Mountain States Legal Foundation v. Hodel, C86-022-K.

• Decision Date: 19 August 1987
• Docket Number: No. C86-022-K.,C86-022-K.
• Parties: MOUNTAIN STATES LEGAL FOUNDATION, Plaintiff, v. Donald P. HODEL, Secretary of the United States Department of Interior; and Richard Lyng, Secretary of the United States Department of Agriculture, Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Wyoming

668 F. Supp. 1466

MOUNTAIN STATES LEGAL FOUNDATION, Plaintiff, v. Donald P. HODEL, Secretary of the United States Department of Interior; and Richard Lyng, Secretary of the United States Department of Agriculture, Defendants.

No. C86-022-K.

United States District Court, D.Wyoming.

August 19, 1987.

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

Constance E. Brooks, Mountain States Legal Foundation, Denver, Colo., and Brent Kunz, Hathaway, Speight, Kunz, Trautwein and Barrett, Cheyenne, Wyo., for plaintiff.

Gerald S. Fish, Dept. of Justice, Land and Natural Resources Div., Washington, D.C. and Carol E. Statkus, Asst. U.S. Atty., Cheyenne, Wyo., for defendants.

ORDER RULING ON MOTIONS FOR SUMMARY JUDGMENT

KERR, District Judge.

The above-entitled matter having come on regularly for hearing before the Court upon cross-motions for summary judgment; plaintiff appearing by and through its attorneys, Constance E. Brooks and Brent R. Kunz; and defendants appearing by and through their attorneys, Gerald S. Fish, Land and Natural Resources Division, Department of Justice, and Carol E. Statkus, Assistant United States Attorney for the District of Wyoming; and the Court having heard the arguments of counsel and having carefully reviewed and considered said motions, briefs, affidavits, exhibits, and all matters pertinent thereto, and being fully advised in the premises, FINDS:

That the plaintiff Mountain States Legal Foundation (Foundation) filed suit against the Secretaries of the Department of Interior and the Department of Agriculture to challenge the suspension of mineral leasing by the Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management. The Foundation alleges that this suspension of mineral leasing and the delays in acting upon leases in the Shoshone, Targhee, and Bridger-Teton National Forests violates the Mineral Leasing Act of 1920, 30 U.S.C. § 181 et seq.; the Federal Land Policy and Management Act, 43 U.S.C. § 1701 et seq.; the Energy Security Act, 42 U.S.C. § 8855; and the Administrative Procedure Act, 5 U.S.C. § 551 et seq.

The Foundation requests this Court to:

(1) Hold that the failure of the Secretaries of the Department of Interior and Department of Agriculture to act on pending oil and gas leases in the Shoshone, Targhee, and Bridger-Teton National Forests is an unlawful withdrawal of lands under the Federal Land Policy and Management Act and a violation of the Energy Security Act;

(2) permanently enjoin the defendants from pursuing the alleged unlawful policies and procedures with respect to processing mineral lease applications;

(3) declare the Department of Interior's delegation of authority to the Department of Agriculture under the Mineral Leasing Act unlawful and unconstitutional;

(4) declare the failure of the Secretary of the Department of Agriculture to promulgate rules and regulations governing Forest Service review of pending lease offers in accordance with the Administrative Procedure Act to be in violation of the Federal Land Policy and Management Act, 43 U.S.C. § 1740, and the Court Order issued in Mountain States Legal Foundation v. Andrus, 499 F.Supp. 383 (Wyo.1980); and

(5) issue a writ of mandamus directing the Secretary of Agriculture to promulgate rules and regulations in accordance with the Administrative Procedure Act.

The defendants assert that the Secretaries' actions in suspending and delaying mineral leasing pending the completion of an Environmental Impact Statement and a Forest Plan is permissive, within the discretion of the Secretaries, and not violative of federal laws. More specifically, defendants contend that there has been no withdrawal of lands, that lease applications are being processed, and that the Secretary of Agriculture is not required to promulgate rules and regulations.

FACTS

At the time this action was filed on January 15, 1986, there were at least 72 lease offers, some as old as twelve years, pending for lands located in the Shoshone National Forest. There were also 94 tracts of land in the Shoshone National Forest available for mineral leasing under the simultaneous oil and gas leasing program.

As of February 19, 1987, in the Bridger-Teton National Forest, there were six over-the-counter lease applications and over 100 SIMO lease offers affecting more than one million acres of forest land which were subject to oil and gas leases which have now expired, terminated, or been relinquished. Those tracts of land would be available under the simultaneous oil and gas lease filing system but have not been listed by the Bureau of Land Management as available for leasing since their expiration, termination, or relinquishment. There are also an estimated twenty other SIMO leases in the Bridger-Teton National Forest which have not been issued, one of which belongs to Foundation member, Rosemary Burrow Haas.

