Court Opinion

ID: 9428306
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:23:23.689305+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:23:12.796928
License: Public Domain

Justice Stewart,
with whom The Chief Justice and Justice Marshall join, dissenting.
Today the Court strains to conclude that Congress did not mean what it said, and judicially repeals a reasonable1 *277and specific legislative provision because the provision announced a change in the law the Court divines to have been unintended.
A
The Wildlife Refuge Revenue Sharing Act, as amended in 1964, expressly provides that “all revenues received by the Secretary of the Interior from the sale or other disposition of . . . minerals . . .” within federal wildlife refuges administered by the Fish and Wildlife Service shall be “reserved in a separate fund for disposition as hereafter prescribed.” 16 U. S. C. § 715s (a) (1976 ed., Supp. III). At the end of each fiscal year, a portion of these revenues is to be distributed to the counties in which the refuges are located. In the case of “any reserve area,” expressly defined as “land withdrawn from the public domain” for wildlife refuge purposes, § 715s (g) (3), the allocation to the county is 25% of net receipts. § 715s (c)(2). Alternative formulas are specified for refuges created out of “fee areas.” § 715s (c)(1). Net receipts remaining after the payments to counties “shall be transferred to the Migratory Bird Conservation Fund for use in the acquisition of suitable areas for migratory bird refuges.” §715s(e). The statute draws no distinction between mineral revenues and receipts from other natural resources or between revenues from “acquired” lands and those from “reserved” lands. The statutory scheme is therefore clear: receipts from mineral leases, like all other revenues generated from wildlife refuges, whether the refuge is comprised of reserved or acquired lands, are to be apportioned between the *278counties and the federal Migratory Bird Conservation Fund. No receipts are to go to the State itself.
The Court argues that the addition of the word “minerals” to the Wildlife Refuge Revenue Sharing Act must be read to apply only to acquired refuge lands and not to reserved refuge lands. But there is no support, in law or legislative history, for exempting mineral revenues from refuges consisting of reserved public lands from the distribution formula of the Wildlife Refuge Revenue Sharing Act. The District Court concluded that “there is nothing in 16 U. S. C. § 715s which would support a restrictive construction of the word ‘minerals/ ” and that “a literal approach of statutory construction would dictate an expansive definition including both reserved and acquired lands.” 436 F. Supp. 288, 291. Similarly, the Court of Appeals found that “under the plain meaning of minerals and of the other provisions of § 715s, its language fairly brings the Kenai Moose Range oil and gas revenues within it scope.” 612 F. 2d 1210, 1213. It was a mistake for either court to proceed further.
The addition of the word “minerals” to the Wildlife Refuge Revenue Sharing Act in 1964 would be meaningless if it reached only leases of acquired lands. And, “[i]n construing a statute we are obliged to give effect, if possible, to every word Congress used.” Reiter v. Sonotone Corp., 442 U. S. 330, 339. Section 6 of the Mineral Leasing Act for Acquired Lands, 30 U. S. C. § 355, already provided that mineral leases of acquired lands “shall be distributed in the same manner as prescribed for other receipts from the lands affected by the lease.” Accordingly, any allocation scheme established for wildlife refuges encompassing acquired lands would automatically apply to mineral revenues, as well as those from the resources specified in the Refuge Act. As there was no ambiguity on that point, there was no useful purpose for Congress to declare once again how mineral revenues from acquired lands within wildlife refuges would be allocated.2 *279The suggestion, therefore, that the 1964 amendment reached only acquired lands presumes that the design of Congress in adding the word minerals was to accomplish precisely nothing.
