Opinion ID: 3052211
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Text and Statutory Structure

Text: Section 4 of the ESA, which is codified at 16 U.S.C. § 1533 (hereinafter § 1533), sets out “two methods . . . for listing species for protection as endangered or threatened,” and, likewise, for making other determinations under the ESA concerning those species. Ctr. for Biological Diversity v. Norton, 254 F.3d 833, 834 (9th Cir. 2001). “One method allows the Secretary to act on [his or] her own initiative to identify species for protection [or for regulatory action, generally]. The second allows interested citizens to compel the Secretary’s consideration of a species by filing a petition.” Id. “There are . . . important differences between the two methods that dictate how (and when) the Secretary” must act, however. Id. The fundamental flaw in Coos County’s statutory argument is that it conflates these two different mechanisms, inappropriately shoe-horning the five-year review process, a statutory step of the kind conducted on the Secretary’s initia7492 COOS COUNTY v. KEMPTHORNE tive, into the system of deadlines created to address citizeninitiated petitions.
i. Coos County’s Interpretation of the “in accordance with” Clause [1] Section 1533(b)(3) is the petition provision from which Coos County draws its “promptly publish” requirement. One point is immediately obvious: The unambiguous text of that provision, quoted below in pertinent part, establishes that it requires a petition to operate: (A) To the maximum extent practicable, within 90 days after receiving the petition of an interested person under section 553(e) of Title 5, to add a species to, or to remove a species from, either of the lists published under subsection (c) of this section, the Secretary shall make a finding as to whether the petition presents substantial scientific or commercial information indicating that the petitioned action may be warranted. If such a petition is found to present such information, the Secretary shall promptly commence a review of the status of the species con- cerned. The Secretary shall promptly publish each finding made under this subparagraph in the Federal Register. (B) Within 12 months after receiving a petition that is found under subparagraph (A) to present substantial information indicating that the petitioned action may be warranted, the Secretary shall make one of the following findings: (i) The petitioned action is not warranted, in which case the Secretary shall promptly publish such finding in the Federal Register. COOS COUNTY v. KEMPTHORNE 7493 (ii) The petitioned action is warranted, in which case the Secretary shall promptly publish in the Federal Register a general notice and the complete text of a proposed regulation to implement such action in accordance with paragraph (5). (iii) The petitioned action is warranted, but that— (I) the immediate proposal and timely pro- mulgation of a final regulation implement- ing the petitioned action in accordance with paragraphs (5) and (6) is precluded by pending proposals to determine whether any species is an endangered species or a threatened species, and (II) expeditious progress is being made to add qualified species to either of the lists published under subsection (c) of this sec- tion and to remove from such lists species for which the protections of this chapter are no longer necessary, in which case the Secretary shall promptly publish such finding in the Federal Regis- ter, together with a description and evalua- tion of the reasons and data on which the finding is based. § 1533(b)(3) (emphases added). [2] The piece of this provision which Coos County primarily seizes upon, § 1533(b)(3)(B)(ii) is, plainly, part of the petition process — indeed, the words “petition” or “petitioned” appear sixteen times in the text of § 1533(b)(3)(B), including in § 1533(b)(3)(B)(ii) itself. Equally plainly, the petition process is explicitly governed by a series of carefully calibrated deadlines. The system of deadlines for the petition process is 7494 COOS COUNTY v. KEMPTHORNE demanding and relatively clear: First, “[t]o the maximum extent practicable, within 90 days after receiving the petition of an interested person . . . the Secretary shall make a finding as to whether the petition presents substantial scientific or commercial information indicating that the petitioned action may be warranted.” § 1533(b)(3)(A). The finding shall be “promptly publish[ed]” in the Federal Register, and the Secretary is to “promptly commence” a review if further action is warranted. Id. In no circumstances shall this initial ninety-day determination take more than a year. Biodiversity Legal Found. v. Badgley, 309 F.3d 1166, 1176 (9th Cir. 2002). And, within 12 months of receiving the petition, the Secretary must decide whether the petitioned action is warranted, warranted but precluded, or not warranted. §§ 1533(b)(3)(B)(i)-(iii). No matter what FWS determines, its decision is to be “promptly publish[ed] in the Federal Register.” Id. Critically, “if the petitioned action is warranted,” a proposed rule is to be promptly published, “in accordance with [§ 1533(b)(5)].” Id. § 1533(b)(3)(B)(ii). [3] In contrast, the five-year review provision does not contain any explicit publication deadlines, although it, like the petition provision, contemplates “a review of the status of the species concerned.” Compare § 1533(b)(3)(A) with § 1533(c)(2). The statute thus sets out two review processes, one with deadlines, one without, and includes deadlines only for the petition process. [4] To the extent that § 1533(b)(3) sets deadlines for petition-initiated actions only, the directive in the five-year review section, § 1533(c)(2), that “[e]ach determination . . . shall be made in