Court Opinion

ID: 9487065
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 12:07:23.42584+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:52:04.888281
License: Public Domain

*194SILBERMAN, Circuit Judge,
dissenting from the denial of rehearing en banc, with whom MIKVA, Chief Judge, and WALD, Circuit Judge, join:
I find this case quite troublesome, as much for what is not argued by the parties, and therefore not discussed by the court, as for what is. Keeping in mind that we are dealing with a criminal statute, I am not at all sure that Chevron even governs our review. Cf. United States v. Thompson/Center Arms Co., -U.S. -, - & nn. 9 & 10, 112 S.Ct. 2102, 2110 & nn. 9 & 10, 119 L.Ed.2d 308 (1992) (plurality opinion). That is to say, the Chevron presumption — that Congress has delegated to the administrating agency primary authority to reconcile ambiguities in statutory language — may not apply when the statute contemplates criminal enforcement. Cf. Kelley v. EPA 15 F.3d 1100, 1007 (D.C.Cir.1994). The petitioner does not raise that concern, but it surely is not a separate claim that the petitioner has affirmatively waived.
It is, therefore, not necessary in order to direct briefing on that question to rely on United States Nat’l Bank v. Independent Ins. Agents, Inc., — U.S. -, 113 S.Ct. 2173, 124 L.Ed.2d 402 (1993), in which the Supreme Court proclaimed unrestrained judicial discretion to decide any issue analytically anterior to the controversy before it, even if the plaintiff affirmatively waived the claim (which means, I gather, in the typical contract breach suit where both parties agree that the contract was formed but dispute only whether there was a breach, a federal court can, sua sponte, force the parties to litigate whether the contract was actually formed). Since the Court did not even purport to announce a rule governing this sort of discretion (which some might think implies that its opinion on this issue is not even law), I take it that no federal judge is bound to exercise the discretion that the Supreme Court obviously wished to preserve for itself.1
Indisputably, however, ripeness issues which go to our jurisdiction should be raised by a federal court sua sponte, and I rather doubt the ripeness of the appellant’s facial challenge to the Department of Interior regulation. I can imagine a string of hypotheti-cals which range from “habitat modifications” that are sufficiently close to the core concept that the majority believes animates the statutory language as to be surely included within the word “harm” to ones that seem clearly inconsistent with the statute. Suppose, for example, that someone wished to kill all the birds on a particular piece of property and could do so by draining a marsh. If that person did so, would not his actions properly be thought to “harm” the endangered species?
Assuming the challenge to the regulation is ripe and that Chevron controls our review, I think the Chief Judge has the better of the argument. Were I interpreting this statute without deference, given its language and legislative history, I would certainly be troubled about any construction that might preclude a landowner from using his property for ordinary purposes just because it could be thought that an endangered species was somehow disadvantaged. I do not think, however, that the majority has submitted to the discipline of the Chevron framework and given the Department of Interior its due deference. It was certainly not apparent whether the majority’s initial opinion rested on Chevron Step I or Step II. In its response to the government’s petition for rehearing, the panel majority appears to shift perceptibly to a Step I “clear determination by Congress,” against which no deference to the agency’s interpretation is appropriate. I do not find in either the statutory language or the legislative history any such fixed view. And at the second step (which is where I would analyze the case), maxims of statutory construction like noscitur a sociis, although not totally irrelevant, certainly have less force. See Michigan Citizens for an Indep. Press v. Thornburgh, 868 F.2d 1285, 1292-93 (D.C.Cir.), aff'd per curiam by an equally divided court, 493 U.S. 38, 110 S.Ct. 398, 107 L.Ed.2d 277 (1989). I quite agree with the panel that “the factors involved in the first *195‘step’ are also pertinent to whether an agency’s interpretation is ‘reasonable,’” see Sil-berman, Chevron — The Intersection of Law & Policy, 58 Geo.Wash.L.Rev. 821, 827 (1990); but when thinking of the statute at that second step, one must assume that the statute has more than one plausible construction as it applies to the case before you. If the agency offers one — -it prevails.
In any event, the issue would seem of sufficient importance, particularly in light of the circuit split, cf. Palila v. Hawaii Dep’t of Land and Natural Resources, 852 F.2d 1106 (9th Cir.1988), to warrant en banc treatment.

. It has recently been suggested that the Supreme Court is really a quasi-judicial institution. See Thomas W. Merrill (the John Paul Stevens Professor at Northwestern), A Modest Proposal For a Political Court, 17 Harv.J.L. & Pub.Pol'y, 137, 139 (1994).