B
The Court concludes that the statute does not mean what it says because the Wildlife Refuge Revenue Sharing Act of 1964 is in conflict with the Mineral Leasing Act of 1920,3 *280and because “repeals by implication are not favored.” Ante, at 267. But that canon of construction has no force in this context. The challenged section in the 1964 Act, far from “repealing” the 1920 Act, merely established a limited and specific exception to one of the provisions in the earlier law. When the text of a new statute, dealing with a discrete subject, is unambiguous, it should be given effect even if it alters a previous law that dealt with the same general subject.
The maxim that “repeals by implication are disfavored” has force when the argument is made that a general statute, wholly occupying a field, eviscerates an earlier and more specific enactment of limited coverage but without an indication of congressional intent to do so. In such a case, it may be reasonable to presume that Congress had not antici*281pated that its broad pronouncement would have serious implications in a peripheral, or even quite different, area, and that had it recognized that a specific earlier law would be rendered meaningless by a new enactment, it would have expressly indicated its intent to repeal or amend.
Thus, in Morton v. Mancari, 417 U. S. 535, the Court refused to find a repeal where the words of the Equal Employment Opportunity Act of 1972, if taken literally, would have worked a repeal of an Indian preference policy consistently recognized by Congress for almost 40 years. The Court’s description of Mancari as “a prototypical case where an adjudication of repeal by implication is not appropriate,” id., at 550, is instructive: “The preference is a longstanding, important component of the Government’s Indian program. The anti-discrimination provision, aimed at alleviating minority discrimination in employment, obviously is designed to deal with an entirely different and, indeed, opposite problem.” Ibid.; see also Fussell v. Gregg, 113 U. S. 550. The contrast with these cases is obvious. The provision in the more recent enactment deals specifically with the same subject — distribution of revenue from leases on federal lands— that had been the object of an earlier, and more general,4 statute.5 In any case, there is more than enough evidence *282to indicate that Congress was aware of what it was doing when the word “minerals” was added to the Wildlife Refuge Revenue Sharing Act.
The legislative history of the 1964 amendments to 16 U. S. C. § 715s (1976 ed., Supp. Ill) discloses that Congress had before it numerous bills from which to choose to compensate counties in which wildlife refuges were located, some of which omitted any reference to “minerals,” S. 2138, 87th Cong., 1st Sess. (1961); S. 2678, 2770, 2927, 3201, 87th Cong., 2d Sess. (1962); H. R. 12144, 12143, 11535, 11525, 10714, 87th Cong., 2d Sess. (1962); S. 1720, 88th Cong., 1st Sess. (1963); and some that included such reference, H. R. 2393, 1004, 1127, 9030, 5996, 88th Cong., 1st Sess. (1963); H. R. 11008, 88th Cong., 2d Sess. (1964); S. 179, 1363, 88th Cong., 1st Sess. (1963); S. 2498, 88th Cong., 2d Sess. (1964). Presumably when Congress adopted a bill containing the term, it was aware of the difference. Moreover, the 1964 amendment was not a “technical” amendment, nor was it a last-minute addition from the floor. See United States v. Batchelder, 442 U. S. 114, 120. The suggestion that the word “minerals” be added to 16 U. S. C. § 715s (1976 ed., Supp. III) was raised in June 1962 when the Interior Department submitted a substitute bill for those pending in the House and Senate. Report of the Department of the Interior dated June 20, 1962, in S. Rep. No. 1919, 87th Cong., 2d Sess., 13, 15 (1962); Report of the Department of the Interior of June 22, 1962, in Authorize Increased Payments to Counties for Wildlife Refuges: Hearings on H. R. 10714, H. R. 11525, H. R. 11535, H. R. 12143, and H. R. 12144 before the Subcommittee on Fisheries and Wildlife Conservation of the House Committee on Merchant Marine and Fisheries, 87th Cong., 2d Sess., 7, 9 (1962). *283The amendment was not highlighted, but it is unlikely that it escaped notice.6 Later the same year, the relevant Committees of both the House and the Senate adopted the language, S. Rep. No. 1919, supra, at 19; H. R. Rep. No. 2499, 87th Cong., 2d Sess., 9 (1962), and the text was before Congress for the following two years.
It is therefore very difficult to conclude that the addition was inadvertent or unnoticed.7 But, in any case, nothing in the legislative history demonstrates congressional intent different from that reflected in the words of the statute. “ 'The most that can be said for the legislative history is that it is on the whole inconclusive. Certainly, it contains nothing that requires the court to reject the construction which the statu*284tory language clearly requires.’ ” Ullman v. United States, 350 U. S. 422, 433.
The Court today is bothered because the literal meaning of a statute altered prevailing law.8 But usually the very point of new legislation is to alter prevailing law. “Every act is made, either for the purpose of making a change in the law, or for the purpose of better declaring the law; and its operation is not to be impeded by the mere fact that it is inconsistent with some previous enactment.” T. Sedgwick, The Interpretation and Construction of Statutory and Constitutional Law 104 (2d ed. 1874). Congress does not have the affirmative obligation to explain to this Court why it deems a particular enactment wise or necessary, or to demonstrate that it is aware of the consequences of its action.9 See Harrison v. PPG Industries, Inc., 446 U. S. 578, 592. And “[i]t *285is not a function of this Court to presume that ‘Congress was unaware of what it accomplished.’ ” Albernaz v. United States, 450 U. S. 333, 342 (quoting U. S. Railroad Retirement Board v. Fritz, 449 U. S. 166, 179).
Rather than join the Court in its speculative efforts to deal with the doctrine of implied repeal, I would rest decision of these cases upon an established rule of statutory construction: leges posteriores, priores contrarias abrogant. Sedgwick describes this rule with approval as follows: “ ‘If two inconsistent acts be passed at different times, the last,’ said the Master of the Rolls, ‘is to be obeyed; and if obedience cannot be observed without derogating from the first, it is the first which must give way.’ ” Sedgwick, supra, at 104. See District of Columbia v. Hutton, 143 U. S. 18, 26-27; Henderson’s Tobacco, 11 Wall. 652, 657; United States v. Tynen, 11 Wall. 88, 92. Observance of this rule also allows the Court to respect the most basic of all canons of statutory construction: that statutes mean what they plainly say.10 As Chief Justice Marshall said more than a century and a half ago: “[T]he intention of the legislature is to be collected from the words they employ. Where there is no ambiguity in the words there is no room for construction. The case must *286be a strong one indeed, which would justify a court in departing from the plain meaning of words ... in search of an intention which the words themselves did not suggest.” United States v. Wiltberger, 5 Wheat. 76, 96-96.
I respectfully dissent.

