir] religious practices [could not] be conducted.” Lyng, 485 U.S. at 449. “[S]uch beliefs could easily require de facto beneficial ownership of some rather spacious tracts of public property.” Id. at 453. And again, when it comes to the federal government’s use of its own land, “giving one religious sect a veto over the use of public park land would deprive others of the right to use what is, by definition, land that belongs to everyone.” Navajo Nation, 585 F.3d at 1063–64. The dissent is surely right that some government action swept into RFRA by a more expansive “substantial burden” definition would survive strict scrutiny. See Dissent at 77–- 77. But even so, RFRA cannot require the government to satisfy strict scrutiny every time that the government, through the management of its own land, interferes with religion or denies “access to religious resources.” Every new hiking path, ranger station, or “Keep Off the Grass” sign in every National Park could deny access to land or “physically destroy the environmental conditions and the privacy” necessary to some religious practices. Lyng, 485 U.S. at 449. The government need not satisfy strict scrutiny to manage federal lands in these ways. 46 APACHE STRONGHOLD V. UNITED STATES Apache Stronghold’s broader definition of “substantial burden” would also create another, deeper problem: It would force judges to make decisions for which we are fundamentally unsuited. The dissenters in Navajo Nation were correct on one important point: “[R]eligious exercise invariably, and centrally, involves a ‘subjective spiritual experience.’” 535 F.3d at 1096 (Fletcher, J., dissenting); see also id. at 1070 n.12 (majority opinion) (agreeing with the dissent on this point). Who are we to say whether government action has an “objective” impact on religious observance or merely “diminishes [a worshipper’s] subjective spiritual fulfillment”? Id. Questions like this raise issues on which judges must not pass. As we are often reminded, it is outside the “judicial ken to question the centrality of particular beliefs or practices to a faith.” Hernandez, 490 U.S. at 699. The straightforward Sherbert/Yoder framework avoids these problems. Of course, the U.S. government may propose future projects that, like the Land Exchange here, would impose no substantial burden but still have an incidental impact on religious observance or fulfillment. And someone must decide whether the government should ultimately pursue each such project. But RFRA’s text trusts that unenviable task to the hands of those both more accustomed to these tradeoffs and more accountable to the people: our elected representatives in Congress.