Inupiat Community of Arctic Slope v. United States, A 81-19 Civil.

• Decision Date: 01 October 1982
• Docket Number: No. A 81-19 Civil.,A 81-19 Civil.
• Citation: 548 F. Supp. 182
• Parties: The INUPIAT COMMUNITY OF the ARCTIC SLOPE, a federally-recognized Indian tribe; Ukpeagvik Inupiat Corporation, a native village corporation, et al., Plaintiffs, v. The UNITED STATES of America, et al., Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Alaska

548 F. Supp. 182

The INUPIAT COMMUNITY OF the ARCTIC SLOPE, a federally-recognized Indian tribe; Ukpeagvik Inupiat Corporation, a native village corporation, et al., Plaintiffs, v. The UNITED STATES of America, et al., Defendants.

No. A 81-19 Civil.

United States District Court, D. Alaska.

October 1, 1982.

James D. Gilmore, Gilmore & Feldman, Anchorage, Alaska, Richard M. Berley, Robert L. Pirtle and Mason Morisset of Ziontz, Pirtle, Morisset, Ernstoff & Chestnut, Seattle, Wash., for plaintiffs.

Cynthia Pickering, Asst. U. S. Atty., and Michael Spaan, U. S. Atty., Anchorage, Alaska, for United States of America, Cecil D. Andrus, Sec'y of Interior and Frank Gregg, Director of the Bureau of Land Management.

Thomas E. Meacham, Asst. Atty. Gen., State of Alaska, Anchorage, Alaska, for Jay Hammond, Governor of the State of Alaska and Robert E. Leresche, Commissioner of Alaska Dept. of Labor Resources.

Dan A. Hensley and Margie Mac Neille of Duncan, Weinberg & Miller, Anchorage, Alaska, for Koniag, Inc.

William H. Timme, Wilkinson, Cragun & Barker, Anchorage, Alaska, Richard Anthony Baenen, Erwin Foster De Reitzes and Jacquelyn R. Luke, Washington, D. C., for NANA Regional Corp.

Bruce Monroe, Birch, Horton, Bittner, Monroe, Pestinger & Anderson, Juneau, Alaska, for Sealaska Corp.

Carl J. D. Bauman and Richard O. Gantz of Hughes, Thorsness, Gantz, Powell & Brundin, Anchorage, Alaska, Edward R. Mackiewicz and Brice M. Clagett of Covington & Burling, Washington, D. C., for Amoco Production Co., Atlantic Richfield Co., B. P. Alaska Exploration, Inc., Chevron, Cities Service Oil Co., Conoco, Inc., Exxon Corp., Gulf Oil Corp., Hamilton Bros. Oil Co., Murphy Oil, Phillips Petroleum Corp., Rowan Drilling Co., Shell Oil Co., Sohio Natural Resources, Texasgulf, and Union Oil Co.

OPINION

FITZGERALD, District Judge.

In this case the Inupiat people of Alaska's north slope seek to quiet title in large portions of the Beaufort and Chukchi Seas beyond the three mile limit.¹ The plaintiffs include the Inupiat Community of the Arctic Slope, a federally recognized tribe, suing on its own behalf and on behalf of its members, the Ukpeagvik Inupiat Corporation, a village corporation organized pursuant to the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act, suing on its own behalf and on behalf of its members, and two native allotees. The defendants include numerous oil companies, the United States, its Secretary of the Interior and its Director of Land Management, and the State of Alaska, its Governor and its Commissioner of Natural Resources.²

This is not the first time that these parties have met in a courtroom. This suit is but the latest in a line of legal actions through which the Inupiat Eskimo have sought control over the region in which they have long resided. In an earlier proceeding the Inupiat sought recovery in damages for trespass on native lands in the time period prior to the enactment of the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (ANCSA), 43 U.S.C. §§ 1601-1628, United States v. Atlantic Richfield Co., 435 F.Supp. 1009 (D. Alaska 1977), aff'd, 612 F.2d 1132 (9th Cir.), cert. denied, 449 U.S. 888, 101 S.Ct. 243, 66 L.Ed.2d 113 (1980); see also Edwardsen v. Morton, 369 F.Supp. 1359 (D.D.C.1973). Later the Inupiat filed proceedings in the Court of Claims alleging that the United States had breached a trust responsibility in not protecting the Arctic slope from development and that extinguishment of their trespass claims by ANCSA was an unconstitutional taking. That claim was also rejected. Inupiat Community of the Arctic Slope v. United States, 680 F.2d 122 (Ct.Cl.1982).

