Opinion ID: 166407
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: 1910 Coal Withdrawal

Text: R.S. 2477 rights of way may be established only over lands that are “not reserved for public uses.” The BLM determined that a 1910 coal withdrawal “reserved for public use” over 5.8 million acres of land in Utah, including land over which Garfield County claimed three rights of way. Garfield Admin. Det. at 9, 19, 32, and 38, Aplt. App. Vol. 2 at 312, 322, 335, and 341. It therefore invalidated those rights of way on the ground that they were not established “at a time when the lands were open for establishment of a claim under R.S. 2477.” Id. at 32. The district court affirmed. We must decide whether the coal withdrawal constitutes a “reserv[ation] for public use” under R.S. 2477. The text of the coal withdrawal states: “[S]ubject to all of the provisions, limitations, exceptions, and conditions contained in [the Pickett Act and the Coal Lands Act], there is hereby withdrawn from settlement, location, sale or entry, and reserved for classification and appraisement with respect to coal values all of those certain lands of the United States . . . described as 101 follows: [describing over 5.8 million acres of land in Utah].” a. Why the 1910 Coal Withdrawal was not a “reservation” It is important to note at the outset that “withdrawal” and “reservation” are not synonymous terms. Although Congress and the Supreme Court have occasionally used the terms interchangeably, see 1 American Law of Mining § 14.01 n.1 (2d ed. 2004), that does not eliminate their distinct meaning. A withdrawal makes land unavailable for certain kinds of private appropriation under the public land laws. Charles F. Wheatley, Jr., II Study of Withdrawals and Reservations of Public Domain Lands A-1 (1969) (report to Public Land Law Review Commission). Just as Congress, pursuant to its authority under the Property Clause, can pass laws opening the public lands to private settlement, so also it can remove the public lands from the operation of those same laws. That is what a withdrawal does. It temporarily suspends the operation of some or all of the public land laws, preserving the status quo while Congress or the executive decides on the ultimate disposition of the subject lands. Id. A reservation, on the other hand, goes a step further: it not only withdraws the land from the operation of the public land laws, but also dedicates the land to a particular public use. As the first edition of Black’s Law Dictionary defines it: “In public land laws of the United States, a reservation is a tract of land, more or 102 less considerable in extent, which is by public authority withdrawn from sale or settlement, and appropriated to specific public uses; such as parks, military posts, Indian lands, etc.” Black’s Law Dictionary 1031 (1st ed. 1891). Thus, a reservation necessarily includes a withdrawal; but it also goes a step further, effecting a dedication of the land “to specific public uses.” See also 63C Am. Jur. 2d Public Lands § 31 (2005) (“Public land is withdrawn when the government withholds an area of federal land from settlement, sale, location, or entry under some or all of the general land laws in order to limit activities. . . . ‘Reserved’ lands have been expressly withdrawn from the public domain by statute, executive order, or treaty and dedicated as a park, military post, or Native American land or for some other specific federal use.”) (footnotes omitted). The text of R.S. 2477 reinforces this point by requiring not merely that the land be “reserved,” but that it be reserved “for public uses.” The text of the Coal Lands Act of 1910, subject to which President Taft issued the 1910 coal withdrawal, adheres to this distinction. The Act applied to all “[u]nreserved public lands . . . which have been withdrawn or classified as coal lands.” 30 U.S.C. § 83. The use of the phrase, “unreserved public lands which have been withdrawn,” indicates that lands could be “withdrawn” or classified as coal lands under the 1910 act and yet remain “unreserved.” Turning to the text of the withdrawal, we read that the subject lands were 103 “withdrawn from settlement, location, sale or entry, and reserved for classification and appraisement with respect to coal values.” On its face, “withdrawn . . . and reserved” sounds like a reservation. But just because a withdrawal uses the term “reserved” does not mean that it reserves land “for public uses.” We must decide whether “reserved for classification and appraisement with respect to coal values” is equivalent to “reserved for public uses.” We conclude that it is not. As noted above, land is “reserved” when it is dedicated to a specific public purpose. This is not what the coal withdrawal did. Instead, the coal withdrawal narrowly, and temporarily, removed potential coal lands from certain kinds of private appropriation. This is evident from its historical context. In the early 1900s, the nation confronted a coal shortage which coincided with the discovery of “widespread fraud in the administration of federal coal lands.” Amoco Prod. Co. v. S. Ute Indian Tribe, 526 U.S. 865, 868 (1999). Unscrupulous characters would obtain land under other pretenses, only to use the land for coal mining without having to pay for the real value. Due to a lack of funding, the Department of the Interior had to rely on affidavits