State of Utah v. United States Dept. of Interior
| Decision Date | 10 July 2001 |
| Docket Number | No. 00-4018,BLACK-BEAR,00-4018 |
| Citation | 256 F.3d 967 |
| Parties | (10th Cir. 2001) STATE OF UTAH, Plaintiff-Appellant, and HERMAN BAHE; MARVIN R. WASH; LESTER WASH; DENISE WASH; STEPHANIE E. VIGIL; DIANE EAGLE TOM; LINDA CLOVER RIVERA; MARLINDA MOON; EDGAR MOON; DELFORD MOON; ADRIAN MOON; LENA KNIGHT; ELDON KNIGHT; EDITH KNIGHT; LESLIE DAWN EAGLE; KENNETH W. EAGLE; EDWIN CLOVER; VERN BEAR; TYRONE BULLCREEK; MARGENE BULLCREEK; LISA BULLCREEK; DAVID BULLCREEK; ABBY BULLCREEK; COLLEEN; SAMMY BLACKBEAR, SR.; UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Plaintiffs, v. UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR; BUREAU OF INDIAN AFFAIRS; PHOENIX AREA DIRECTOR, Bureau of Indian Affairs; SUPERINTENDENT OF UINTAH AND OURAY AGENCY, Bureau of Indian Affairs, Defendants-Appellees, PRIVATE FUEL STORAGE, Defendant-Intervenor-Appellee, and DAVID L. ALLISON; WAYNE NORDWALL; BRUCE BABBITT, Defendants |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Tenth Circuit |
Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of Utah (D.C. No. 98-CV-380) Stephen Roth, Assistant United States Attorney (Paul M. Warner, United States Attorney, with him on the brief), Salt Lake City, Utah, for Defendants/Appellees.
Val R. Antczak (J. Michael Bailey of Parsons, Behle & Latimer, Salt Lake City, Utah, Margaret A. Swimmer, and Joseph D. Fincher of Hall, Estill, Hardwick, Gable, Golden & Nelson, P.C., with him on the brief), of Parsons Behle & Latimer, Salt Lake City, Utah, for Defendant/ Intervenor/Appellee.
Before SEYMOUR, MCKAY and LUCERO, Circuit Judges.
The State of Utah appeals from the district court's grant of summary judgment to defendants United States Department of the Interior (DOI), the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA), and several individuals, and defendant-intervenor Private Fuel Storage, L.L.C. (PFS). For the reasons stated below, we affirm.
In May 1997, PFS entered into a lease with the Skull Valley Band of Goshute Indians ("the Band") which would allow PFS to store approximately 40,000 tons of spent nuclear fuel on land belonging to the Band. PFS is a limited liability corporation composed of electric utility companies from around the nation. The land involved in the lease is the Skull Valley Reservation in Tooele County, Utah. The lease between PFS and the Band was approved by the BIA Superintendent, contingent upon both the completion of an environmental impact statement and the issuance of a license by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
In April and June of 1997, the State submitted requests to the BIA for various documents including the lease between PFS and the Band, pursuant to the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), 5 U.S.C. 552. On July 11, 1997, the BIA Superintendent replied to those requests and provided the State with a redacted copy of the lease. The Superintendent stated that the portions of the lease redacted by the BIA were exempt from disclosure under Exemption Four of FOIA, which protects certain forms of classified business information, or "trade secrets." The provisions redacted by the Superintendent include some of the most important sections of the lease, including those governing termination of the lease, lease payments, payment of rent and interest, and sovereign immunity.
The State appealed the BIA Superintendent's decision to the appropriate FOIA Appeals Officer within the DOI. After the DOI failed to reply to the State within twenty days, the State exercised its right under FOIA to treat the agency's silence as a denial of the State's appeal and an exhaustion of administrative remedies. The State subsequently filed suit in federal district court challenging the DOI's redaction of the lease. The parties filed cross-motions for summary judgment, as both agreed there were no issues of material fact. The district court granted summary judgment to defendants and the State filed this appeal.
The sole question for our resolution is whether the district court erred in holding that Exemption Four of the FOIA applies to the lease at hand, and if it does, whether courts should apply a "balancing of interests" under that exemption. We "review de novo the district court's legal conclusions that the requested materials are covered by the relevant FOIA exemptions" in cases where, as here, "the district court has granted summary judgment in favor of the government." Anderson v. Dep't of Health & Human Servs., 907 F.2d 936, 942 (10th Cir. 1990). Summary judgment is granted if a party can demonstrate "that there is no genuine issue as to any material fact and that the moving party is entitled to a judgment as a matter of law." Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(c).
As a general matter, FOIA requires that federal government agencies "shall make available to the public" a vast array of information concerning the agencies' structure, functions, procedures, and decisions. 5 U.S.C. 552(a). FOIA protects nine classes of information from this disclosure, however, as enumerated at 5 U.S.C. 552(b). One type of protected information is "trade secrets and commercial or financial information obtained from a person and privileged or confidential." 5 U.S.C. 552(b)(4). It is this provision, commonly referred to as Exemption Four, with which we are concerned in this case.
The first step in an Exemption Four analysis is determining whether the information submitted to the government agency was given voluntarily or involuntarily. Critical Mass Energy Project v. Nuclear Regulatory Comm'n, 975 F.2d 871, 878-879 (D.C. Cir. 1992) (en banc). The parties agree that the submission at hand was an involuntary one. Since the submission was involuntary, the information is protected from disclosure by FOIA if disclosure will either: "(1) . . . impair the government's ability to obtain necessary information in the future or (2) . . . cause substantial harm to the competitive position of the person from whom the information was obtained." National Parks and Conserv. Assoc. v. Morton, 498 F.2d 765, 770 (D.C. Cir. 1974) (internal footnote omitted).1
The defendants argue the lease terms are protected by FOIA under the second prong of the involuntary Exception Four analysis because disclosure will cause substantial harm to PFS's and the Band's competitive positions. As the district court correctly noted, all that the parties need show under this prong "is actual competition and the likelihood of substantial competitive injury." App. at 27 (citing Gulf & Western Indus., Inc. v. United States, 615 F.2d 527, 530 (D.C. Cir. 1976)). As the D.C. Circuit has explained, in determining whether a showing of substantial competitive injury has been made, "the court need not conduct a sophisticated economic analysis of the likely effects of disclosure." Public Citizen Health Research Group v. Food & Drug Admin., 704 F.2d 1280, 1291 (D.C. Cir. 1983) ). Although "[c]onclusory and generalized allegations of substantial competitive harm . . . are unacceptable and cannot support an agency's decision to withhold requested documents," actual economic harm need not be proved; evidence demonstrating the existence of potential economic harm is sufficient. Public Citizen, 704 F.2d. at 1291.2 In support of their argument on this issue, defendants provided the district court with two affidavits, the first from Leon D. Bear, who states he is chairman of the Band, and the second from John D. Parkyn, chairman of the board of managers of PFS. Supp. App. at 285 and 281.
In his affidavit, Mr. Bear states his concern that if the redacted lease information is disclosed, it will give the Band's "competitors valuable information which they could use to negotiate lower payments, and to structure waivers of sovereign immunity, termination provisions, tribal taxes, tribal regulations, and other provisions." Id. at 286. Mr. Bear describes his competitors as "[o]ther Indian tribes, non-Indian groups and organizations, and governments." Id. He also notes that the Band would be in a weaker position at the bargaining table in negotiating any future deals since its potential...
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