Opinion ID: 410976
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The Rejection of Interior's Conditions.

Text: 78 Section 4(e) of the FPA, 16 U.S.C. Sec. 797(e), provides, in pertinent part, that 79 licenses issued within any reservation ... shall be subject to and contain such conditions as the Secretary of the Department under whose supervision such reservation falls shall deem necessary for the adequate protection and utilization of such reservation. 80 Id. It is not disputed that, with respect to the reservation lands involved here, the Secretary of the Department under whose supervision such reservation falls is the Secretary of the Interior. Pursuant to this section, Interior proposed a number of conditions to be placed on the license granted by the Commission. Many of these proposed conditions were rejected or modified by the Commission. We thus confront the issue whether the Commission violated section 4(e) by issuing a license within Indian reservations that neither contained nor was subject to some of the conditions which Interior deemed necessary for the adequate protection and utilization of the reservation. 81 The language of the statute appears quite plain on its face. The license shall include and be subject to such conditions as Interior deems necessary. The Commission contends, however, that it is not bound to accept Interior's conditions because section 10(a) of the FPA imposes upon the Commission a duty to exercise its independent judgment as to what conditions are best adapted to a comprehensive plan for improving or developing a waterway, ... for the improvement and utilization of waterpower development, and for other beneficial public uses. Section 10(a) of the FPA, 16 U.S.C. Sec. 803(a) (1976). The Commission construed the word shall in section 4(e) as merely requiring the Commission to give great weight to the judgments and proposals of Interior. Opinion No. 36 at 108. The Commission also noted that Interior had propounded conditions which were deemed necessary for all six Mission Indian reservations in the San Luis Rey River watershed. The Commission reasoned that Project No. 176 only occupies the lands of three of the reservations, although it indirectly affects the other three by reducing the flow of the San Luis Rey River, which passes through one of them and recharges groundwater basins beneath the other two. The Commission held that the license was within only the three reservations upon whose lands the canal lies, and that it was only with respect to the protection and utilization of these three reservations that Interior was authorized and required by Section 4(e) to propound conditions. We disagree with both of the Commission's conclusions. 82
83 The plain language of a statute controls its interpretation. Maine v. Thiboutot, 448 U.S. 1, 4, 9, 100 S.Ct. 2502, 2504, 2506, 65 L.Ed.2d 555 (1980). Because the relevant portion of section 4(e) is plain, our inquiry as to its meaning is at an end unless there is other statutory language in conflict with it. In particular, the Commission's vigorous historical argument cannot move us to ignore the fact that section 4(e) says, quite simply, that the license shall include the conditions which the Secretary deems necessary. 84 The Commission also contends, however, that the apparently plain meaning of section 4(e) is at odds with the duty imposed on the Commission by section 10(a) of the Act. These two sections, however, can easily be harmonized. Section 10(a) generally gives the Commission authority to modify proposed projects before approval, so that they will be best adapted to a comprehensive plan for the utilization of waterways and the development of power. Section 10(a) of the FPA, 16 U.S.C. Sec. 803(a) (1976). In the case of a project within a reservation, once the Secretary of the Interior has propounded those conditions deemed necessary for the protection and utilization of the reservation, the Commission is free to modify the proposal in other ways, but not by altering or omitting Interior's conditions, to make it feasible and beneficial to the public. If this cannot be done, the Commission may decline to issue a license at all. The fact that section 4(e) limits the Commission's authority under section 10(a) certainly does not render the two sections inconsistent. To conclude, as does the Commission, that the broad general authorization of section 10(a) is not only inconsistent with, but also overrides, the plain, specific limitation of section 4(e) is to ignore the most elementary canons of statutory construction. See MacEvoy Co. v. United States, 322 U.S. 102, 107, 64 S.Ct. 890, 893, 88 L.Ed. 1163 (1944) (However inclusive may be the general language of a statute, it 'will not be held to apply to a matter specifically dealt with in another part of the enactment.' ). 85 The Commission urges that giving section 4(e) its literal meaning will place in the hands of Interior an unconditional veto power over the licensing authority of the Commission, unless the Commission itself can review Interior's determination as to what conditions are necessary. We need not decide whether, if this contention were true, it would affect our view as to the meaning of section 4(e). For it is clear that no such unconditional veto power is involved here. First of all, any license issued by the Commission which includes conditions propounded by Interior will be subject to judicial review under section 313(b) of the FPA, 16 U.S.C. Sec. 825l(b). Secondly, any failure by the Secretary of the Interior to conform to the statutory standard in proposing conditions pursuant to section 4(e) will be reviewable as a final agency action under the applicable provisions of the Administrative Procedures Act, 5 U.S.C. Secs. 701-706 (1976). The spectre of an unconditional veto power, with which an appointed public official could frustrate the public policies underlying the FPA, is illusory. 86 For these reasons, we conclude that section 4(e) of the FPA requires the Commission to include in any license within a reservation those conditions which the Secretary deems necessary for the protection and utilization of that reservation. 87