of entrymen to determine whether lands were valuable for coal or not. This allowed railroads and other coal interests to obtain vast tracts of coal lands under railroad and agricultural grants for a nominal price. President Roosevelt “responded to the 104 perceived crisis by withdrawing 64 million acres of public land thought to contain coal from disposition under the public land laws.” Id. at 869. This gave the United States an opportunity “to reexamine and reclassify lands which it thought might have exceptional value, thus preventing them from being disposed of at a price which took no account of that value.” Confederated Bands of Ute Indians v. United States, 1948 WL 5025,  (Ct. Cl. 1948) (unpublished). President Roosevelt’s order did not, however, reserve the withdrawn lands for a public use. As a 1924 Department of the Interior decision explained: “Temporary withdrawals made prior to . . . classification or reservation merely for the purpose of withholding the land from further disposition under the public land laws until further investigation has been made and a decision arrived at as to the character of the land and its chief value, have no effect as raising any presumption as to the character of the land, nor do they dedicate it to any special purpose or reserve it for any special form of disposal.” George G. Frandsen, 50 Pub. Lands Dec. 516, 520 (1924). President Roosevelt’s broad withdrawal outraged homesteaders and other western interests, as even those homesteaders who had made a valid entry lost the opportunity to obtain a patent unless they could prove that the land was not valuable for coal. Amoco Prod., 526 U.S. at 869. Congress thus crafted a compromise with the Coal Lands Acts of 1909 and 1910. The 1909 Act protected 105 the rights of homesteaders who had entered coal lands prior to President Roosevelt’s 1906 withdrawal. It authorized the federal government to issue patents for those lands, subject to “a reservation to the United States of all coal in said lands.” 30 U.S.C. § 81. The 1910 Act opened the remaining coal lands to entry under the homestead laws, subject to the same reservation of coal to the United States. See 30 U.S.C. § 83; Amoco Prod., 526 U.S. at 870. Taken together, these acts achieved “a narrow reservation of the [coal] resource that would address the exigencies of the crisis at hand without unduly burdening the rights of homesteaders or impeding the settlement of the West.” Amoco Prod., 526 U.S. at 875. Thus, not only were the lands subject to the coal withdrawal not “reserved” for any particular “public use”; they remained open to settlement, sale, and entry under several important public land laws, including the homestead laws, the desert-land law, and certain mining laws. See Act of June 22, 1910, ch. 318, 36 Stat. 583 (providing that “unreserved public lands . . . which have been withdrawn or classified as coal lands . . . shall be subject to appropriate entry under the homestead laws . . . [and] the desert-land law, to selection under . . . the Carey Act, and to withdrawal under . . . the Reclamation Act”). 38 Because the 38 President Taft issued the 1910 coal withdrawal “subject to all of the provisions, limitations, exceptions, and conditions contained in [the Pickett Act (continued...) 106 lands subject to the coal withdrawal were “public lands, not reserved for public uses,” they were available for establishment of rights of way under R.S. 2477. Indeed, because R.S. 2477 provided one of the most important means of establishing access to homestead, desert-land, and mining claims, it would make little sense for Congress to open public lands to private claims but forbid settlers to construct highways to access those claims. As the BLM argued in prior litigation, in response to the argument that withdrawals under the Taylor Act in the 1930s precluded the establishment of R.S. 2477 rights of way: R.S. 2477 was essentially the only authority by which highways could be established across public lands by state and local governments. . . . The Congress and the Department of the Interior in the 1930’s were well aware of the distinction between opening lands to possible disposition through patent as opposed to the mere creation of an easement in state and local governments. Common sense also tells us that Congress would not have intended to leave no legal means for state and local governments to acquire highways across vast areas of the west. Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance, IBLA 90-375, Answer of the Bureau of Land 38 (...continued) and the Coal Lands Act].” The Pickett Act limited the effect of withdrawals on certain of the mining laws, providing that withdrawals would not limit “exploration, discovery, occupation, and purchase under the mining laws of the United States, so far as the same apply to metalliferous minerals.” Act of June 25, 1910, ch. 421, 36 Stat. 847, as amended, Act of August 24, 1912, ch. 369, 37 Stat. 497. In other words, lands withdrawn under the Pickett Act remained subject to the mining laws insofar as they applied to metalliferous minerals, such as aluminum, copper, gold, iron, lead, nickel, silver, and zinc. 107 Management to Additional Statement of Reasons of Appellants, at 6 (1990). Common sense also tells us in this case that the narrow 1910 coal withdrawal, which permitted widespread settlement under the