Opinion ID: 175346
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 8

Heading: Types of Repeal

Text: The main question here is whether the Omnibus Act modifies the NEPA, FACA, and ESA for purposes of the Tribe's lawsuits, thereby depriving the federal courts of subject matter jurisdiction to hear the Tribe's claims. Besides being the principal issue of this appeal, the question and the answer also control the outcome in the related appeal No. 09-11891 (the DOT case). The focus is on the interaction between the Omnibus Act and previous acts of Congress. The term for this dynamic is repealwhether and how a later act of Congress modifies an earlier one. Another name for it is exemption. The Tribe claims that the Omnibus Act effects no explicit repeal here because it fails to mention any statute it is repealing. The Tribe also claims that the Corps has failed to meet the high standard for showing that an appropriations act effects an implied repeal. The Corps counters that the plain language of the Omnibus Act, in particular Congress's addition of the notwithstanding clause, makes it clear that Congress intended to relax its existing environmental statutes in order to get the bridge built as quickly as possible. At oral argument, counsel for the Tribe said a repeal has to be either express or implied. While that statement may be true, it does not necessarily follow, as counsel claimed, that there are only two modes of repeal. Supreme Court and Eleventh Circuit cases, and Sutherland Statutes and Statutory Construction, seem to identify at least three: explicit repeals, general repealing clauses, and implied repeals. [12] We review the characteristics of each in turn.