accordance with the provisions of [§ 1533(b)]” could not possibly require the application of deadlines that, in the incorporated section, depend on a circumstance not here present, namely, a petition. To require the agency to act according to those deadlines would not mandate the making of the determination “in accordance with” the provisions, as § 1533(c)(2) requires. Instead, it would mandate COOS COUNTY v. KEMPTHORNE 7495 the opposite — making the determination not in accordance with § 1533(b), by applying deadlines explicitly applicable under § 1533(b) only when there is a citizen petition to a circumstance in which there has been no such petition. Further, Coos County’s theory of the “in accordance with” clause would require courts to embark upon an entirely inappropriate exercise in judicial invention. Section 1533(b)(3)(B) sets out many deadlines for reviews triggered by citizen petitions, some of which have no possible application here. For example, there is no possible reason for requiring FWS to make ninety-day findings concerning its own five-year reviews, nor to publish such tentative conclusions, as it does for petitions. See § 1533(b)(3)(A). Coos County does not suggest otherwise. Instead, Coos County would require us to pick and choose among the portions of the petition provision to decide which are applicable to the five-year review provision. We cannot read the “in accordance with” clause as bestowing on the courts such a statutory revision project. Interpreting the “in accordance with” clause in the five-year review determination as incorporating the petition provisions would also lead to strange results elsewhere in § 1533, where essentially identical language is used. In § 1533(a)(1), for example, the statute provides that “[t]he Secretary shall by regulation promulgated in accordance with subsection (b) of this section determine” (emphasis added) whether species are endangered or threatened; and, in § 1533(a)(3)(A), the Secretary is directed to “by regulation promulgated in accordance with subsection (b) of this section” (emphasis added) designate critical habitat for endangered and threatened species. Coos County does not argue that these tasks, too, are to be undertaken under the petition deadlines in subsection (b), despite the relevant provisions’ use of the same “in accordance with subsection (b)” language present in § 1533(c)(2). Yet, we are offered no principled basis to support treating §§ 1533(a)(1)(A) and (a)(3)(A) differently than the five-year review provision. Far more sensible than supposing that only 7496 COOS COUNTY v. KEMPTHORNE one of three “in accordance with” clauses incorporates the petition provision is to conclude that none of them do so. In sum, we find nothing in § 1533(c)(2), or in the ESA generally, to support Coos County’s tortured reading of the statute’s plain text. ii. The Proper Construction of the “in accordance with” Clause The text of the statute points to a much simpler, and much more logical, interpretation of the “in accordance with” clause. Most of the provisions of §§ 1533(a) and (b) govern the decisionmaking process in general, not the petition process in particular. Section 1533(c)(2) is naturally read as mandating that “[e]ach [five-year review] determination . . . shall be made in accordance with” those generally applicable provisions. Indeed, if five-year review determinations were not made in accordance with those provisions, the ESA’s purposes would be quite ill-served. Among the most important of those provisions is § 1533(a)(1), which sets out the factors to be considered in making a listing decision: The Secretary shall by regulation promulgated in accordance with subsection (b) of this section determine whether any species is an endangered species or a threatened species because of any of the following factors: (A) the present or threatened destruction, modification, or curtailment of its habitat or range; (B) overutilization for commercial, recreational, scientific, or educational purposes; (C) disease or predation; COOS COUNTY v. KEMPTHORNE 7497 (D) the inadequacy of existing regulatory mecha- nisms; or (E) other natural or manmade factors affecting its continued existence. These factors are of obvious relevance to five-year reviews, which result in determinations about whether a reviewed species’s listing should be changed or remain the same. Also critical to all ESA determinations is § 1533(b)(1)(A), which dictates the information upon which determinations are to be based: The Secretary shall make determinations required by subsection (a) (1) of this section solely on the basis of the best scientific and commercial data available to him after conducting a review of the status of the species and after taking into account those efforts, if any, being made by any State or foreign nation, or any political subdivision of a State or foreign nation, to protect such species, whether by predator control, protection of habitat and food supply, or other conservation practices, within any area under its jurisdiction, or on the high seas. Again, were a five-year review determination not to rely “solely on the basis of the best scientific and commercial data available,” it would not be made “in accordance with” the statute. It is provisions like these — which generally direct how determinations regarding listings are to be made and implemented — that § 1533(c)(2) incorporates. [5] In sum, our construction of § 1533(c)(2)’s “in accordance with” clause as incorporating provisions which generally govern determinations, and not the deadlines that pertain only to petitions, is well supported by the text. Coos County’s 7498 COOS COUNTY v. KEMPTHORNE reading of the statute is, on the other hand, flatly contradicted by the plain language of the ESA.
