Tallman v. Udall

Decision Date19 September 1963
Docket NumberNo. 17598.,17598.
Citation324 F.2d 411
PartiesJames K. TALLMAN et al., Appellants, v. Stewart L. UDALL, Secretary of the Interior, Appellee.
CourtU.S. Court of Appeals — District of Columbia Circuit

Mr. Charles F. Wheatley, Jr., Washington, D. C., with whom Mr. Robert L. McCarty, Washington, D. C., was on the brief, for appellants.

Mr. Edmund B. Clark, Atty., Dept. of Justice, with whom Asst. Atty. Gen. Ramsey Clark and Messrs. S. Billingsley Hill and Herbert Pittle, Attys., Dept. of Justice, were on the brief, for appellee. Mr. Roger P. Marquis, Atty., Dept. of Justice, also entered an appearance for appellee.

Before WILBUR K. MILLER, BASTIAN and McGOWAN, Circuit Judges.

BASTIAN, Circuit Judge.

This is an appeal from summary judgment of the District Court in favor of the Secretary of the Interior in an action to review his decision rejecting appellants' applications for oil and gas leases on land within the Kenai National Moose Range in Alaska.

Since appellants' main attack is on the Secretary's authority to draw various historial conclusions, the chronology of the creation of the moose range and its opening for oil and gas leasing is necessary.

The Kenai National Moose Range was established by Executive Order No. 89791 of December 16, 1941. The order, which covered all but a small part of the subject lands, withdrew and reserved the area for the protection of the Kenai moose and provided that none of the lands:

"shall be subject to settlement, location, sale, or entry, or other disposition (except for fish trap sites) under any of the public-land laws applicable to Alaska, or to classification and lease under the provisions of the act of July 3, 1926 * * * 44 Stat. 821, U.S.C., title 48, secs. 360-361, or the act of March 4, 1927 * * * 44 Stat. 1452, U.S.C., title 48, secs. 471-471o."

Subsequently, Public Land Order No. 4872 of June 16, 1948, withdrew the portion of the subject lands excepted by the 1941 Executive Order.

Between October 15, 1954, and January 28, 1955, certain parties filed applications for oil and gas leases on lands covered by the 1941 and 1948 orders. No immediate action was taken on these applications because, in 1953, the Director of the Bureau of Land Management had suspended action on all pending oil and gas lease offers until completion of a study of possible changes in policy and regulations related to the issuance of oil and gas leases within wildlife refuges. Ultimately, these parties were awarded leases on the land in question.

In 1955 the Government began to restore the Kenai National Moose Range to certain private acquisition. First, Public Land Order No. 487 was revoked by Public Land Order No. 12123 of September 9, 1955, which provided initially that a small piece of land (not involved in the present suit) was:

"2. Subject to valid existing rights * * * withdrawn from all forms of appropriation under the public-land laws, including the mining but not the mineral-leasing laws, and reserved under the jurisdiction of the Bureau of Land Management, Department of the Interior, for recreational purposes. * * *"

The order then proceeded to deal with the remainder of the land restored. After granting preference for homesteading, it provided:

"6. Any of the lands described in paragraphs 4(a), 4(b) or 4(d) of this order then remaining unappropriated, shall become subject to such application, petition, selection, or other form of appropriation by the public generally as may be authorized by the public-land laws, including the mineral-leasing laws * *.
"7. Commencing at 10:00 a. m. on the 182nd day after the date of this order, any of the unsurveyed lands described in paragraph 4(c) not settled upon by veterans or other persons entitled to credit for service shall become subject to settlement and other forms of appropriation by the public generally, including leasing under the mineral-leasing laws * * *."

On October 4, 1955, Public Land Order No. 1212 was amended4 to delete the provisions for leasing under the mineralleasing laws appearing in paragraphs 6 and 7 of the order.

Finally, on January 8, 1958, an amendment to 43 C.F.R. 192.95 provided:

"(b) Leasing policy and procedure. * * * (3) As to * * Alaska wildlife areas, representatives of the appropriate office of the Bureau of Land Management and the United States Fish and Wildlife Service will confer for the purpose of entering into an agreement specifying those lands which shall not be subject to oil and gas leasing. * * *
"(4) The remaining lands * * * not closed to oil and gas leasing will be subject to leasing. * * *
"(c) Publication and filing of agreements; filing of lease offers. The agreements referred to in paragraph (b) (3) of this section shall be published in the Federal Register. * * * The agreements, as supplemented by maps or plats specifically delineating the lands will be filed in the appropriate land offices of the Bureau of Land Management. * * * Lease offers for such lands will not be accepted for filing until the tenth day after the agreements and supplemental maps or plats are noted on the land office records."

