Court Opinion

ID: 9494125
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 15:29:52.708741+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:56:13.974373
License: Public Domain

RONALD M. GOULD, Circuit Judge,
concurring in part and dissenting in part:
I concur in Part III of the majority opinion concerning the effect of the Forest Service’s 1986 determination regarding the Diobsud Creek project. However, I respectfully dissent from Part II. There, the majority gives an unduly narrow reading to Petitioners’ requests for rehearing before FERC, and thus incorrectly concludes that we have no jurisdiction to consider the statutory construction argument urged on appeal. I disagree, because this claim was adequately raised below.
In their rehearing requests, Petitioners made two arguments that are relevant here. First, they challenged the authority of the Secretary of Agriculture (“Secretary”), contending that the Secretary (acting here through the Forest Service) can make binding determinations only as to the criteria in the first sentence of § 7(a) (i.e., whether a project is “on or directly affecting” a wild and scenic river or will have “a direct and adverse effect on the values for which [a wild and scenic] river was established”), but not as to the second sentence (i.e., whether a project will “unreasonably diminish” certain values present in the wild and scenic river area).1 Petitioners claimed that because the Forest Service’s determination was phrased in terms of the second sentence under which the Secretary had no authority, ¿he Forest Service’s findings did not bind FERC. This argument failed below and was sensibly abandoned on appeal.
Second, Petitioners focused on the relationship between the first and second sentences of § 7(a). They argued that the second sentence consists of “clarifying language” and “is not substantive in content, but is designed to prevent overbroad interpretation of the first sentence.” It is this argument that is before us on appeal, and I conclude properly to be considered. According to the majority, however, the claim was not preserved. The majority reasons: “[W]e require much more specificity in the statement of objection in the administrative petition for rehearing to trigger our appellate review.” I respectfully disagree. The authorities cited by the majority do not support its conclusion. Those cases altogether fail to describe the degree of specificity required in an administrative petition; rather, they simply state the basic requirement that the “specific” objections raised on appeal must first be raised before the administrative entity.
Our cases point to the opposite conclusion than that asserted by the majority as a justification to decline review of the important issue before us. We previously *751have observed that the purpose of the relevant jurisdictional statute, 16 U.S.C. § 825l(b), is to give FERC “notice of its alleged errors so that it may have the opportunity to correct them.” Sierra Ass’n for Env’t v. FERC, 791 F.2d 1403, 1407 (9th Cir.1986) (internal quotation marks and citations omitted). That purpose was satisfied here. To be sure, Petitioners’ argument regarding the effect of the second sentence was subsidiary to their contentions about the Secretary’s authority, and could have been articulated more fully. But this is not to say that the argument was merely “isolated language,” as the majority claims. Read fairly, Petitioners’ rehearing requests provided notice to FERC of the same statutory construction argument advanced on appeal. FERC had ample opportunity to address this issue in its ruling, but chose not to do so. That FERC had prior notice of Petitioners’ statutory construction argument is underscored by the fact that on appeal, FERC objected to various of Petitioners’ arguments on the ground that they were not raised below; notably, the statutory construction argument was not one of them.
I see no legal basis to decline review of a federal agency’s construction of a statute that defines the scope of the agency’s power, when the issue was presented to the agency, albeit with less than perfect clarity, and where the agency itself concluded that the issue was raised in requests for rehearing. Further, there is no policy that encourages avoiding and deferring the issue of how the governing statute constrains FERC’s power. The argument before us was previously before FERC, and that agency appears ready, willing, and able to join issue now. The public gains from a resolution of this statutory construction issue, particularly in an era where energy is increasingly scarce and federal agency decisions precluding licensing of new power generation facilities warrant scrutiny. Not only the public, but the agency itself suffers if we decline review on the merits and leave untouched an agency position that is erroneous as a matter of law.
“[F]ederal courts are vested with a ‘virtually unflagging obligation’ to exercise the jurisdiction given them.” McCarthy v. Madigan, 503 U.S. 140, 146, 112 S.Ct. 1081, 117 L.Ed.2d 291 (1992) (quoting Colorado River Water Conservation Dist. v. United States, 424 U.S. 800, 817-18, 96 S.Ct. 1236, 47 L.Ed.2d 483 (1976)). “We have no more right to decline the exercise of jurisdiction which is given, than to usurp that which is not given.” Cohens v. Virginia, 6 Wheat. 264, 19 U.S. 264, 404, 5 L.Ed. 257 (1821). In my view, the majority opinion creates an artificially high barrier to proper appellate review and, in so doing, fails to consider arguments properly before us.
Because I believe that we have jurisdiction, I would address the merits of Petitioners’ argument. In brief, I would grant the petition; hold that FERC erred; and remand for further proceedings. This case turns on the interplay between the first and second sentences of § 7(a). There is no dispute about the first sentence. It sets forth two standards for evaluating license applications for hydroelectric projects that implicate the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act: (1) FERC cannot license any projects “on or directly affecting any [wild and scenic] river”; and (2) no department or agency of the United States, including FERC, can assist in the construction of any water resources project that would have “a direct and adverse effect on the values for which [a wild and scenic] river was established.”
The dispute concerns the second sentence of § 7(a) — “Nothing contained in the *752foregoing sentence ... shall preclude licensing of ... developments below or above a wild and scenic or recreational river area ... which will not invade the area or unreasonably diminish the scenic, recreational, and fish and wildlife values present in the area.” FERC interprets this sentence as creating a third, independent standard that applies specifically to proposed developments outside of wild and scenic river areas. This strained construction is inconsistent with the plain language, purpose, and overall structure of § 7(a). The first sentence is not limited to projects within a wild and scenic river area, and the second sentence on its face reads as a clarification of the first.
Because the Forest Service’s determination related only to the second sentence of § 7(a) — which has no independent substantive content — the determination was, in effect, a nullity. Stated another way, because the Forest Service did not determine that Petitioners’ proposed projects were “on or directly affecting” the Skagit WSR, nor that the projects would have a “direct and adverse effect on the values for which [the Skagit WSR] was established,” FERC was not bound by the Forest Service’s decision. On this basis, I would grant the petition.
One other issue deserves attention. It is possible that the Forest Service’s conclusion regarding the second sentence has necessary implications for the first. That is, the finding that the projects would “unreasonably diminish the values” for which the Skagit WSR was established might necessarily mean that the projects would “directly affect” the river. I would leave that decision to FERC in the first instance.
But what cannot be left to FERC is the power unilaterally to alter the governing standards for licensing and to depart from the carefully delineated standards that have been set by Congress. Because I believe that FERC has badly misinterpreted § 7(a), and because the issue is fairly presented, I respectfully dissent.

. For the sake of brevity, I will refer to these provisions as "the first sentence” and "the second sentence.”