National Wildlife Federation v. Burford

• Citation: 871 F.2d 849
• Decision Date: 30 March 1989
• Docket Number: No. 87-4375,87-4375
• Parties: 19 Envtl. L. Rep. 20,656 NATIONAL WILDLIFE FEDERATION; Montana Wildlife Federation; Northern Plains Resource Council, a Montana Non-Profit Corporation; Powder River Basin Resource Council, Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. Robert F. BURFORD, Director, Bureau of Land Management; James G. Watt, Secretary of the Interior; United States Department of the Interior, Defendants-Appellees, State of Wyoming; Meadowlark Farms, Inc., Defendants-Intervenors-Appellees, and Shell Oil Company; Western Energy Co., Defendants-Intervenors.
• Court: United States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (9th Circuit)

Page 849

871 F.2d 849

19 Envtl. L. Rep. 20,656

NATIONAL WILDLIFE FEDERATION; Montana Wildlife Federation Northern Plains Resource Council, a Montana Non-Profit Corporation; Powder River Basin Resource Council Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. Robert F. BURFORD, Director, Bureau of Land Management James G. Watt, Secretary of the Interior; United States Department of the Interior Defendants-Appellees, State of Wyoming; Meadowlark Farms, Inc., Defendants-Intervenors-Appellees, and Shell Oil Company; Western Energy Co., Defendants-Intervenors.

No. 87-4375.

United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit.

Argued and Submitted Feb. 9, 1989.

Decided March 30, 1989.

Glenn P. Sugameli (Argued), National Wildlife Federation, Washington, D.C., James A. Patten, Patten Law Firm, Billings, Mont., Eldon V.C. Greenberg, Galloway & Greenberg, of counsel, Washington, D.C., for plaintiffs-appellants.

Steven P. Quarles, Thomas R. Lundquist, Crowell & Moring, Washington, D.C., for defendant-intervenor-appellee State of Wyo.

Roger J. Marzulla, Asst. Atty. Gen., Byron H. Dunbar, U.S. Atty., Butte, Mont., Robert L. Klarquist, Atty., Dept. of Justice, Washington, D.C., for the federal defendants-appellees.

Urban L. Roth, James A. Poore III, Gary L. Walton, Butte, Mont., for defendant-intervenor Western Energy Co.

Christopher Lane, Harold G. Morris, Jr., Sherman & Howard, Denver, Colo., David J. Ham, Indianapolis, Ind., for defendant-intervenor-appellee Meadowlark Farms, Inc.

E. Edward Bruce, Eugene D. Gulland, Richard H. Seamon, Covington & Burling, Washington, D.C., R.H. Bellingham, Moulton, Bellingham, Longo & Mather, Billings, Mont., of counsel, for defendant-intervenor Shell Oil Co.

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

Before HUG, NORRIS and THOMPSON, Circuit Judges.

HUG, Circuit Judge:

The National Wildlife Federation ("NWF"), Montana Wildlife Federation, Northern Plains Resource Council, and the Powder River Basin Resource Council appeal the district court's entry of summary judgment on count 1 of their amended complaint. Count 1 alleged that the Secretary of the Interior violated 30 U.S.C. Sec. 201(a)(1) (1982) by accepting coal lease bids that fell below fair market value ("FMV"). ¹ The district court properly held that NWF had standing to bring its suit and properly concluded that the Secretary had acted within the law in selling the leases. We affirm the summary judgment.

In 1982, NWF initiated this action challenging the Department of Interior's ("DOI") sale of coal leases in the Powder River Basin area of Montana and Wyoming. The sale involved approximately 1.6 billion tons of coal distributed over 23,000 acres of public land. NWF alleged a variety of federal statutory violations surrounding the sale and sued under the Administrative Procedure Act ("APA"), 5 U.S.C. Secs. 551-706 (1982). Section 702 of the APA allows judicial review of agency action to be initiated by "[a] person suffering legal wrong because of agency action, or adversely affected or aggrieved by agency action within the meaning of a relevant statute...." 5 U.S.C. Sec. 702 (1982). Section 706(2)(A) of the APA allows a reviewing court to set aside an agency action found to be "arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion, or otherwise not in accordance with law." Id. Sec. 706(2)(A) (1982).

In September, 1985, 677 F.Supp. 1445, the district judge entered summary judgment for defendants on two counts and dismissed a third count of the amended complaint's five counts. He retained count 1, the fair market value claim, and count 2, a land-use planning claim; he also denied the federal defendants' motion to dismiss count 1 for lack of standing on NWF's part. Thereafter, the district court entered summary judgment on the remaining counts in favor of defendants. NWF appeals only the count 1 ruling.

STANDING

The government and one intervenor, Western Energy, challenge the district court's finding that NWF has standing to attack the coal leasing transactions. We review de novo the district court's holding on the standing issue. American Postal Workers Union v. United States Postal Serv., 861 F.2d 211, 213 (9th Cir.1988) (per curiam).

As the Supreme Court has noted, case law has not defined standing with complete consistency. Valley Forge Christian College v. Americans United for Separation of Church and State, 454 U.S. 464, 475, 102 S.Ct. 752, 760, 70 L.Ed.2d 700 (1982). A leading commentator has remarked that "such a word as 'irrational' would be strictly accurate" to describe the development of standing law since 1970. K. Davis, Administrative Law Treatise, Sec. 22.00, at 326 (Supp.1982).