homestead, desert-land, and mining laws, was not meant to cut off the right to establish access to those claims. b. Humboldt County v. United States The BLM seeks support for its position from the Ninth Circuit’s decision in Humboldt County v. United States, 684 F.2d 1276 (9th Cir. 1982). In that case, Humboldt County asserted an R.S. 2477 right of way over land withdrawn under Executive Order No. 6910, issued in 1934, which withdrew “from settlement, location, sale or entry, and reserved for classification” all of the vacant, unreserved, and unappropriated public land in twelve western states, including Nevada (in which Humboldt County lies) and Utah. See Executive Withdrawal Order, 55 I.D. 205, 207 (1935). The Ninth Circuit focused its attention on what it saw as the “crucial language” in R.S. 2477: the phrase “public lands.” 684 F.2d at 1281. It then reasoned syllogistically: (1) “public lands” are lands “subject to sale or other disposal under general laws”; (2) lands subject to Executive Order No. 6910 were “not subject to sale or disposition”; (3) therefore, lands subject to Executive Order 6910 were “not ‘public lands.’” Id. We find this argument based on Humboldt unpersuasive for several reasons. First, neither the BLM nor SUWA has argued that the lands subject to the 1910 108 coal withdrawal were not “public lands” for purposes of R.S. 2477. Instead, they have argued that the coal withdrawal “reserved [the lands] for public uses.” Humboldt says nothing about whether withdrawals “reserve” land for public use; it therefore provides little, if any, support for the Appellees’ position. Moreover, even if the analysis underlying Humboldt were applied to lands subject to the coal withdrawal, it would not lead to the same conclusion. For, according to Humboldt, lands are “public” if they are “subject to sale or other disposal under general laws.” Id. And lands covered by the coal withdrawal remained subject to sale and disposition under the homestead and desert-land laws, as well as under the metalliferous mining laws. Thus, on Humboldt’s own terms, lands subject to the coal withdrawal are “public lands” available for establishment of rights of way under R.S. 2477. 39 39 Because the 1910 coal withdrawal, unlike Executive Order No. 6910, left the affected lands open to settlement, the Ninth Circuit’s Humboldt decision is distinguishable on its own terms. But there is a further complication. The Ninth Circuit appears not to have noticed that President Roosevelt issued Executive Order No. 6910 “subject to the conditions . . . expressed [in the Pickett Act].” Executive Withdrawal Order, 55 I.D. at 207. One of those conditions is that “all lands withdrawn under the provisions of this Act shall at all times be open to exploration, discovery, occupation, and purchase, under the mining laws of the United States, so far as the same apply to metalliferous minerals.” Act of June 25, 1910, ch. 421, 36 Stat. 847, as amended, Act of August 24, 1912, ch. 369, 37 Stat. 497. In other words, lands withdrawn under Executive Order No. 6910 remained open to sale and disposition under the mining laws insofar as those laws applied to metalliferous minerals (minerals such as aluminum, copper, gold, iron, lead, nickel, silver, and zinc). See also 1 American Law of Mining § (continued...) 109 Finally, it is worth pointing out that in prior litigation the BLM itself has rejected Humboldt. In a 1990 appeal before the Interior Board of Land Appeals, the BLM denounced the “convoluted argument that the public lands in the west were withdrawn from the operation of R.S. 2477 by Executive Order No. 6910.” Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance, IBLA 90-375, Answer of the Bureau of Land Management to Additional Statement of Reasons of Appellants, at 3 (1990). It concluded that “Executive Order 6910 was in no way intended to withdraw the public lands from the operation of R.S. 2477.” Id. at 6; see also BLM Manual 2801 – Rights of Way Management (stating that “Executive Order[] 6910 . . . [is] not considered to have removed public lands from unreserved status.”). The BLM argued that “[t]he Department has operated in a manner inconsistent with [this] interpretation [of Executive Order No. 6910] for more than 50 years,” and that such a “legalistic” interpretation of the Order “should not be adopted at this late date.” Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance, IBLA 90-375, Answer of the Bureau of Land Management to Additional Statement of Reasons of Appellants, at 5 (1990). If our already strong reasons for rejecting Humboldt were not enough, we 39 (...continued) 14.02[1][a][iv] (2d ed. 2004) (“Since the Order [No. 6910] was based on the Pickett Act, the withdrawn lands were open to location . . . of metalliferous minerals and to mineral leasing.”). Because the Ninth Circuit did not address this aspect of Executive Order No. 6910, we do not know how it squares with that Court’s legal analysis of what constitutes “public lands.” 110 would be loath to overturn 50 years of BLM interpretation by accepting its novel argument here. In sum, we conclude that the 1910 coal withdrawal was not a “reservation” for purposes of R.S. 2477. The withdrawal did not dedicate the subject lands to a specific “public use,” but instead left the land open to private appropriation, while withholding it from appropriation as a coal resource.