OREGON PORTLAND CEMENT v. US Dept. of Interior, A82-510 CIV.

• Decision Date: 19 April 1984
• Docket Number: No. A82-510 CIV.,A82-510 CIV.
• Citation: 590 F. Supp. 52
• Parties: OREGON PORTLAND CEMENT COMPANY, a Nevada corporation, Plaintiff, v. UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF the INTERIOR; James G. Watt, Secretary of the Interior; Bureau of Land Management; Robert F. Burford, Director of Bureau of Land Management, Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Alaska

590 F. Supp. 52

OREGON PORTLAND CEMENT COMPANY, a Nevada corporation, Plaintiff, v. UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF the INTERIOR; James G. Watt, Secretary of the Interior; Bureau of Land Management; Robert F. Burford, Director of Bureau of Land Management, Defendants.

No. A82-510 CIV.

United States District Court, D. Alaska.

April 19, 1984.

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

Richard E. McCann, Perkins, Coie, Stone, Olsen & Williams, Anchorage, Alaska, for plaintiff.

Michael R. Spaan, U.S. Atty., Anchorage, Alaska, for defendants.

MEMORANDUM AND ORDER

VON DER HEYDT, Chief Judge.

THIS CAUSE comes before the court on cross-motions for summary judgment. The basis of this action is a complaint for review, under the Administrative Procedure Act, of a decision by the Interior Board of Land Appeals (IBLA). In that decision, the IBLA affirmed a decision of the Alaska State Office, Bureau of Land Management, declaring certain of plaintiff's placer mining claims abandoned and void. See Oregon Portland Cement Co., 66 IBLA 204 (1982). Since the facts of this case are undisputed, it is ripe for summary judgment.

The issue in this case is whether the IBLA and the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) correctly interpreted and applied Section 314 of the Federal Land Policy and Management Act of 1976 (hereinafter FLPMA), 43 U.S.C. § 1744 (1976). Section 314 of FLPMA required owners of unpatented lode or placer mining claims to file information relating to those claims with the BLM. The purposes of this filing include (1) ridding federal lands of stale mining claims, and (2) assuring that federal land managers have ready access to current information on active claims. See Topaz Beryllium Co. v. United States, 479 F.Supp. 309, 313 (D.Utah 1979) (quoting S.Rep. No. 94-583, 94th Cong., 2d Sess. 64-65 (1975)), aff'd 649 F.2d 775 (10th Cir. 1981).¹ For owners of unpatented placer mining claims located prior to the passage of FLPMA (Oct. 21, 1976) Section 314 required, first, that owners file certain "locating" information with BLM once prior to October 21, 1979, see 43 U.S.C. § 1744(b), and, second, that owners file either an affidavit of assessment work or a notice of intention to hold prior to October 21, 1979 and prior to each December 31 thereafter. See id. § 1744(a). This second group of reports must be filed with both BLM and the official state recording office (generally the county public land records). Under Section 314, an owner who fails to meet the above filing requirement is deemed conclusively to have abandoned his or her claim. Id. § 1744(c).

I. Factual Background

The claims at issue are 40 unpatented limestone placer mining claims at View Cove on Dall Island in the Alexander Archipelago of Southeastern Alaska. Oregon Portland Cement Co. (OPCC) originally located and recorded these claims in 1965. After the passage of FLPMA, in June 1978, OPCC filed copies of its official Ketchikan Recording District placer location certificates with BLM in June 1978 pursuant to 43 U.S.C. § 1744(b). At the request of BLM, OPCC amended this filing in January, 1979 to include legal descriptions of the land on which the claims were located and a USGS map showing the claim locations. There is no dispute that through these filings OPCC complied with the "locating" requirements of 43 U.S.C. § 1744(b). See also 43 C.F.R. § 3833.1-2 (1982) (regulations implementing this subsection).

On November 8, 1978, pursuant to 43 U.S.C. § 1744(a), OPCC filed affidavits of assessment work for the assessment year ending September 1, 1978 and for the assessment year ending September 1, 1979.² Thus, plaintiff's affidavit of assessment work for the assessment year ending September 1, 1979 was on file with the BLM throughout the entire 1979 calendar year. Nevertheless, the IBLA held that OCPP's claims were abandoned and void for failure to file assessment work during the 1979 calendar year. The IBLA reasoned that because OPCC filed proof of assessment work during 1978, Section 314(a) required an annual filing during the 1979 calendar year. Since OPCC's 1979 report was filed early, namely in November 1978, no proof of assessment work was filed during 1979 and therefore OPCC's claims were "abandoned." As can be seen, OPCC's only error was filing a required report too early!

OPCC argues that the IBLA's decision is inconsistent with the statutory language of Section 314 in two areas. First, OPCC maintains that the statute only requires annual reports of assessment work to be filed after October 21, 1979, and not after the initial filing of assessment work. Therefore, because no annual filing was required in 1979, no abandonment occurred. Second, OPCC maintains that the statute's words "prior to December 31 of each year thereafter" should not be read to require calendar year filing. According to this argument, OPCC's 1979 filing of November 1978 was "prior to December 31" and therefore timely. These challenges to the IBLA decision are also a challenge to BLM's regulations implementing Section 314 for the reason the IBLA grounded its decision in part on those regulations.

