Opinion ID: 398884
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Did the Secretary Comply with the Requirements of Sections 18(c)-(d)?

Text: 186 As described in detail above, 153 sections 18(c) and 18(d) provide a procedural framework for participation by state governments, among others, in the development of the five-year leasing program. In essence, these sections require the Secretary to consider comments on, and requests for modification of, the proposed program made by Governors of affected states and to state his reasons for accepting or rejecting such recommendations. Petitioners contend that the Secretary's responses to their recommendations were inadequate, because the responses either failed to address the suggestions made or failed to provide valid reasons for rejecting them. 187 We disagree. Although it is true that many of the Secretary's responses were not overly detailed, they sufficed to identify the basis, either legal or factual, for the Secretary's action and to explain why the Secretary acted as he did. Furthermore, it is noteworthy that the recommendations the Secretary rejected relate primarily to substantive matters which this opinion has already addressed, and that petitioners found the Secretary's responses sufficiently coherent to explain them to this court and to argue that they were erroneous. In other words, petitioners seem to understand, from the Secretary's responses, why their suggestions were rejected. Sections 18(c) and (d) require no more. 154 188 We pause briefly to address the argument that sections 18(c) and (d) require the reasons advanced by the Secretary to be valid in some substantive sense. We find no basis for such a requirement in the statutory language. Section 18(c) directs the Secretary to respond to any state request for modification of the proposed program, granting or denying the request in whole or in part as he deems appropriate, and stating his reasons therefor. 155 Section 18(d) requires the Secretary to submit the proposed program to Congress and the President prior to approving it, indicating why any specific recommendation of ... a State ... government was not accepted. 156 These provisions merely require the Secretary to state his reasons for accepting or rejecting state recommendations. It is true, of course, that a substantively invalid response may demonstrate that the Secretary has not prepared the leasing program in compliance with the substantive requirements of section 18 or other pertinent provisions of the Act. Such matters, however, should be addressed and evaluated under the substantive portions of the statute, and not under sections 18(c) and (d). 157 V. THE FEDERAL TRUST RESPONSIBILITY CLAIM 189 Petitioners North Slope Borough, et al. (the Borough), representing the interests of Inupiat Eskimos who live throughout the borough, contend that the Secretary, in preparing the leasing program, breached a trust responsibility owed the Eskimos. The claim is twofold: (1) the Secretary failed to accord special protection to Eskimo interests, and (2) he proceeded on the basis of environmental data inadequate to assure that Inupiat culture would not be undermined by his oil and gas decisions. The Eskimos' concern is that OCS operations in the Beaufort or Chukchi seas will have an adverse effect on the area's whales, caribou, seals, polar bears, fish, and birds. 158 Any such effect could undermine the subsistence lifestyle of the Eskimos, who rely on these animals for their food, clothing, and materials, 159 and whose village-wide whaling activity (is) a foundation of their socio-cultural system. 160 190 The Secretary was cognizant of these concerns in the preparation of the leasing program, but thought they required no more attention than that already required under environmental statutes: 191 The Marine Mammal Protection Act, the Endangered Species Act, and other statutes and treaties are designed primarily to protect certain species of fish and wildlife.    These statutes, amongst others, have been construed as specifically imposing on the Federal Government a trust responsibility to protect Native Alaskans right to subsistence hunting. The responsibility requires the Secretary to be cognizant of the needs of Native Alaskans' culture, and to protect the species necessary for subsistence purposes. The Secretary can discharge his trust responsibility primarily by complying with the two above-cited Acts. Decisions regarding compliance for particular species will occur as individual lease sale decisions are made. 161 192 The Borough contends that the Secretary interpreted his trust responsibility too narrowly. According to the Borough, the source of the trust responsibility is independent of any statute, treaty, or executive order, and its scope is necessarily broader than specific enactments. 162 From this premise it concludes that the Secretary, concerned only with fulfilling his statutory responsibilities, gave insufficient weight to the Eskimos' special interests. We reject this conclusion, for we find that its premise-the existence of a trust responsibility broader in scope than the duties imposed by environmental statutes-was rejected in our recent decision in North Slope Borough v. Andrus. 163 193 In North Slope Borough the same claims that the Borough makes here in the context of a leasing program were made in the context of an offshore lease sale in the Beaufort Sea. There, as here, the Borough identified three possible sources of a trust responsibility owed by the federal government to the Inupiat Eskimos. One was express statutory provision, another was a combination of the express and implied requirements of specific enactments, and the third was some combination of the law of nations, concepts of Indian sovereignty, and the historical course of dealing between Indians and the federal government. 164 The panel explicitly addressed only the first of these sources, finding no specific provision for a federal trust responsibility in any of the statutes argued to us. 165 It reached its conclusion that the Secretary has fulfilled his trust obligation, such as it is, 166 without determining whether any trust responsibility emanated from other statutes ... or ... a 'special relationship' between the United States and Indian tribes. 167 194 The Borough interprets this failure to address other possible sources of a trust responsibility as a failure to resolve the question whether the Secretary owed the Inupiat Eskimos a trust responsibility broader in scope than the responsibilities imposed by relevant environmental protection statutes, and invites us to resolve that question in its favor here. We decline that invitation, for both the structure and language of North Slope Borough indicate that while that decision left the source of the Secretary's trust responsibility undefined, it delineated the scope of that responsibility as being no broader than that of the environmental statutes with respect to which the Secretary already had a duty to comply. 195 First, and most fundamental, North Slope Borough's ultimate holding on the trust responsibility issue was that the Secretary has fulfilled his trust obligation, such as it is. 168 In arriving at that holding, which was grounded on the Secretary's compliance with pertinent environmental statutes, the panel necessarily rejected the Borough's contention that the Secretary had a trust obligation broader in scope than the requirements of relevant environmental statutes. 196 The Borough recognizes the obvious force of this logic, but submits that North Slope Borough could not have rejected its argument for a trust responsibility of broader scope because it did not address the possible extra-statutory sources for such a responsibility. We disagree. The panel approved, in effect, the approach of confining the extension of 'trust responsibility,' however defined and whatever the source, to the area of overlap with the environmental statutes. 169 Thus, regardless of the source of the trust responsibility-in this context an academic question only-the panel was satisfied that its scope is a limited one only. 170 The court explained those limits in some detail: 197 (T)he primary threat to the Inupiats can only be viewed as one of a possibly deleterious intrusion into their lands. But the Secretary, even aside from his imputed role of trustee, does not have a free hand to neglect the environment. All of the environmental statutes, particularly (the Endangered Species Act), structure and prescribe for the Secretary a solicitous stance toward the environment. Hence, where the Secretary has acted responsibly in respect of the environment, he has implemented responsibly, and protected, the parallel concerns of the Native Alaskans. In sum, the substantive interests of the Natives and of their native environment are congruent. The protection given by the Secretary to one, as we have held, merges with the protection he owes to the other. 171 198 We thus conclude that the dispositive issue here-the scope of the Secretary's trust responsibility to the Inupiat Eskimo-was addressed and decided adversely to the present contentions of the Borough in North Slope Borough v. Andrus. To the extent that the Secretary complied with relevant environmental statutes in preparing the leasing program, he also fulfilled any trust responsibility owed to the Eskimos.