Opinion ID: 3030641
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Statutory Text and Interpretation

Text: [20] The Magnuson Amendment mandates that [N]o officer, employee, or other official of the Federal Government shall, or shall have authority to, issue, renew, grant, or otherwise approve any permit, license, or other authority for constructing, renovating, modifying, or otherwise altering a terminal, dock, or other facility in, on, or immediately adjacent to, or affecting the navigable waters of Puget Sound, or any other navigable waters in the State of Washington east of Port Angeles, which will or may result in any increase in the volume of crude oil capable of being handled at any such facility (measured as of October 18, 1977), other than oil to be refined for consumption in the State of Washington. 33 U.S.C. § 476(b). No court has interpreted the Magnuson Amendment yet, making this case one of first impression. “When constructing statutory language, we look first to its plain meaning.” Local Joint Exec. Bd. of Culinary/Bartender Trust Fund v. Las Vegas Sands, Inc., 244 F.3d 1152, 1157 (9th Cir. 2001). The Supreme Court has “stated time and again that courts must presume that a legislature says in a statute what it means and means in a statute what it says there.” Connecticut Nat’l Bank v. Germain, 503 U.S. 249, 253-54 (1992). We should look at the plain meaning of the entire statute, in context, rather than the meaning of isolated sentences. See Beecham v. United States, 511 U.S. 368, 372 (1994); see also Edelman v. Lynchburg College, 535 U.S. 106, 120-21 (2002) (“It is a fundamental canon of statutory construction that the words of a statute must be read in their context and with a view to their place in the overall statutory scheme.” 2532 OCEAN ADVOCATES v. U.S. ARMY CORPS OF ENG’RS (quoting Davis v. Mich. Dep’t. of Treasury, 489 U.S. 803, 809 (1989))).
[21] First, we must discern what “any such facility” means. “Any such facility” refers back to the phrase “terminal, dock, or other facility,” which appears earlier in the statute. “Any such facility” here includes the entire terminal or facility— BP’s self-termed Cherry Point Marine Terminal—not just the proposed northern dock extension by itself. When analyzing capacity, courts should therefore not look to the capacity of the refinery, but rather to the capacity of the terminal. Such an understanding is supported by the legislative history of the amendment; just before passage of the amendment, Senator Magnuson remarked: “In fact, the amendment only applies to construction or alteration of dock facilities in the Puget Sound region, not to refineries as such.” 123 Cong. Rec. at 32,910. ii. “Volume of Crude Oil Capable of Being Handled”: Capabilities of the New Platform [22] Regardless of BP’s stipulation to prohibit the use of the dock extension for loading or unloading crude oil, the Corps may nevertheless have violated the Magnuson Amendment by issuing the permit if the permit otherwise allows for an increase in the volume of crude oil capable of being handled at the terminal. First we consider the question of whether the new platform can handle crude oil, both as a legal and a factual matter. BP has maintained that the new platform cannot handle crude oil: “The pier addition is neither designed nor permitted for offloading crude oil, and as such has no crude handling capability.” The district court made a number of relevant findings in this regard. The district court determined that the permit allowed for the construction of a “petroleum product loading/unloading facility,” which, by definition, excludes the OCEAN ADVOCATES v. U.S. ARMY CORPS OF ENG’RS 2533 use of the facility for crude oil: “ ‘[P]etroleum product’ does not apply to crude oil because the very definition of crude oil is that it is oil to be refined. Petroleum product must necessarily exclude crude oil, which is not a ‘product’ at all.” We find that the district court’s ruling in this respect was erroneous. It appears as though the district court was citing to the following portion of the permit: Project Description: Construct a pier addition; install dolphins and buoys in accordance with the plans and drawings attached hereto which are incorporated in and made a part of this permit (petroleum product loading/unloading facility). For one thing, it is not clear whether the parenthetical phrase at the end of the “Project Description” was intended to be, or actually is, a substantive, legal limitation on the use of the new platform. Additionally, the fact that the relevant language of the permit states “loading/unloading facility” provides some evidence that the permit envisioned the use of the new platform for offloading crude. While it certainly is possible that tankers could offload refined product at the refinery, the evidence suggests that crude oil is traditionally offloaded from, while refined product is traditionally loaded onto, tankers. Moreover, in the Corps’ Permit Evaluation and Decision Document, the “Need and Purpose” of the project is set forth as follows: “To expand a petroleum product loading/ unloading facility.” This indicates the Corps’ understanding that the old platform (which undisputedly allows for crude offloading) was part of a “petroleum product loading/ unloading facility”; apparently no further linguistic qualification was necessary to establish the fact that the old platform could be (and was) used for crude oil. This use of the terminology indicates that the Corps was not drawing