On May 29, 1985, the Regional Forester for Region IV in a letter to the Wyoming State Director of the Bureau of Land Management, suspended mineral leasing in the Bridger-Teton National Forest requesting the Bureau of Land Management to delay further processing of oil and gas leases in this area. The Regional Forester based this request on the land's environmental sensitivity and the pending completion of further environmental documentation including a final Environmental Impact Statement and/or a Forest Plan pursuant to the Forest and Rangeland Resources Planning Act, 16 U.S.C. § 1604, as amended by the National Forest Management Act of 1976, 16 U.S.C. § 1604. The Regional Forester also requested that recommendation reports on lease offers in the Bridger-Teton National Forest not yet issued be returned. The Bureau of Land Management has since honored the Forest Service request to suspend such mineral leasing in the Bridger-Teton Forest.

Recently, however, this suspension was lifted in the Big Piney Ranger District of the Bridger-Teton National Forest, Sublette County, Wyoming, Riley Ridge Oil and Gas Field, as evidenced by the "Scoping Statement" issued on July 1, 1987, attached as Exhibit 3 to plaintiff's motion to admit evidence of subsequent remedial acts. This statement allows for leasing decisions in that area to be made on the basis of an environmental assessment rather than waiting for the final Environmental Impact Statement or Forest Plan to be completed.

This Forest Plan, entitled the Bridger-Teton National Forest Land and Resource Management Plan, is being prepared pursuant to the National Forest Management Act of 1976, 16 U.S.C. § 1604. It was released for public comment in October 1986; however, on April 3, 1987 the Forest Service announced that the plan would not be released for another year.

Pursuant to the Mineral Leasing Act, the Secretary of the Interior has authority to issue mineral leases on federal lands, 30 U.S.C. § 226. That authority in turn has been delegated to the Bureau of Land Management, 43 U.S.C. § 1731. The Bureau of Land Management has entered into an interagency agreement with the Forest Service, whereby the Forest Service makes recommendations to the Bureau of Land Management as to whether a lease application or offer should be issued and under what terms and conditions a lease should be issued in order to protect the surface resources. This agreement is found at 49 Fed. Reg. 37,440 (1984) and supersedes a memorandum of 1947 between the Secretary of Interior and Secretary of Agriculture.

Judge Brimmer found in the case of Mountain States Legal Foundation v. Andrus, 499 F.Supp. 383, 390 (D.Wyo.1980), that: through this process the Bureau of Land Management will follow the leasing recommendations of the Forest Service without any independent review. At times, terms of the lease issuance may be modified by the Bureau of Land Management following an administrative appeal. Id. at 388-389. Under the terms of the interagency agreement, the Forest Service has been making lease recommendations and setting terms and conditions of leasing based upon three existing environmental assessments. These terms may include limitations to protect water quality, soil stability, and productivity, wildlife habitat, and other resources. See also 43 C.F.R. § 3101.7, et seq.

Based upon the requests and recommendations of the Forest Service through the Regional Forester, the Bureau of Land Management has ceased to act upon or issue leases.

STANDING

On April 2, 1986, the defendants filed a motion for summary judgment challenging the plaintiff's standing to maintain this lawsuit. This Court, by Order of June 17, 1986, denied, without opinion, the defendants' motion for summary judgment. The defendants again raise this issue of standing, so to clarify this Court's intention regarding said Order, the matter is addressed here.

The issue of standing involves a litigant's right to have the merits of a dispute decided by a court and involves both "constitutional limitations on the exercise of federal jurisdiction and prudential limitations on its exercise." Warth v. Seldin, 422 U.S. 490, 498, 95 S.Ct. 2197, 2205, 45 L.Ed.2d 343 (1975). To satisfy the constitutional limitations, the plaintiff must make out a case or controversy between the defendants and the plaintiff under Article III of the United States Constitution. Id. Plaintiff must allege "`such a personal stake in the outcome of the controversy' as to warrant his invocation of federal-court jurisdiction and to justify the court's remedial powers on his behalf." Id. at 498-499, 95 S.Ct. at 2205. The plaintiff must suffer from some real or threatened injury resulting from defendants' actions. Id. at 499, 95 S.Ct. at 2205. Furthermore, such injury must be redressable by the relief sought. Id.

An association, such as the plaintiff Foundation, not only has standing to assert claims of injury to itself, but may also assert the rights of its members so long as the members' associational ties are adversely affected. Id. at 511, 95 S.Ct. at 2211. The association may sue on behalf of one of its members so long as the...