Opinion ID: 613914
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Whether Issuance of an NTP Must be Preceded by NEPA Analysis

Text: The merits of appellees' first claim turns on whether the issuance of an NTP is a major federal action[] significantly affecting the quality of the human environment, which under NEPA must be preceded by an appropriate environmental analysis. 42 U.S.C. § 4332(C). We have identified three types of agency action that typically constitute major federal action: first, where the agency itself undertook a project; second, where the agency supported a project by contract, grant, loan, or other financial assistance; and third, where the agency enabled the project by lease, license, permit, or other entitlement for use. N.J. Dept. of Envt'l. Prot. and Energy v. Long Island Power Auth., 30 F.3d 403, 417 (3d Cir.1994). But [f]ederal approval of a private party's project, where that approval is not required for the project to go forward, does not constitute a major federal action. Id.; see also Sierra Club v. Penfold, 857 F.2d 1307, 1310 (9th Cir.1988). Accordingly, the dispositive question is whether mineral owners are required to obtain the approval of the Service, in the form of an NTP, before drilling in the ANF. We conclude that such approval is not necessary. The Service points out that Congress has broad authority under the Property Clause of the Constitution to regulate land owned by the federal government as well as use of private land that affects federal land. See Kleppe v. New Mexico, 426 U.S. 529, 540, 96 S.Ct. 2285, 49 L.Ed.2d 34 (1976). Congress has also authorized the Service to regulate use of national forests. [8] The Organic Act authorizes the Service to make such rules and regulations ... as will insure the objects of [forest] reservations, namely, to regulate their occupancy and use and to preserve the forests thereon from destruction. 16 U.S.C. § 551. Special use regulations promulgated under the Act provide that all uses of National Forest System land ... are designated `special uses' and must be approved by an authorized officer. 36 C.F.R. § 251.50(a). The Service argues that drilling by mineral owners in the ANF is a special use subject to its approval. See Duncan Energy v. U.S. Forest Service, 50 F.3d 584, 589 (8th Cir.1995) ( Duncan I ) (special use regulations apply to mineral owners' access to land purchased under the Bankhead-Jones Farm Tenant Act). We disagree. As a preliminary matter, we note that the Service's regulatory authority over Weeks Act land is not as straightforward as it claims. The Organic Act's grant of regulatory authority applies to the public forests and national forests which may have been set aside or which may be hereafter set aside under section 471 of this title. 16 U.S.C. § 551. Section 471 (now repealed) authorized the President to designate already owned federal lands as national forests, but did not authorize the purchase of private land, including land with reserved or outstanding rights. 16 U.S.C. § 471, repealed by Pub.L. 94-579, title VII, § 704(a), 90 Stat. 2792 (1976). When the Organic Act was passed, the regulation of occupancy and use did not contemplate the regulation of access by a cotenant. The Weeks Act was the first law to authorize federal acquisition of private land for forest preservation. It provides that land acquired under the Act shall be permanently reserved, held, and administered as national forest lands under the provisions of section 471 of this title, 16 U.S.C. § 521. This provision arguably requires treating such land as if it had been reserved under section 471 and could therefore be subject to the Service's regulatory authority under the Organic Act. United States v. Srnsky, 271 F.3d 595, 601 (4th Cir.2001). However, even if Congress meant by this language to subject Weeks Act land to the Service's regulatory authority under the Act, it intended to authorize the Service to regulate the exercise of reserved or outstanding rights by a joint owner of Weeks Act land. Indeed, section 9 of the Weeks Act suggests that this was not Congress's intent. Section 9 governs the acquisition of forest land, and provides: Such acquisition by the United States shall in no case be defeated because of located or defined rights of way, easements, and reservations, which, from their nature will, in the opinion of the Secretary of Agriculture, in no manner interfere with the use of the lands so encumbered, for the purposes of this Act. Such rights of way, easements, and reservations retained by the owner from whom the United States receives title, shall be subject to the rules and regulations prescribed by the Secretary of Agriculture for their occupation, use, operation, protection, and administration, and such rules and regulations shall be expressed in and made part of the written instrument conveying title to the lands to the United States; and the use, occupation, and operation of such rights of way, easements, and reservations shall be under, subject to, and in obedience with the rules and regulations so expressed. 16 U.S.C. § 518 (emphasis added). Thus, under section 9, reserved rightsrights of way, easements, and reservations retained by the owner from whom the United States receives titleare subject to the regulations expressed in and made part of the written instrument conveying title to the lands to the United States. Id. The Service points out that nothing in this provision provides that reserved mineral rights are subject only to regulations in the instrument of conveyanceit is possible that reserved rights are subject to the Service regulations contained in the written instrument of conveyance and to other regulations not contained in the instrument. There are two problems with this interpretation. First, it renders the provision superfluous: Congress would not have mandated the inclusion of regulations in deeds with reserved rights if those rights were subject to all generally applicable Service regulationsthe general regulatory authority granted under the Organic Act would have been sufficient. See Massie v. U.S. Dept. of Housing and Urban Dev., 620 F.3d 340, 352 (3d Cir. 2010) (a core tenet of statutory interpretation [is] that no provision shall be superfluous, void, or insignificant) (internal quotation marks omitted); In re Philadelphia Newspapers, LLC, 599 F.3d 298, 307 (3d Cir.2010) (warning against applying a general provision when doing so would undermine limitations created by a more specific provision). Second, as the Fourth Circuit noted in Srnsky, the regulatory authority claimed by the Service has no logical stopping point and would therefore raise difficult constitutional questions. 