Opinion ID: 669042
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Discriminatory Application

Text: 23 Petitioners' second challenge is substantially related to their first: if the consent requirement for de minimis extensions preexisted the instant rulemaking (which is to say, if, contrary to petitioners' first argument, the Commission did not violate APA notice and comment procedures, because the consent requirement was merely a clarification rather than a new rule), then the consent requirement has been applied in a discriminatory fashion to petitioners' detriment. Prior to the Docket 90-6 Rulemaking, several land-based licensees were granted de minimis extensions into the Gulf of Mexico over petitioners' objection. When Coastel attempted to obtain an extension in March 1992, the Commission dismissed the application on the grounds that the land-based licensee had not consented. This, petitioners claim, is an irrational, wholly unexplained difference in treatment. To remedy this arbitrary application of the rule, petitioners ask that we deem the consent requirement inapplicable to the requests of all existing licensees. 24 Again we find ourselves unable to reach the merits of the issue. For substantially the same reasons discussed above, we conclude that petitioners failed to exhaust their remedies as to the issue of discriminatory application of the consent requirement by declining to bring it first before the Commission. Absent judge-made exception, the Commission is statutorily entitled to the proverbial first crack at this issue, and we decline to reach it at this time. 7