a clear line between a platform that can handle crude oil offloading and 2534 OCEAN ADVOCATES v. U.S. ARMY CORPS OF ENG’RS a “petroleum product loading/unloading facility.” A more reasonable interpretation is that the Corps understood the entire dock and its platforms to qualify, generally, as a petroleum product loading/unloading facility. Therefore, it is not at all clear that the terms of the permit limit BP’s use of the new platform. If the new platform in fact is physically incapable of handling crude oil, the relevant question is: What would be required to enable it to handle crude oil? In this respect, the history of the dock is significant. BP was granted a permit in 1969 to build essentially what it now has—a two-platform dock with one platform devoted to unloading crude and another devoted to shipping refined product. When the construction took place two years later, BP decided to build only one of the two platforms and to defer construction of the second platform. In its environmental report, BP indicates that hardware modifications were necessary to convert the single platform into a dual-use platform: “Crude and product pipelines were redesigned to allow for dual utilization of the southern platform.” If BP is now free to make modifications (to the extent they are required) to the new platform to allow it to handle crude, then the Corps’ permit, in effect, may have increased the ability of the facility to handle crude oil.5 Based on the above discussion, we remand this case to the district court to answer the following questions: 1. Is it physically possible for the new platform to handle crude oil today? 2. Is it physically possible to modify the new platform such that it could handle crude oil, without requiring additional permitting? 5 The Corps argues that “there is no danger that the new dock will suddenly be modified to accommodate crude oil because Corps permits must be strictly complied with.” However, as outlined above, we do not find that the permit limits use in the way that the Corps contends. OCEAN ADVOCATES v. U.S. ARMY CORPS OF ENG’RS 2535 If the answer to either of these questions is “yes,” then the permit violates the Magnuson Amendment. As to the first question, clearly, if it is physically possible for the new platform to handle crude oil today, the terminal’s capacity to handle crude oil has been increased. As to the second question, if the modifications that may be necessary to allow the new platform to handle crude oil do not require additional permitting, then the permit that allowed the new platform’s construction effectively permitted an increase in the terminal’s ability to handle crude oil. The Magnuson Amendment’s use of “will or may” mandates this result, see 33 U.S.C. § 476(b) (emphasis added); this puts a very heavy burden on BP and the Corps, as they must prove that the new platform cannot possibly be used to handle crude oil without the issuance of an additional permit. iii. “Volume of Crude Oil Capable of Being Handled”: Berthing Limitations A related issue is the way in which the modifications to the terminal may have altered the terminal’s berthing capacities, which must be taken into account when determining whether the permit increased the volume of crude oil capable of being handled at the terminal. The Corps and BP conceded at oral argument that, in enacting the Magnuson Amendment, Congress could not have meant to restrict “the volume of crude oil capable of being handled” to the sheer theoretical hydraulic or pumping capacity of BP’s terminal facility. The Corps admitted that a determination of the terminal’s capacity as of October 18, 1977, which the Magnuson Amendment uses as a benchmark, would properly include berthing capacity as a limiting factor. BP also pointed out that although the terminal had the theoretical hydraulic or pumping capacity to unload more than one million barrels of crude oil per day, the facility could move only one boat in to dock and one boat out of the facility each hour, substantially limiting its actual unloading capability. In determining whether the permit violated the Magnuson Amendment, then, the district court should also 2536 OCEAN ADVOCATES v. U.S. ARMY CORPS OF ENG’RS consider how the modifications to the terminal affected berthing capacity. If the alterations to the terminal authorized by the permit increased the potential berthing capacity for purposes of unloading crude oil, then the permit violated the Magnuson Amendment. In other words, if the permit increased berthing capacity such that more ships carrying crude oil can arrive and leave the terminal in a given day, then, ceteris paribus, the permit increased the volume of crude oil capable of being handled at the facility. Therefore, we remand to the district court to answer the following question:
increase the potential berthing capacity of the terminal for tankers carrying crude oil? If the answer to this question is “yes,” then the permit violates the Magnuson Amendment. We recognize that the answer to this question may well be bound up with the answers to the previous questions that we have directed to the district court. [23] We decline to speculate as to whether BP’s stipulated restriction on its use of the terminal may be an adequate remedy, should a violation of the Magnuson Amendment be found by the district court on remand. If a violation is found, the district court should determine whether the stipulation is an adequate remedy, and, if not, what further remedial measures are necessary.