Ramex Min. Corp. v. Watt
| Decision Date | 29 January 1985 |
| Docket Number | 83-5305,Nos. 83-5299,s. 83-5299 |
| Citation | 753 F.2d 521 |
| Parties | , 15 Envtl. L. Rep. 20,214 RAMEX MINING CORPORATION (83-5299), Gabriel Energy Corporation (83-5305), Plaintiffs-Appellants, and The Stearns Company (83-5299), Intervening Plaintiff-Appellant, v. James WATT, Secretary of Interior; Paul Reeves, Acting Director; Andrew Bailey, Acting Director, Office of Surface Mining Reclamation & Enforcement; David C. Short, Region II, Office of Surface Mining Reclamation & Enforcement, Defendants-Appellees. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Sixth Circuit |
Ben B. Fowler, argued, William H. Gorin, Stites & Harbison, Bruce F. Clark, Frankfort, Ky., for plaintiffs-appellants.
Louis DeFalaise, U.S. Atty., Jane E. Graham, Asst. U.S. Atty., argued, Lexington, Ky., for defendants-appellees.
Before STEWART, Associate Justice (Retired) *, ENGEL and MERRITT, Circuit Judges.
In each of these two cases against the Secretary of the Interior, a coal mining company proposes to mine coal under the surface of land owned and maintained by the federal government as forest land. The mining company claims a valid royalty lease of the mineral estate from the successor in interest of the original owner who reserved the mineral estate when he sold the fee interest in the land to the government. Each case arises under the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act of 1977, 30 U.S.C. Secs. 1201-1328 (1983). In each, the coal mining company and the owners of the underlying royalty mineral interest seek from this Court a declaratory judgment that they are entitled to mine coal under the federal lands. In one case the coal underlies part of the Daniel Boone National Forest in Eastern Kentucky, and in the other case the land is part of the so-called "Redbird Purchase Unit" near the Daniel Boone National Forest. Plaintiffs do not seek injunctive relief or damages. 1
The 1977 Act applies to mining on both public and private lands, but the questions of interpretation and application of the Act presented by plaintiffs here relate to one of the provisions applicable only to public lands, namely Sec. 522(e)(2), codified as 30 U.S.C. Sec. 1272(e)(2). That section provides, with certain exceptions which we need not enumerate here, that "subject to valid existing rights," no coal mining which disturbs the surface "shall be permitted ... on any federal lands within the boundaries of any national forest...." 2
Plaintiffs request a declaratory judgment holding that section 1272(e)(2) is not applicable to the mines they intend to operate and hence that the Office of Surface Mining which administers the Act may not apply and enforce this section against them. They argue that section 1272(e)(2) does not regulate their proposed mines for the following reasons: (1) section 1272(e)(2) does not cover separate mineral interests owned by private parties under federal forests but covers only surface interests; (2) unless the section is read to exclude such private mineral estates, the section constitutes an unconstitutional taking under the Fifth Amendment; (3) the mineral estate underlying the government-owned "Redbird Purchase Unit" is not covered by section 1272(e)(2) because Redbird is not a national forest.
When the Office of Surface Mining learned that the two mining companies were about to conduct underground mining operations which would disturb the surface of federal lands, the administrator gave notice that the companies are required to seek and obtain permits under the Surface Mining Reclamation Act and would be subject to the provisions of section 1272(e)(2). When plaintiffs received these notices, they filed this action for declaratory judgment in District Court rather than participate in the administrative hearing process established by the Act. The Act prohibits the mining of coal without an administrative permit, 30 U.S.C. Sec. 1256, and provides for administrative review and adjudication of disputes arising from permit applications. 30 U.S.C. Sec. 1264.
The District Court overruled in part the government's motion to dismiss the complaints on grounds that plaintiffs had not exhausted their administrative remedies and that their cases were not ripe for decision. Instead, the Court rendered a partial declaratory judgment construing and applying the statute. It held that the companies' mineral interests and mining operations would operate under and on federal forest lands, and were therefore governed by section 1272(e)(2) of the Act. The District Court then agreed with the government's position regarding ripeness, and ruled that it would defer to the agency's primary jurisdiction regarding plaintiffs' further claims. However, upon motion filed by the plaintiffs, the District Court dismissed the cases in their entirety so that plaintiffs could appeal from the declaratory judgment. On appeal, the government has formally waived any exhaustion and ripeness contentions to the extent that they might be interpreted to interfere with the District Court's limited declaration, and asserts that the judgment is now ripe for decision by this Court.
Plaintiffs' first argument is that the Act, and specifically section 1272(e), does not apply to them at all, because their proposed mining operations will not occur "on federal lands." Their theory is that they still own the "lands" beneath the surface, and although the federal government has been granted some rights on the surface, the lands affected by plaintiffs' mining, including the surface land necessarily disturbed by their underground mines, are wholly owned by the private plaintiffs as a matter of state law. Proceeding from this premise, plaintiffs then claim that they cannot be made to resort to the administrative procedure that the Office of Surface Mining has set up for determination of "valid existing rights," because that process necessarily assumes that the plaintiffs' operations will occur "on federal lands."
Plaintiffs' proposal to mine beneath federal national forest lands, with the conceded attendant effects on the surface of those lands, fits squarely within the common sense meaning of the phrase "on federal lands" as used in section 1272(e)(2). This is even more apparent when the definition of "surface mining" contained in the Act, i.e., "surface impacts incident to an underground mine," is substituted for the phrase "surface mining" in section 1272(e). Thus, the Act and section 1272(e) apply to plaintiffs' mines. The District Court was correct in so holding.
The plaintiffs' "taking" argument is governed by the Supreme Court's decision in Hodel v. Virginia Surface Mining and Reclamation, 452 U.S. 264, 101 S.Ct. 2352, 69 L.Ed.2d 1 (1981), a pre-enforcement challenge to the Surface Mining Act. The Court held that the Act is not facially invalid. Its "mere enactment" does not constitute a taking of plaintiffs' mineral estate. Thus, ...
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Meridian Land and Mineral Co. v. Hodel
... ... at 190-91, 105 S.Ct. at 3119-20; Ramex Mining Corp. v. Watt, 753 F.2d 521, 523 (6th Cir.), cert. denied, 474 U.S ... ...