 There is nothing unreasonable, or even unusual, about a system of revenue sharing that returns a portion to the locality most immediately *277affected rather than to the State at large. The payment of 25% of the revenues to the county in which the refuge is situated compensates the county for tax revenue lost because of the public status of the lands and for any local services made necessary because of the refuge, and the payment of 75% to the special fund provided for in 16 U. S. C. § 715s (1976 ed., Supp. Ill) satisfies the need to provide a source of revenue for refuge management and maintenance.

 But see n. 3, infra.

 While it is clear there is a conflict, it is not at all clear that the conflict is even relevant to these cases. The Court assumes that the 1964 amendment, if given its plain meaning, changed the allocation of oil and gas lease revenues to affected counties. Although, as the Court of Appeals correctly noted, “the legislative history of the 1964 amendments to 16 U. S. C. § 715s sheds no direct light on the issue here,” 612 F. 2d 1210, 1213, it is arguable that before 1964, oil and gas lease receipts generated from lands in federal wildlife refuges were subject to § 401 of the Wildlife Refuge Act of 1935, ch. 261, 49 Stat. 383, and not to the Mineral Leasing Act of 1920, despite the vigorous contentions of today’s Court. See ante, at 267-268.
Section 401 of the 1935 Act established a distribution scheme for refuge revenues “from the sale or other disposition” of natural resources and receipts “from other privileges.” Although oil and gas leases are not mentioned, the provision was intended to give the administering agency broad authority to make “disposition of surplus . . . products on these reservations or refuges upon such terms and conditions as [it] shall determine to be for the best interests of the Government.” EL R. Rep. No. 886, 74th Cong., 1st Sess., 3 (1934). In 1946, the Interior Department ruled that oil and gas leases could be granted on wildlife refuge lands under the 1935 Act. Op. Solic. Interior Dept. M. 34516 (Aug. 5, 1946). Under the 1964 amendments to the Wildlife Refuge Revenue Sharing Act, 25% of oil and gas lease revenues are apportioned to the affected counties embracing reserved refuge lands. Accordingly, Congress may have intended that the addition of the word “minerals” in 16 U. S. C. § 715s (1976 ed., Supp. Ill) was merely a “perfecting provision,” S. Rep. No. 1919, 87th Cong., 2d Sess., 2 (1962); H. R. Rep. No. 2499, 87th Cong., 2d Sess., 4 (1962), and not an amendment of existing law at all.
Indeed, Interior Department spokesmen in the 1962, 1963, and 1964 congressional hearings described the existing law for receipts collected from both reserved public lands and acquired lands as generally subject to §401 of the 1935 Act. See S. Rep. No. 1919, swpra, at 2, 13; *280H. R. Rep. No. 2499, supra, at 4; H. R. Rep. No. 1753, 88th Cong., 2d Sess., 14 (1964); S. Rep. No. 1096, 88th Cong., 2d Sess., 25 (1964). The Secretary of the Interior stated that “[u]nder existing law, enacted in 19S5, the counties in which our refuges are located receive 25 percent of the net revenue from operations on national wildlife refuges, such as oil production, grazing, timber harvest, and the like.” More Equitable Payments To Counties Having Wildlife Refuges: Hearings on S. 179, S. 1363, S. 1720, and S. 2498 before the Senate Committee on Commerce, 88th Cong., 2d Sess., 19 (1964) (emphasis' added); Participation By Counties In Refuge Receipts: Hearings on H. R. 1127, H. R. 2393, H. R. 5596, H. R. 9030 and H. R. 11008 before the Subcommittee on Fisheries and Wildlife Conservation of the House Committee on Merchant Marine and Fisheries, 88th Cong., 2d Sess., 34 (1964) (emphasis added).
But it is not important to decide today what the true rule for apportionment of mineral resources from refuge lands was before 1964. And, contrary to the Court’s assertion, I do not do so here, and “explai[n] that Congress added 'minerals’ ... to reaffirm” that the 1935 Act already controlled the disposition of oil revenues from reserved refuge lands. Ante, at 268, n. 10. In 1964, Congress did not have to resolve the question of what the law had been before; its concern was properly with the future. Ideally, it could have prefaced § 715s with the language “notwithstanding any other provision of law.” But it did not. Instead, it introduced an entirely unambiguous prospective rule with the phrase: “Beginning with the next full fiscal year and for each fiscal year thereafter . . . .” At least for me, it needed to do no more.

 While the Mineral Leasing Act of 1920 covers in general terms the distribution of revenue from federal lands, the later Wildlife Refuge Revenue Sharing Act, as amended in 1964, embraced new provisions that apply with particularity to wildlife refuges, without distinction between those reserved or acquired. To that extent, the later Act must constitute a repeal of the former. “[T]he narrowly drawn, specific . . . provision . . . must prevail over the broader . . . provision . . . .” Radzanower v. Touche Ross & Co., 426 U. S. 148, 158.

 These cases do not involve an apparent limitation on an important and pervasive statute, such as the Sherman Act. See, e. g., United States v. Borden Co., 308 U. S. 188. In such a case, as in Mancari, implied repeals are not found because it would be unreasonable to assume Congress would alter fundamental policy without an unambiguous expression of its intent to do so. But it is equally unreasonable to expect *282Congress to specify, or indeed even to consider, the effect of a new statutory provision on all earlier provisions affecting the same subject that may be swept away by the enactment, particularly if the old provisions are unclear. See n. 3, supra.

