Federal Land Management Errors: Recourse for Lessees and Claimants
| Jurisdiction | United States,Federal |
| Citation | Vol. 15 No. 9 Pg. 1982 |
| Pages | 1982 |
| Publication year | 1987 |
1987, November, Pg. 1982. Federal Land Management Errors: Recourse for Lessees and Claimants
When mining claimants or mineral lessees locate a claim or receive a lease, they are dependent on appropriate federal agencies for compliance with planning, environmental and other laws and regulations which govern the use of public lands. It is virtually impossible for lessees and claimants to make sure these laws and regulations have been fully addressed before committing time and resources; however, lessees and claimants may lose all rights in the claim or leasehold if the federal agency has erred or failed to complete all requirements.
This problem is illustrated in three recent cases: Conner v. Burford,(fn1) Bob Marshall Alliance v. Wat(fn2) and National Wildlife Federation v. Burford.(fn3) Conner and Bob Marshall involved claims against the agency for failure to prepare an environmental impact statement as required under the National Environmental Policy Act ("NEPA"),(fn4) and failure to comply with the procedural requirements of the Endangered Species Act ("ESA").(fn5) In both cases, the court set aside the agencies' actions which had opened the land for oil and gas leasing and issued preliminary injunctions prohibiting the agencies from further leasing pending compliance with NEPA and ESA.
In National Wildlife Federation, the plaintiff alleged that the Department of the Interior ("DOI") had improperly terminated protective classifications and revoked withdrawals covering approximately 170 million acres of land by failing to comply with NEPA and the Federal Land Policy and Management Act ("FLPMA").(fn6) The court issued a preliminary injunction ordering that all persons holding interests, including mining claims and leases, in the affected lands were prohibited from taking action inconsistent with the status quo. While the action taken in National Wildlife Federation was a preliminary injunction, the court made reference to the fact that if the plaintiff eventually prevailed on the merits, lessees and claimants could lose all of their rights.
When the agency is challenged by another party or group, as in the above cases, several defenses may be available against the plaintiff's ability to bring the action. These defenses may include standing, joinder, ripeness, failure to exhaust administrative remedies, mootness, statutes of limitations and laches. Standing and joinder concern the parties to the action, while ripeness, exhaustion, mootness, laches and statutes of limitations relate to timing.
The initial question in a claim by an environmental or public interest group is whether the organization has standing. A detailed test of standing was set forth in Sierra Club v. Watt,(fn7) where the court defined both a constitutional and a prudential standard. Under the constitutional standard, the party must have personally suffered actual or threatened harm as a result of the putatively illegal conduct of the defendant; the injury must be fairly traceable to the challenged action; and the plaintiff must demonstrate a distinct and palpable injury that is not abstract, conjectural or hypothetical, and that can be redressed by a favorable decision. The prudential standard requires that plaintiffs show that their own legal rights and interests are affected, not that they merely have generalized grievances shared by all citizens.(fn8)
Joinder would appear to be a formidable barrier to a suit against an agency where large numbers of mineral lessees or mining claimants would be adversely affected. However, in both Sierra Club and National Wildlife Federation, the court allowed lowed the plaintiff to bring the action without joining affected parties. In both cases, the court considered the requirements of Federal Rules of Civil Procedure ("F.R.C.P.") Rule 19, but gave substantial weight to the fact that the plaintiff would not have an adequate remedy if the action were dismissed. Rather than viewing the joinder issue as black and white, the courts balanced the harm to the absent parties, the likelihood that their interests would be adequately represented, the possibility of shaping relief measures limiting their harm, and the adequacy of plaintiff's...
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