Coos County’s construction of § 1533(c)(2) disregards not only the statutory language but the overall structure of the ESA, which, as we have indicated, reflects a basic distinction between agency-initiated determinations and determinations triggered by citizen petition. “Under the first method [of making determinations], the Secretary may, on [his or] her own accord, consider whether a species is eligible for protection as endangered or threatened.” Ctr. for Biological Diversity, 254 F.3d at 834. If the Secretary determines that a species is “endangered or threatened,” he or she “must publish a proposed rule identifying the species as such.” Id. at 835 (citing 50 C.F.R. § 424.11 (discussing circumstances in which a species “shall be listed or reclassified”)). [6] Importantly, the statute provides no timeline governing the period which begins when the Secretary commences his or her own deliberations and ends with the publication of a proposed rule. Deadlines governing agency-initiated listing decisions appear only in provisions governing the publication process itself. See §§ 1533(b)(5)(A), (b)(6)(A). So, while a delay between an agency-initiated determination, including a five-year review determination, and publication of a proposed rule might be so long as to amount to a judicially-enforceable breach of statutory duty, a matter we consider briefly below, there is no fixed deadline for publication. In practice, the period between the Secretary’s first consideration of an action concerning a species and the publication of a proposed rule implementing that action can be quite lengthy. For example, the Secretary may conclude that more research is required before publishing a proposed rule of any kind. Specifically, after considering the relevant factors, he or she may determine that “one of the actions” available with COOS COUNTY v. KEMPTHORNE 7499 regard to a species “may be warranted, but that the available evidence is not sufficiently definitive to justify proposing the action at that time.” 50 C.F.R. § 424.15(a). If so, the Secretary “may” publish a brief notice so stating in the Federal Register. Id. In such cases, species considered candidates for listing may “sit on candidate lists for extraordinarily long periods before becoming the subject of protective rules.” Ctr. for Biological Diversity, 254 F.3d at 840. Moreover, the Secretary will often assign a low priority to removing a species from the endangered or threatened species list, which is the action that Coos County argues is appropriate here. See Endangered and Threatened Species Listing and Recovery Priority Guidelines, 48 Fed. Reg. 43,098, 43,100 (Sept. 21, 1983) (“Priority Guidelines”). So the Secretary enjoys considerable scheduling discretion in the management of listing and research priorities. After the basic provisions of the ESA as it now exists were enacted in 1973, Congress became aware that such delays could sometimes undermine implementation of the statutory scheme. As a result, “[i]n order to force action on listing and delisting proposals, [it] amended the ESA[ ] . . . to provide certain mandatory deadlines by which the Secretary must act” when presented with a citizen petition. Ctr. for Biological Diversity, 254 F.3d at 840 (citations and quotation marks omitted); see Endangered Species Act Amendment of 1982, Pub. L. No. 97-304, § 2, 96 Stat. 1411, 1412-14 (1982) (adding the petition process deadlines).10 The petition process and its deadlines are set out at § 1533(b)(3), which we have quoted and outlined above. This process, which “[e]mbrac[es] citizen participation,” Biodiversity Legal Found., 309 F.3d at 1170, is “intended . . . to interrupt the [FWS’s] priority system by requiring immediate review.” Id. at 1177 (quoting Ctr. for Biological Diversity, 254 F.3d at 840, alteration and quotation marks omitted). It “replace[s] the Secretary’s discretion with 10 In Center for Biological Diversity, we wrongly stated that this amendment was made in 1992. See 254 F.3d at 840. 7500 COOS COUNTY v. KEMPTHORNE mandatory, nondiscretionary duties.” Ctr. for Biological Diversity, 254 F.3d at 840 (alteration and quotation marks omitted). Coos County’s radical construction of the “in accordance with” clause of the five-year review provision, § 1533(c)(2), would, as we have explained, import at least one of the petition process’s deadlines into the agency-initiated five-year review process. It would, as a result, turn the five-year review process into a hybrid of the two, otherwise distinct, decisionmaking models that the ESA sets out. Moreover, as we have demonstrated, see supra Part II(B)(1)(A)(i), applying the petition deadlines to the five-year review process would entail considerable judicial ingenuity, as some of the petition deadlines simply have no sensible application to the five-year review process. “The petition process strikes a delicate balance between judicial review, agency expertise and the public’s right to a healthy, sustainable ecosystem which fosters biological diversity.” Wyoming v. U.S. Dep’t of the Interior, 360 F. Supp. 2d 1214, 1229 (D. Wyo. 2005), aff’d on other grounds, 442 F.3d 1262 (10th Cir. 2006). Its “statutory requirements are not mere bureaucratic hoops to jump through, but rather are the stated will of Congress, and the people, and as such should be adhered to with great care.” Id. at 1245. Importing some — but not all — of the petition process into the agency-initiated process risks upsetting that delicate balance. Our construction, in contrast, maintains the ESA’s usual division between agency-initiated determinations and petition-driven actions.