271 F.3d at 604. For example, on the Service's view, it would have the authority to require any holder of reserved rights of any kind even an easement or right of wayto obtain a permit prior to exercising their rights. This would effectively wipe the National Forest System clean of any and all easements, implied or express and dramatically reduce the value of reserved mineral and timber rights. Id. We do not believe that this is what Congress intended, and, like the Fourth Circuit, we are reluctant to construe the Weeks Act `in a manner that could in turn call upon the Court to resolve difficult and sensitive questions arising out of the guarantees of the takings clause.' Id. (quoting United States v. Security Indus. Bank, 459 U.S. 70, 82, 103 S.Ct. 407, 74 L.Ed.2d 235 (1982)). The better reading of the Weeks Act is that it require[s] that any rules or regulations that the Secretary wishes to apply to easements reserved by the grantor must be `expressed in and made part of' the instrument of conveyance. Srnsky, 271 F.3d at 602. These considerations apply with even greater force to outstanding rights. Although the Weeks Act contains no limiting language regarding the regulations applicable to outstanding rights, this is because outstanding rights are created prior to conveyance to the United States and there is no opportunity to limit these rights by inserting regulations into the instrument defining these rights. Moreover, the language of the Weeks Act indicates that Congress expected the United States to be bound by the terms of outstanding rightspurchase of land with outstanding rights is permitted only where such rights from their nature will, in the opinion of the Secretary of Agriculture, in no manner interfere with the use of the lands so encumbered, for the purposes of this Act. 16 U.S.C. § 518. This limitation only makes sense if the Service is bound by the terms of outstanding rights and cannot simply invoke its regulatory authority to override any private use of outstanding rights that it considers inconsistent with the purposes of the Weeks Act. Additionally, as with reserved rights, we are reluctant to construe the Weeks Act in a manner raising difficult constitutional takings questions absent a clear indication of congressional intent. [9] As the District Court recognized, Duncan Energy Co. v. U.S. Forest Service, 50 F.3d 584 (8th Cir.1995) ( Duncan I ) does not support the Service's broad claim of regulatory authority. [10] In Duncan I, the Eighth Circuit held that a private mineral rights owner seeking to drill in a national forest acquired under the Bankhead-Jones Farm Tenant Act, 50 Stat. 525 (1937) (BJFTA), codified as amended at 7 U.S.C. § 1010, et seq., was required to obtain authorization from the Service before beginning mining operations. 50 F.3d at 589-91. The court acknowledged that the mineral rights owner had a right under state law to reasonable use of the surface estate and thus the Service did not have veto authority over mineral rights owners' surface use. Id. at 589. But the Service's special use regulations governed surface use by mineral rights owners and empowered it to determine whether an owner's proposed surface use was reasonable. Id. at 590-91. To respect the rights of the mineral owner, the Service was required to process requests for surface use within a reasonable timegenerally 60 days. Id.; see also Duncan Energy Co. v. U.S. Forest Serv., 109 F.3d 497, 499 (8th Cir.1997) ( Duncan II ) (clarifying that an inflexible 60-day limit was not required). The court found that this rule was consistent with North Dakota law. Duncan I, 50 F.3d at 591-92. Duncan I is inapposite for several reasons. First, the land at issue in Duncan I was not acquired under the Weeks Act, but under BJFTA, which does not contain the limiting language of the Weeks Act discussed above. Compare Pub.L. No. 75-210, 32(a), 50 Stat. 522, 525-26 (1937) with 16 U.S.C. § 518. Second, Duncan I found that the authority asserted by the Service was consistent with the rights of mineral owners under North Dakota property law. Here, by contrast, Pennsylvania law is flatly inconsistent with the authority asserted by the Service. In a case very similar to this one, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court rejected a claim by the Pennsylvania Department of Conservation of Natural Resources that, as surface owner, it could impose conditions restraining those exercising their rights to the subsurface. Belden & Blake Corp., 969 A.2d at 532. The Court explicitly held that a surface owner has no right to determine what constitutes reasonable use in the first instance, and a mineral rights owner is under no obligation to obtain the surface owner's approval prior to accessing the surface to extract mineral rights. Id. Third, the Service's multi-year moratorium on new drilling could not be justified even under the Eighth Circuit's rulings in Duncan I and Duncan II. In Duncan II, the Eighth Circuit held that the Service must be accorded some flexibility in issuing permits and could not be held to a strict, 60-day limit. 109 F.3d at 500. But the indefinite suspension of NTPs for several years goes far beyond the type of delay contemplated in Duncan II. See 109 F.3d at 500 n. 1 (mineral rights owner's applications for surface access were processed in 61, 74, and 90 days and that owner had improperly taken unilateral action when application had not been processed for 100 days). [11] In sum, the Service does not have the broad authority it claims over private mineral rights owners' access to surface lands. Its special use regulations do not apply to outstanding rights and the limited regulatory scheme applicable to the vast majority of reserved rights in the ANF does not impose a permit requirement. [12] Although the Service is entitled to notice from owners of these mineral rights prior to surface access, and may request and negotiate accommodation of its state-law right to due regard, its approval is not required for surface access. An NTP is an acknowledgment that memorializes any agreements between the Service and a mineral rights owner, but it is not a permit. Accordingly, on the record before it, the District Court properly concluded that issuance of an NTP is not a major federal action under NEPA and an EIS need not be completed prior to issuing an NTP. See Sierra Club v. Penfold, 857 F.2d 1307, 1310 (9th Cir.1988); Long Island Power Auth., 30 F.3d at 417. The court therefore correctly determined that appellees were likely to succeed on their claim that NEPA does not require the Service to conduct an environmental analysis prior to issuing an NTP.