More recently, the Inupiat sought to enjoin on environmental grounds the 1979 Beaufort Sea lease-sale. They claimed that the sale and its consequent environmental damage to their traditional fishing and whaling areas would violate a federal trust responsibility owed to them and would violate numerous federal statutes as well. Although the district court granted the injunction, it was overturned by the court of appeals which found that the federal government had acted in conformity with the applicable law. North Slope Borough v. Andrus, 486 F.Supp. 332 (D.D.C.1980), rev'd. 642 F.2d 589 (D.C.Cir.1980). In May of 1981, the Inupiat moved to intervene in an action currently pending before the United States Supreme Court acting under its original jurisdiction. United States v. Alaska, No. 84 Orig. (U.S.1980). That action concerns a dispute over the exact location of the three mile limit in the Beaufort Sea. By their complaint in intervention, the Inupiat have requested that the United States Supreme Court hear essentially the same title and sovereignty claims which they assert here.

In this present proceeding, the Inupiat again challenge the lease-sale made in the Beaufort Sea in 1979. They assert that they possess sovereign rights and unextinguished aboriginal title to the area lying from three to sixty-five miles off-shore in the Beaufort and Chukchi Seas of the Arctic Ocean. In support of the contention, the Inupiat claim exclusive use and occupancy of the superjacent sea ice from time before human memory. This claim, according to the Inupiat, establishes rights to the surface of the sea, the water column beneath it, the seabed, and the minerals lying beneath the seabed within the geographic boundaries of their claim. In addition to injunctive relief, the Inupiat seek damages and a declaration of their title to and control over the area.

This litigation does not involve property rights arising out of federal statute or by reason of any treaty to which the United States is a party. The Inupiat claims rest on immemorial use and occupancy alone. To support their allegations they have filed in this court numerous documents including affidavits, government records and scholarly works attempting to document their traditional use of the sea ice as living space.

All defendants have answered the Inupiat claims and have moved for judgment on the pleadings reserving for later issues of limitation, standing and capacity. At this time I address only the motion for judgment on the pleadings which shall be considered as a motion for summary judgment since additional documents have been filed and considered. Fed.R.Civ.P. 12(c).

In support of their motions the defendants argue, among other things, that the result of this case is controlled by a line of Supreme Court cases beginning with United States v. California, 332 U.S. 19, 67 S.Ct. 1658, 91 L.Ed. 1889 (1947) in which the Court first recognized the paramount rights of the United States in ocean waters lying seaward of the ordinary low water mark. In opposition, the Inupiat undertake to distinguish these authorities by arguing that the previous cases deal only with the competing rights of the federal government and the states and have little to do with the rights of American natives such as themselves. I disagree. To accept the interpretation now urged by the Inupiat would be to ignore the underlying principle upon which the Supreme Court has placed reliance, that federal supremacy over the adjacent seas is an essential element of national sovereignty. I therefore conclude that claims of sovereign power over the oceans whether made by one of the several states in the Union or by the Inupiat or by any other native tribe is inconsistent with national sovereignty and must fail. United States v. Maine, 420 U.S. 515, 95 S.Ct. 1155, 43 L.Ed.2d 363 (1975); United States v. Texas, 339 U.S. 707, 70 S.Ct. 918, 94 L.Ed. 1221 (1950); United States v. Louisiana, 339 U.S. 699, 70 S.Ct. 914, 94 L.Ed. 1216 (1950); United States v. California, 332 U.S. 19, 67 S.Ct. 1658, 91 L.Ed. 1889 (1947).

The controlling issue of whether the state or the federal government had the right to lease mineral resources of the ocean seabed was addressed by the Supreme Court for the first time in United States v. California, 332 U.S. 19, 67 S.Ct. 1658, 91 L.Ed. 1889. In reaching its decision the Court reasoned that "protection and control of the three mile belt has been and is a function of national external sovereignty." Id. at 34, 67 S.Ct. at 1666. This was necessarily so, the Court concluded, since

As peace and world commerce are the paramount responsibilities of the nation, rather than an individual state, so, if wars come, they must be fought by the nation. The state is not equipped in our constitutional system with the powers or facilities for exercising the responsibilities which would be concomitant with the dominion which it seeks .... National interests, responsibilities and therefore national rights are paramount in waters lying to the seaward in the three-mile belt.

332 U.S. at 35-36, 67 S.Ct. at 1666-1667. If a state is not equipped with the powers and facilities necessary to undertake the responsibilities concomitant with dominion over the seas, certainly the Inupiat are less so.

In United States v. Louisiana, 339 U.S. at 699, 70 S.Ct. at 914, 94 L.Ed. 1216, the Supreme Court extended the holding of California beyond the three-mile limit and applied it to the outer continental shelf. Once again, the Court reiterated that

The marginal sea is a national, not a state concern. National interests, national responsibilities, national concerns are involved. The problems of commerce, national defense, relations with other powers, war and peace focus there. National rights must therefore be paramount in that area.

339 U.S. at 704, 70 S.Ct. at 916. In extending federal control as far as 27 miles offshore, the Court said:

If, as we held in California's case, the three-mile belt is in the domain of the Nation rather than that of the separate States, it follows a fortiori that the ocean beyond that limit also is. The ocean seaward of the marginal belt is perhaps even more directly related to the national defense, the conduct of foreign affairs, and world commerce than is the marginal sea. Certainly, it is not less so.

339 U.S. at 705, 70 S.Ct. at...