Grand Canyon Dories, Inc. v. Idaho Outfitters and Guides Bd.

Decision Date07 June 1983
Docket NumberNo. 81-3599,81-3599
Citation709 F.2d 1250
PartiesGRAND CANYON DORIES, INC., Plaintiff-Appellant, and James Gellein, dba Flying H Ranch, Plaintiff, v. IDAHO OUTFITTERS AND GUIDES BOARD; Rex Lanham; Bill Guth, Jr.; James E. Baughman; and Lon S. Jarvis, Defendants-Appellees.
CourtU.S. Court of Appeals — Ninth Circuit

James Reid, Reid & Morfitt, Boise, Idaho, for plaintiff-appellant.

Don A. Olowinski, Asst. U.S. Atty., Boise, Idaho, for defendants-appellees.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of Idaho.

Before WALLACE, FARRIS, and NELSON, Circuit Judges.

WALLACE, Circuit Judge:

Grand Canyon Dories, Inc. (Grand Canyon Dories) conducts a commercial white-water rafting operation on portions of the Snake River that flow through Idaho. The parties stipulated that the Snake River is a navigable body of water in the federal sense, that the United States Coast Guard, the Bureau of Land Management, and the National Forest Service all have jurisdiction over certain activities connected with Grand Canyon Dories's Snake River expeditions, and that Grand Canyon Dories uses Idaho's side of the river for both rafting and camping. The State of Idaho's boundary is located in the middle channel of the Snake River.

The Idaho Outfitters and Guides Act, Idaho Code Secs. 36-2101-2118 (1977 & Supp.1982) (Outfitters and Guides Act), requires all commercial raft outfitters and guides on the Idaho portion of the Snake River to obtain licenses. The Idaho Outfitters and Guides Board (the Board) is authorized to conduct examinations and review license applications to determine applicants' qualifications. Grand Canyon Dories admits that the Outfitters and Guides Act applies to its activities if the Act is constitutional.

Grand Canyon Dories sued for a declaratory judgment that the licensing provisions of the Outfitters and Guides Act violate the commerce and supremacy clauses of the United States Constitution. The district court granted summary judgment in favor of the Board, holding that (1) the purpose of the Outfitters and Guides Act is to promote a legitimate local interest, (2) federal regulation does not preempt the field, and (3) the Outfitters and Guides Act does not impose an undue burden on interstate commerce. We review the summary judgment under the de novo standard. See State ex rel. Edwards v. Heimann, 633 F.2d 886, 888 n. 1 (9th Cir.1980). We affirm.

I

Grand Canyon Dories appeals the district court's determination that federal legislation has not preempted the field which the Outfitters and Guides Act seeks to govern. If the field is preempted, of course, the Outfitters and Guides Act is invalid under the supremacy clause. U.S. Const. art. VI, cl. 2.

The case before us does not involve an area of the law inherently requiring national uniformity, see, e.g., Head v. New Mexico Board of Examiners in Optometry, 374 U.S. 424, 430, 83 S.Ct. 1759, 1763, 10 L.Ed.2d 983 (1963); Hines v. Davidowitz, 312 U.S. 52, 63, 61 S.Ct. 399, 402, 85 L.Ed. 581 (1941), nor an area in which federal and state laws conflict. See Jones v. Rath Packing Co., 430 U.S. 519, 525-26, 97 S.Ct. 1305, 1309-10, 51 L.Ed.2d 604 (1977); Florida Lime & Avocado Growers, Inc. v. Paul, 373 U.S. 132, 142-43, 83 S.Ct. 1210, 1217-1218, 10 L.Ed.2d 248 (1963). Thus, the issue before us is whether Congress intended to regulate exclusively the area in question. Malone v. White Motor Corp., 435 U.S. 497, 504, 98 S.Ct. 1185, 1189, 55 L.Ed.2d 443 (1978); Head v. New Mexico Board of Examiners in Optometry, 374 U.S. at 430, 83 S.Ct. at 1763.

Where, as here, the state exercises its traditional police powers, there must be a clear and manifest congressional indication of an intent to preempt. The Court has stated that "we start with the assumption that the historic police powers of the States were not to be superseded by the Federal Act unless that was the clear and manifest purpose of Congress." Jones v. Rath Packing Co., 430 U.S. at 525, 97 S.Ct. at 1309, quoting Rice v. Santa Fe Elevator Corp., 331 U.S. 218, 230, 67 S.Ct. 1146, 1152, 91 L.Ed. 1447 (1947); see also, e.g., Malone v. White Motor Corp. (state statute regulating pensions not preempted by federal law until new federal statute enacted expressly providing for preemption); City of Philadelphia v. New Jersey, 437 U.S. 617, 620 n. 4, 98 S.Ct. 2531, 2533-34 n. 4, 57 L.Ed.2d 475 (1978) (no clear and manifest congressional intent to preempt); Exxon Corp. v. Governor of Maryland, 437 U.S. 117, 132, 98 S.Ct. 2207, 2217, 57 L.Ed.2d 91 (1978) (Court is reluctant to infer preemption); Jones v. Rath Packing Co., 430 U.S. at 525, 97 S.Ct. at 1309 ("This assumption provides assurance that 'the federal-state balance' will not be disturbed unintentionally by Congress or unnecessarily by the courts.") (citation omitted); New York State Department of Social Services v. Dublino, 413 U.S. 405, 413-14, 93 S.Ct. 2507, 2512-13, 37 L.Ed.2d 688 (1973) (Court will not void state statutory programs absent clear manifestation of congressional intent); accord Confederated Tribes of the Colville Indian Reservation v. Washington, 591 F.2d 89, 91 (9th Cir.1979). Moreover, "courts are not to seek out conflicts between state and federal regulation where none clearly exist." Pacific Legal Foundation v. State Energy Resources Conservation & Development Commission, 659 F.2d 903, 919 (9th Cir.1981), cert. granted in part sub nom. Pacific Gas & Electric Co. v. State Energy Resources Conservation & Development Commission, 457 U.S. 1132, 102 S.Ct. 2956, 73 L.Ed.2d 1348, cert. denied, 457 U.S. 1133, 102 S.Ct. 2959, 73 L.Ed.2d 1350 (1982).