Despite these dark reflections on the state of the law concerning standing, a few Since NWF has brought suit under the APA, it must meet two prudential limitations closely related to the article III tests. First, plaintiff needs to establish that agency action caused its injury, Rapid Transit Advocates v. S. Cal. Rapid Transit Dist., 752 F.2d 373, 378 (9th Cir.1985) (per curiam), and, second, that the alleged injury falls within the zone of interest protected by the statute at issue, id.; see also Friends of the Earth v. United States Navy, 841 F.2d 927, 932 (9th Cir.1988); Fair, 795 F.2d at 854. As the Supreme Court recently explained, the zone of interest test is "not meant to be particularly demanding." Clarke v. Securities Indus. Ass'n, 479 U.S. 388, 399, 107 S.Ct. 750, 757, 93 L.Ed.2d 757 (1987). The test is used simply to determine whether the plaintiff's interests more than marginally relate to the purpose implicit in the statute at issue. Id. To determine the statute's purpose, the court may look beyond the section sued under to the statute or act as a whole "to understand Congress' overall purposes." Id. at 401, 107 S.Ct. at 758. See also Friends of the Earth, 841 F.2d at 932, and Fair, 795 F.2d at 854 (relying on legislative history to determine a statute's zone of interest).

                well-established principles exist to guide our analysis.  The question of whether the plaintiff has standing involves measuring the plaintiff's claim against certain constitutional and prudential limitations on access to federal court.  McMichael v. County of Napa, 709 F.2d 1268, 1269 (9th Cir.1983).  The constitutional limitations, deriving from article III's case or controversy requirement, are three in number.  The plaintiff must show (1) an actual threatened injury (2) traceable to the defendant's allegedly illegal conduct (3) which is likely to be redressed by the requested relief.  Valley Forge, 454 U.S. at 472, 102 S.Ct. at 758;  Alaska Fish & Wildlife Fed. v. Dunkle, 829 F.2d 933, 937 (9th Cir.1987), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 108 S.Ct. 1290, 99 L.Ed.2d 501 (1988);  Fair v. EPA, 795 F.2d 851, 853 (9th Cir.1986).  The actual or threatened injury may be aesthetic or recreational as well as economic.  See Japan Whaling Ass'n v. American Cetacean Soc'y, 478 U.S. 221, 230-31 n. 4, 106 S.Ct. 2860, 2866-67, 92 L.Ed.2d 166 (1986);  Sierra Club v. Morton, 405 U.S. 727, 734, 92 S.Ct. 1361, 1366, 31 L.Ed.2d 636 (1972);  Alaska Fish, 829 F.2d at 937.    The injury cannot be a general or amorphous harm but must be particular, distinct and concrete.  See Allen v. Wright, 468 U.S. 737, 751, 104 S.Ct. 3315, 3324, 82 L.Ed.2d 556 (1984)
                

Finally, the statute at issue will preclude standing if it expresses a "fairly discernible" congressional intent to forestall a suit at the plaintiff's behest. Clarke, 479 U.S. at 403, 107 S.Ct. at 759; National Coal Ass'n. v. Hodel, 825 F.2d 523, 527 (D.C.Cir.1987). Although the plaintiff may fall within a statute's zone of interest, judicial review will not occur if the statute suggests that Congress intended to allow only a specific class of plaintiff to challenge an agency's action. Clarke, 479 U.S. at 399, 107 S.Ct. at 757 (citing Block v. Community Nutrition Inst., 467 U.S. 340, 104 S.Ct. 2450, 81 L.Ed.2d 270 (1984)).

Two other standing components apply to this case. First, as a general rule, "an organization whose members are injured may represent those members in a proceeding for judicial review." Sierra Club v. Morton, 405 U.S. at 739, 92 S.Ct. at 1368. More specifically, an association has standing on behalf of its members when (a) its members have standing in their own right; (b) the interests the association seeks to protect are germane to the organization's interests; and (c) the asserted claim or requested relief do not entail the need for individual members to participate. Hunt v. Washington State Apple Advertising Comm'n, 432 U.S. 333, 343, 97 S.Ct. 2434, 2441, 53 L.Ed.2d 383 (1977); Alaska Fish, 829 F.2d at 937-38. Second, standing is not dependent, of course, on the merits of the plaintiff's claim that particular conduct is illegal. McMichael, 709 F.2d at 1271 (quoting Warth v. Seldin, 422 U.S. 490, 500, 95 S.Ct. 2197, 2206, 45 L.Ed.2d 343 (1975)).

We conclude that NWF has standing to sue under these principles. The touchstone Plaintiffs represent themselves and their individual and organizational members. Plaintiffs and their members actively use the environmental resources of the Powder River Basin for fishing, hunting, bird and wildlife watching, and other recreational activities. These persons will be irreparably injured in their use and enjoyment of these resources if defendants are permitted to conduct the scheduled coal lease sale without fully complying with applicable laws. Individuals affiliated with plaintiffs live, own property, ranch, farm, and earn their livelihoods from lands within the Powder River Basin area. These persons will be irreparably injured in the enjoyment of their property, and in their businesses and livelihoods, if defendants are permitted to conduct the scheduled coal lease sale without fully complying with applicable laws.

of NWF's standing lies in its assertion of injuries as a result of the DOI's actions.

Plaintiffs' Amended Complaint at 3-4. NWF claims, in...