The Bureau of Land Management and the Fish and Wildlife Service concluded their agreement and it was approved by the Secretary of the Interior. The order of the Secretary was published on August 2, 1958,6 designating the lands in the Moose Range which were not subject to oil and gas leasing, and providing that the balance of the lands within the Range were subject to the filing of oil and gas lease offers. The order stated:

"Offers to lease covering any of these lands which have been pending and upon which action was suspended * * * will now be acted upon and adjudicated in accordance with the regulations."

The order also stated that all lease offers filed within ten days after the date established by regulation 43 C.F.R. 192.9 for acceptance for filing would be treated as simultaneously filed, and further:

"The priorities of all offers which conflict in whole or in part will be determined in accordance with the procedures outlined in the regulation 43 C.F.R. 295.8."7

On or after August 14, 1958, appellants filed their respective offers to lease8 pursuant to § 17 of the Mineral Leasing Act, as amended, 30 U.S.C. § 226 (Supp. III, 1958).

Some time after appellants' applications had been filed, the Department of the Interior, without notice to appellants, issued leases for the lands in question to the representatives of major oil companies based on offers filed by them between October 15, 1954, and January 28, 1955, as above stated.

On September 4, 1959, a little more than a year after the filing of appellants' offers, a public drawing was held to determine the priorities between simultaneously filed oil and gas lease offers pursuant to the provisions of 43 C.F.R. 295.8. Appellants prevailed in this public drawing, in which the oil companies were not represented. But their victory was short-lived, for their lease offers were rejected by the Anchorage Land Office on the grounds that they conflicted with the leases issued the previous fall.

Appellants duly appealed to the Director of the Bureau of Land Management, where their appeals were denied in decisions rendered in July, 1960. Appeals from these decisions were taken to the Secretary of the Interior and were rejected by a deputy solicitor of the Department in an opinion dated September 1, 1961, granting leases within the Range based on the 1954 and 1955 offers. A petition for the exercise of supervisory authority by the Secretary of the Interior was filed on February 15, 1962. This petition was denied on the merits on April 25, 1962.

Thereafter, and on June 8, 1962, appellants filed this suit in the District Court against the Secretary of the Interior. The Secretary first filed a motion to dismiss based on the ninety-day statute of limitations contained in 30 U.S.C. § 226 — 2 (Supp. III, 1958). Then both sides moved for summary judgment. The District Court granted the motion of the Secretary for summary judgment and denied the motions of appellants for summary judgment, specifically stating that the ground of non-compliance with the statute of limitations did not form a part of his decision, and further specifically denying the Secretary's motion to dismiss based, as stated, on the ninety-day statute of limitations. Appellants appealed to this court on December 31, 1962.

Appellants' principal contention is that the 1941 Executive Order closed to oil and gas leasing the land in the Kenai National Moose Range covered by that directive, and that this land remained closed until it was opened by the amendment of 43 C.F.R. 192.9 in January 1958. They argue that the order prohibits "disposition of any lands within the Range (except for fish trap sites) under any of the public-land laws applicable to Alaska," and, since the Mineral Leasing Act of 1920, 41 Stat. 437, as amended, is a "public-land law applicable to Alaska," it follows that oil and gas leasing under that Act is prohibited.

We think the Executive Order clearly did remove the land involved from oil and gas leasing and appellants' contention in this regard is correct. And there is no doubt that the Mineral Leasing Act of 1920 is a public-land law applicable to Alaska.9

The Secretary argues, however, that the acts of July 3, 1926, and March 4, 1927, specifically included in the 1941 order, are also public-land laws applicable to Alaska, and that, consequently, the order could not have been designed to include all such public-land laws but only those laws relating to the complete alienation of the title of the United States in the land. The Secretary argues that, since the Mineral Leasing Act does not provide for the alienation of the title of the United States, and since the order did not expressly withdraw the lands from the operation of that Act, the land covered by the 1941 order was...

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