 The Court makes much of the fact that a statistical table comparing revenues actually received by counties with those estimated to result from the amendment showed no change in the amounts from the Kenai Range, and if the amendment meant what a plain reading of it indicates, an increase should have been reflected. Ante, at 271. That straw of evidence scarcely compels the conclusion that the amendment does not mean what it says. It would hardly be surprising if the legislators overlooked a single disparity in a single entry in a lengthy exhibit. And it is noteworthy that the table the Court refers to appeared in the 1964 Reports only, while the addition of the word “minerals” to §715s was proposed in 1962, when the comparable statistical table did not include any indication of the anticipated payments to counties from public land areas under the proposed amendment. See S. Rep. No. 1919, 87th Cong., 2d Sess., 11, nn. 1 and 2 (1962).

 That Congress explained the addition of “[sjalmonoid carcasses,” see ante, at 271, n. 13, hardly supports the inference that Congress would also have explained the addition of the word “minerals.” By the Court’s strained logic, premised on the notion that “[t]he silence of Congress may provide a treacherous guide to its intent,” ibid., Congress is put on notice that any time it explains one provision of a statute, no matter how trivial, it does so at its peril. For if it fails similarly to explain all provisions, no matter how important, a court would be free to strike those unexplained provisions as unintended. That, in my view, leads to far more “treacherous” results than those feared by today’s Court.

 This is not a case where the plain meaning of statutory language would lead to an absurd or futile result, see, e. g., Armstrong Paint & Varnish Works v. Nu-Enamel Corp., 305 U. S. 315, or to an unreasonable result at variance with the policy of the legislation as a whole. See, e. g., United States v. American Trucking Assns., Inc., 310 U. S. 534. See also Shapiro v. United States, 335 U. S. 1, 31.

 The Court relies on the fact that the Department of the Interior ignored the 1964 amendment for a decade with respect to oil and gas revenues from the Kenai Range. Ante, at 272-273. But administrative errors are not self-validating. See SEC v. Sloan, 436 U. S. 103, 117-119; Adamo Wrecking Co. v. United States, 434 U. S. 275, 287-288, n. 5; Dixon v. United States, 381 U. S. 68, 78. Unauthorized payments from the federal Treasury are not immune from correction, and the United States can retrieve money mistakenly dispersed by its officials. United States v. Wurts, 303 U. S. 414, 415-416; Wisconsin Central R. Co. v. United States, 164 U. S. 190, 212. In any case, there is no indication that the administrative practice until 1975 was the result of considered evaluation of the 1964 amendments. Instead it appears that it was the inertial continuation of earlier practice. A much more reliable indication of the administrative construction of the 1964 amendment is the “detailed and comprehensive” re-evaluation by the Department in 1975, confirmed by the Comptroller General. Andrus v. Sierra Club, 442 U. S. 347, 358. See also NLRB v. Iron Workers, 434 U. S. 335, 351.

 Of course, if I am wrong, and Congress did not intend that oil revenues from reserved refuge lands be distributed according to the scheme of the 1964 Act, Congress is always free to revise the statute. It would be far more appropriate, given the constitutional allocation of lawmaking power to Congress and not to the courts, if this Court were to respect the plain meaning of the statute, and leave it to Congress to make any changes it thinks necessary. The Court’s readiness to rewrite legislation contributes, I am afraid, to undue congressional willingness to leave it to the courts to do its redrafting. Indeed, the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, when confronted with the dispute involved in these eases chose to “tak[e] no position as to whether disposition of mineral revenues should be made pursuant to the Mineral Leasing Act or the Refuge Revenue Sharing Act.” S. Rep. No. 95-1174, pp. 4, 8 (1978). See also ante, at 264r-265, n. 8.