The Supreme Court has provided some general guidance for our review of whether Congress has evinced a clear and manifest purpose to preempt an area. For example in Rice v. Santa Fe Elevator Corp., the Court stated that:

Such a [clear and manifest preemptive] purpose may be evidenced in several ways. The scheme of federal regulation may be so pervasive as to make reasonable the inference that Congress left no room for the States to supplement it. Or the Act of Congress may touch a field in which the federal interest is so dominant that the federal system will be assumed to preclude enforcement of state laws on the same subject. Likewise, the object sought to be obtained by the federal law and the character of obligations imposed by it may reveal the same purpose. Or the state policy may produce a result inconsistent with the objective of the federal statute.

331 U.S. at 230, 67 S.Ct. at 1152 (citations omitted); see Pennsylvania v. Nelson, 350 U.S. 497, 502-10, 76 S.Ct. 477, 480-484, 100 L.Ed. 640 (1956); see also City of Burbank v. Lockheed Air Terminal, Inc., 411 U.S. 624, 633, 93 S.Ct. 1854, 1859, 36 L.Ed.2d 547 (1973) (pervasive federal scheme preempted local regulation even though no express preemption provision in federal act); Campbell v. Hussey, 368 U.S. 297, 300-02, 82 S.Ct. 327, 328-30, 7 L.Ed.2d 299 (1961) (need for uniformity in official standards requires invalidation of state laws which do not conflict with, but merely supplement, federal statutes). Nevertheless, it is clear that each case must be reviewed individually and that "none of these expressions provides an infallible constitutional test or an exclusive constitutional yardstick. In the final analysis, there can be no one crystal clear distinctly marked formula." Hines v. Davidowitz, 312 U.S. at 67, 61 S.Ct. at 404.

Although we review each case individually, a recent Supreme Court decision concerning state regulation of activities related to navigable waterways is particularly instructive. In Ray v. Atlantic Richfield Co., 435 U.S. 151, 98 S.Ct. 988, 55 L.Ed.2d 179 (1978), the Court invalidated three parts of the Washington Tanker Law on the basis of the supremacy clause. First, the Court struck down the portion requiring a state licensed pilot on a tanker enrolled in the coastwise trade during navigation on Puget Sound because it directly conflicted with a federal statute. Id. at 158-59, 98 S.Ct. at 994-95. The Court, however, stated that the district court's judgment was overly broad, confirming that states may impose pilotage requirements on registered vessels entering and leaving their ports, as contrasted with vessels enrolled in coastwise trade. Id. at 159-60, 98 S.Ct. at 995-96. Second, the Court invalidated the portion of the Washington Tanker Law prescribing design characteristics for oil tankers, finding "that Congress intended uniform national standards for design and construction of tankers that would foreclose the imposition of different or more stringent state requirements." Id. at 163, 164-68, 98 S.Ct. at 997, 998-1000. The Court, however, expressly reaffirmed its prior cases permitting state regulation of activities related to the use of navigable waterways, such as those pertaining to reasonable, nondiscriminatory conservation and environmental statutes. Third, the Court invalidated the portion of the Washington Tanker Law totally excluding tankers exceeding a certain size from Puget Sound. Id. at 173-74, 98 S.Ct. at 1002-1003. The Court found that the Secretary of Transportation is authorized expressly to regulate vessel size and that he had acted to establish a size limitation in Puget Sound. Id. at 174-75, 98 S.Ct. at 1002-1003.

The Court, however, upheld the portion of the Washington Tanker Law requiring tug escorts for tankers exceeding a certain weight and not complying with the state's design requirements. Id. at 168-69, 98 S.Ct. at 999-1000. Even though the Secretary of Transportation is authorized to impose a tug-escort requirement, the Court upheld Washington's requirement in the absence of a federal tug-escort requirement or a decision by the Secretary of Transportation that no tug-escort requirement should be imposed. Id. at 171-72, 98 S.Ct. at 1001-1002. In addition, the Court held that the State of Washington could constitutionally impose...

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