Opinion ID: 2771282
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: The Agency Should Have Considered the Tribe’s

Text: Alternative Offer to Move All Gaming to the New Casino Once a restored tribe has acquired restored lands, and built a casino, the regulation bars use of subsequent acquisitions to operate additional casinos. It is undisputed that the Tribe was operating the Win-River Casino when it submitted its application for the new Strawberry Fields casino. The Tribe’s 2008 application thus contemplated the construction of a second casino. There were apparently discussions between the parties, because in December 2010 the Tribe wrote to the Secretary offering to “memorialize” its intent to move its gaming operations from its current location to the Strawberry Fields. The Tribe argues that the Secretary, in denying the Tribe’s application, arbitrarily failed to consider the Tribe’s 2010 representation that it would not operate multiple gaming facilities. The Secretary denied the Tribe’s application without any mention of the Tribe’s offer, although the denial emphasized the specific wording of the regulation that conditions the requisite temporal connection on a finding that the tribe “is not gaming on other land.” 25 C.F.R. § 292.12(c)(2). The district court did not consider the Tribe’s alternative offer and construed its application as if it necessarily contemplated the operation of multiple casinos. An agency’s decision is arbitrary and capricious if it ignores important considerations or relevant evidence on the record. See Port of Seattle, Wash. v. F.E.R.C., 499 F.3d 1016, 1035 (9th Cir. 2007) (citing Motor Vehicle Mfrs. Ass’n of U.S. v. State Farm Mut. Auto. Ins. Co., 463 U.S. 29, 43 (1983)). The Secretary did not address the Tribe’s willingness to close its current casino in order to move its REDDING RANCHERIA V. JEWELL 17 gaming operations to one on newly restored lands. The agency now argues, however, that the Secretary’s determination was required by the plain meaning of the regulation. Under 25 C.F.R. § 292.12(c)(2), land is eligible for gaming if the application is submitted within 25 years after the tribe was restored to federal recognition and “the tribe is not gaming on other lands.” The regulation thus has both a 25 year deadline and a prohibition against gaming on other lands. The agency must look to the date on which a tribe submits its application to determine whether it has satisfied the 25 year deadline. The regulation is not clear, however, that the agency must also look to the date of the application to determine whether the tribe has satisfied the prohibition against gaming on other lands. While the regulation could be so interpreted, the agency has so far provided no reason why it should. Allowing a restored tribe to move a casino does not appear to conflict with the statutory purpose of ensuring parity among restored and established tribes. Restored tribes, if allowed to operate an indefinite number of casinos on newly restored lands, would of course have an advantage over established tribes, but it is not clear that allowing restored tribes to move a casino to a different location would necessarily have the same effect. The agency can point out that we generally defer to an agency’s interpretation of its own regulation. See Auer v. Robbins, 519 U.S. 452, 461 (1997). The administrative proceedings in this case, however, did not address this issue of interpretation, much less provide any reasons for the agency’s current position. The agency presented its position for the first time in its brief, and it offered sparse explanation for it. We need not defer to an agency position when taken 18 REDDING RANCHERIA V. JEWELL for purposes of litigation. See Christopher v. SmithKline Beecham Corp., 132 S. Ct. 2156, 2166–67 (2012) (noting that “an interpretation is not owed deference when it is nothing more than a convenient litigating position or a post hoc rationalizatio[n] advanced by an agency seeking to defend past agency action against attack.”) (internal citations and quotation marks omitted) (alterations in original). The agency’s interpretation on the administrative record before us lacks explanation or justification. In remanding to the agency we expedite the agency’s consideration of the Tribe’s alternative proposal. We do not tell the agency what to say. While the dissent may speculate on how and why the agency interprets the regulation, the agency has never addressed these issues. We cannot defer to what the agency has not done. We accordingly vacate in part the district court’s grant of summary judgment with instructions to remand to the agency to address whether the Tribe should be permitted to construct a new casino to replace the existing one.