88 Project No. 176 lies partially within the geographical boundaries of three of the six reservations. There is no dispute as to whether the license is within those three reservations for purposes of section 4(e). Water rights of the other three reservations, the Pala, Pauma, and Yuima reservations, may be affected by the project, as they lie below the project in the San Luis Rey River watershed. The issue is whether or not the license is within these three reservations. 89 Section 3(2) of the FPA, 16 U.S.C. Sec. 796(2) (1976), defines reservation as it is used in the FPA: 90 [R]eservations means national forests, tribal lands embraced within Indian reservations, military reservations, and other lands and interests in lands owned by the United States, and withdrawn, reserved, or withheld from private appropriation and disposal under the public land laws .... 91 Id. There can be no serious question that the water rights of the Pala, Pauma and Yuima Bands appurtenant to the San Luis Rey River are reservations within the meaning of this definition. First of all, water rights are interests in land: 92 A water right is generally considered to be real property or land. As Wiel says, the right to the flow and use of water being a right in a natural resource, is real estate. A water right is real property for purposes of determining title in a quiet-title action, a mortgage recording requirement, satisfying the statute of frauds, descent and inheritance, and taxation. 93 1 R. Clark, ed., Waters and Water Rights Sec. 53.1 at 345 (1967) (footnotes omitted). See Hill v. Newman, 5 Cal. 445 (1855); 1 Wiel, Water Rights in the Western States Sec. 283 (3d ed. 1911). See also Arizona v. California, 373 U.S. 546, 596-97, 83 S.Ct. 1468, 1495-1496, 10 L.Ed.2d 542; United States v. Ahtanum Irrigation District, 236 F.2d 321, 334 (9th Cir. 1956), cert. denied, 352 U.S. 988, 77 S.Ct. 386, 1 L.Ed.2d 367 (1957). The Bands' water rights are owned by the United States. Colorado River Water Conservation District v. United States, 424 U.S. 800, 809-10, 96 S.Ct. 1236, 1242-1243, 47 L.Ed.2d 483 (1976); section 3 of MIRA. The Bands' water rights are reserved from private appropriation under the public land laws. Cappaert v. United States, 426 U.S. 128, 138-39, 96 S.Ct. 2062, 2069-2070, 48 L.Ed.2d 523 (1976); Winters v. United States, 207 U.S. 564, 28 S.Ct. 207, 52 L.Ed. 340 (1908). Thus, the Bands' water rights possess all of the elements of reservations as defined in section 3(2) of the FPA. 94 The Commission draws our attention to the fact that section 4(e) applies to licenses issued within reservations. It must be conceded that the word within tends to paint a geographical picture in the mind of the reader, and its presence in the statute lends support to the Commission's narrower view of Interior's duty and authority under section 4(e). We are thus confronted with a possible ambiguity on the face of the statute. 95 [S]tatutes passed for the benefit of dependent Indian tribes ... are to be liberally construed, doubtful expressions being resolved in favor of the Indians. Alaska Pacific Fisheries v. United States, 248 U.S. 78, 89, 39 S.Ct. 40, 42, 63 L.Ed. 138 (1918), quoted in Bryan v. Itasca County, 426 U.S. 373, 392, 96 S.Ct. 2102, 2112, 48 L.Ed.2d 710 (1976). Although the FPA was not enacted primarily for the benefit of dependent Indian tribes, it is obvious that the ambiguous language of section 4(e) now under consideration was included by Congress for that precise purpose, and that the canon of statutory construction just mentioned should therefore apply to it. It is equally obvious from the plain language of the FPA that Congress intended to limit and circumscribe the broad authority granted to the Commission to issue licenses in the public interest, by requiring those licenses not to be detrimental to the interests of Indians on reservations. There is no guarantee, of course, that the tribal interests which the United States has a fiduciary duty to protect and defend will coincide with the interest of the public at large. A water and hydropower project might be vastly beneficial to the public in general, for instance, even though by inundating an entire reservation it might be utterly inimical to the interests of the Indians whose reservation is concerned. We find in the plain language of the FPA a policy to foster the development of water power projects in the public interest, to the extent, and only to the extent, that such can be done without abandoning the fiduciary duties owed by the United States to dependent Indian tribes. 96 A water project may occupy a geographical portion of an Indian reservation without impinging in any serious way on Indian interests--e.g., by crossing a corner of the reservation with a power line or an access lane. Conversely, a project may turn a potentially useful reservation into a barren waste without ever crossing it in the geographical sense--e.g., by diverting the waters which would otherwise flow through or percolate under it. We will not attribute to Congress, on account of the mere presence in its enactment of one ambiguous word, the perverse and illogical intention of guarding carefully against the former danger while openly embracing the latter. It is the necessary implication of the Commission's narrow construction of section 4(e) that Congress had just such an intent. 97 For all these reasons, we are compelled to reject the Commission's conclusion that its duties under section 4(e), including the duty to accept the Secretary of the Interior's proposed conditions, and its duty to make findings as to whether the license is consistent with the reservations' purpose, apply to only the La Jolla, Rincon, and San Pasqual reservations. We hold, rather, that those duties exist also with respect to the Pala, Pauma, and Yuima Reservations.