II. Standard of Review

This court's review of an IBLA decision is limited to an examination of whether it was arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of its discretion, unsupported by substantial evidence, or not in accordance with law. 5 U.S.C. § 706 (1982); Baker v. United States, 613 F.2d 224, 226 (9th Cir.), cert. denied 449 U.S. 932, 101 S.Ct. 332, 66 L.Ed.2d 157 (1980). The court need not affirm the administrative decision if the decision is inconsistent with a statutory mandate or frustrates the policy underlying the statute. NLRB v. Brown, 380 U.S. 278, 291, 85 S.Ct. 980, 988, 13 L.Ed.2d 839 (1965); Schade v. Andrus, 638 F.2d 122 (9th Cir.1981). As was stated by the Ninth Circuit elsewhere:

The Administrative Procedure Act mandates that the reviewing court decide all relevant questions of law and interpret constitutional and statutory provisions ...." 5 U.S.C. § 706. We must nonetheless give due deference to the interpretation of statutes and regulations by the agency charged with their administration. Loma Linda University v. Schweiker, 705 F.2d 1123, 1126 (9th Cir. 1983); Committee for an Independent P-I v. Hearst Corp. 704 F.2d 467 at 472. Our task, then, is not to interpret the statutes as we think best, but rather to inquire whether the Coast Guard's construction was "sufficiently reasonable" to be accepted. FEC v. Democratic Senatorial Campaign Comm., 454 U.S. 27, 39, 102 S.Ct. 38, 46, 70 L.Ed.2d 23, 34 (1981). "To satisfy the standard it is not necessary for a court to find that the agency's construction was the only reasonable one or even the reading the court would have reached if the question initially had arisen in a judicial proceeding." Id.

Western Pioneer, Inc. v. United States, 709 F.2d 1331, 1335 (9th Cir.1983).

The amount of deference required and the standard of review for agency decisions reached by rulemaking, i.e., regulations, is similar to that required when agency decisions are reached by adjudication. See id. Thus, implementing regulations are valid if they implement the mandate of Congress, as expressed in the statute in some reasonable way. Rowan Cos. v. United States, 452 U.S. 247, 252-53, 101 S.Ct. 2288, 2292-93, 68 L.Ed.2d 814 (1981). "In determining whether a regulation carries out the congressional mandate in the proper manner, a court must look to see whether the regulation harmonizes with the plain language of the statute, its origin, and its purpose." Id. at 253, 101 S.Ct. at 2293; First Charter Financial Corp. v. United States, 669 F.2d 1342, 1348 (9th Cir.1982). See also Committee for an Independent P-I v. Hearst Corp., 704 F.2d 467, 473 (9th Cir.) ("A court is obliged to accept the administrative construction of a statute only so far as it is reasonable ... and consistent with the intent of Congress in adopting the statute."), cert. denied ___ U.S. ___, 104 S.Ct. 236, 78 L.Ed.2d 228 (1983).

While the court must treat the agency decision with deference in this case, the nature of the review required here tempers the amount of deference due. The statutory mandate in Section 314 regarding recording and abandonment is detailed and specific, not broad and general. This is unlike the situation where Congress has left the agency a mandate to define a general term or implement a broad policy, in which case agency discretion would be at its greatest. Here, Congress constrained the BLM's discretion by use of specific statutory language. Deference is therefore less appropriate. See First Charter Financial Corp., 669 F.2d at 1348.

In a similar situation, the Supreme Court stated:

The framework for analysis is refined by consideration of the source of the authority to promulgate the regulation at issue. The Commissioner has promulgated Treas.Reg. § 1.1563-1(a)(3) interpreting this statute only under his general authority to "prescribe all needful rules and regulations." 26 U.S.C. § 7805(a). Accordingly, "we owe the interpretation less deference than a regulation issued under a specific grant of authority to define a statutory term or prescribe a method of executing a statutory provision." Rowan Cos. v. United States, 452 U.S. 247, 252, 101 S.Ct. 2288, 2292, 68 L.Ed.2d 814 (1981). In addition, Treas.Reg. § 1-1563-1(a)(3) purports to do no more than add a clarifying gloss on a term — "brother-sister controlled group" — that has already been defined with considerable specificity by Congress. The Commissioner's authority is consequently more circumscribed than would be the case if Congress had used a term "`so general ... as to render an interpretive regulation appropriate.'" National Muffler Dealers Assn. v. United States, 440 U.S. 472, 476, 99 S.Ct. 1304, 1306, 59 L.Ed.2d 519 (1979), quoting Helvering v. R.J. Reynolds Co., 306 U.S. 110, 114, 59 S.Ct. 423, 425, 83 L.Ed.2d 536 (1939). See also Rowan Cos. v. United States, supra.

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