Court Opinion

ID: 9430888
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:30:48.392331+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:15:57.790807
License: Public Domain

Justice Stevens,
with whom Justice Scalia joins, concurring in part and concurring in the judgment.
Given the Court’s holding that § 810 of the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act (ANILCA), 94 Stat. 2371, 16 U. S. C. § 3120, does not apply to the Outer Continental Shelf, it is unnecessary to decide whether the Court of Appeals applied the proper standard in determining the *556availability of injunctive relief.* Accordingly, I join only Parts I and III of the Court’s opinion.

Indeed, the Court itself recognizes this when it declines to reach two additional questions that were presented in the petition. See ante, at 534-535, n. 1. This is not a case in which discussion of a nonessential issue is arguably appropriate because the lower court is likely to employ the identical legal analysis on remand. Even if, in light of the decisions in this case and the cross-petition, the Court of Appeals finds that respondents retain aboriginal rights in the Outer Continental Shelf, it would apparently not apply the same injunctive relief standard that it applied with relation to ANILCA. The special injunctive standard applied to the ANILCA claim was based on Circuit precedent providing that, absent unusual circumstances, “[a]n injunction is the appropriate remedy for a substantive procedural violation of an environmental statute.” People of Gambell v. Hodel, 774 F. 2d 1414, 1422 (1985) (emphasis added). See generally Save Our Ecosystems v. Clark, 747 F. 2d 1240, 1250 (CA9 1984). There is no reason to believe that this rule would be extended to injunctions designed to prevent interference with aboriginal rights.