Court Opinion

ID: 9460387
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 21:48:54.711917+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:36:35.764224
License: Public Domain

BOLDT, District Judge
(concurring):
I concur in the opinion of Judge Duniway and also in the concurring comments of Judge Chambers.
Under the circumstances existing at and before the expiration of the first suspension order and continuing to exist at this time, Ithink it might be shown upon full hearing and consideration by the district court that the second sus*149pension was arbitrary, capricious and discriminatory. Among the matters which might be relevant and material in such a hearing are: (1) more than five years have passed since appellees paid approximately $153,000,000.00 for the leases in question, without as yet having been permitted to exercise their leasehold rights, arguably in violation of constitutional rights; (2) in oral argument appellees’ counsel stated, without contradiction, that a considerable number of other lessees have been allowed to continue drilling for and extracting oil from lease sites in the Santa Barbara Channel during the suspension period applicable to appellees’ leases; (3) the express purpose for which the Secretary of Interior is authorized to grant oil and gas leases under the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act, enacted in 1953, is stated in section 8(a): “In order to meet the urgent needs for further exploration and development of the oil and gas deposits of the submerged land of the outer Continental Shelf” (emphasis added); (4) the 92nd Congress failed to act and thus far the 93rd Congress appears disinclined to act on the legislation proposed by the Secretary of the Interi- or to terminate these leases; and (5) the existing extremely critical national and international energy crisis.
In view of the circumstances suggested above and others that the parties might present, in my opinion the stipulation of counsel referred to by Judge Duniway, approved without hearing in the district court, now appears to have been improvident and might be held contrary to emergent national interests and vital public policy. In my view the validity of the stipulation and the right of the appellees to challenge the second suspension order on any available legal and factual basis ought to be heard and determined by the district court in the case now pending in that court.