Opinion ID: 175346
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: construction (including rescission of funds)

Text: For construction, improvements, repair or replacement of physical facilities, including a portion of the expense for the modifications authorized by section 104 of the Everglades National Park Protection and Expansion Act of 1989, $233,158,000, to remain available until expended: Provided, That funds appropriated in this Act, or in any prior Act of Congress, for the implementation of the Modified Water Deliveries to Everglades National Park Project, shall be made available to the Army Corps of Engineers which shall, notwithstanding any other provision of law, immediately and without further delay construct or cause to be constructed Alternative 3.2.2.a to U.S. Highway 41 (the Tamiami Trail) consistent with the Limited Reevaluation Report with Integrated Environmental Assessment and addendum, approved August 2008.... 123 Stat. at 708 (emphases added). In the following discussion, we refer to the phrase notwithstanding any other provision of law as the notwithstanding clause. We call the phrase immediately and without further delay the immediacy clause. On June 16, 2009, the NEPA court, in response to the Corps's renewed motion to dismiss for lack of subject matter jurisdiction, held that the Omnibus Act is an explicit exemption from NEPA and FACA that moves the bridge from the reach of such statutes. D.E. 128 at 7. The court found it significant that Congress added the same notwithstanding clause that the court had found lacking in the earlier appropriations act. The NEPA court also rejected the Tribe's constitutional challenges to the Omnibus Act: vagueness, delegation, separation of powers, bill of attainder, due process, and equal protection. The NEPA court dismissed the suit for lack of subject matter jurisdiction, and dissolved the preliminary injunction that it had earlier entered. The Tribe timely appealed. The Corps filed a copy of the NEPA court's dismissal with the ESA court. On August 31, 2009, the ESA court adopted the reasoning of the NEPA court to conclude it too lacked subject matter jurisdiction over the Tribe's claims. The ESA court also invoked the doctrine of collateral estoppel to bar the Tribe from relitigating its constitutional challenges to the Omnibus Act because the NEPA court had already rejected them. The ESA court granted the United States' motion to dismiss the suit for lack of subject matter jurisdiction. The Tribe filed its notice of appeal the next day.