Applications to stay the District Court's preliminary injunction
prohibiting the Secretary of the Interior from conducting a sale of
certain tracts on the Pacific Outer Continental Shelf for oil and
gas leasing are granted pending this Court's resolution in another
case of a controlling question involving the proper construction of
§ 307(c)(1) of the Coastal Zone Management Act of 1972.
JUSTICE REHNQUIST, Circuit Justice.
Applicants, who include the Secretary of the Interior and the
Western Oil and Gas Association, request that I stay a preliminary
injunction issued by the United States District Court for the
Central District of California. The United States Court of Appeals
for the Ninth Circuit denied the request for a stay without
opinion. The preliminary injunction prohibits the Secretary from
conducting Lease Sale 73, the sale of 137 designated tracts on the
Pacific Outer Continental Shelf for oil and gas leasing. As issued,
it is effective pending final determination of respondent
California's claims, the principal of which is its claim that the
Secretary did not prepare an adequate "consistency determination"
pursuant to § 307(c)(1) of the Coastal Zone Management Act of 1972,
86 Stat. 1285, 16 U.S.C. § 1456(c)(1), as interpreted by the Court
of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in
California v. Watt,
683 F.2d 1253 (1982),
cert. granted, 461 U.S. 925 (1983)
(argued November 1, 1983).
Section 307(c)(1) provides:
"Each Federal agency conducting or supporting activities
directly affecting the coastal zone shall conduct or
Page 464 U. S. 1305
support those activities in a manner which is, to the maximum
extent practicable, consistent with approved state management
programs."
16 U.S.C. § 1456(c)(1) (emphasis added). In
California v.
Watt, supra, (now
sub nom. Clark v. California), the
Court will decide whether the Secretary's sale of oil and gas
leases is an activity "directly affecting" the coastal zone within
the meaning of § 307(c)(1). Unless the Court answers that question
in the affirmative, there is no statutory requirement at this stage
of the project that the Secretary prepare the "consistency
determination" which the District Court deemed inadequate and which
formed the basis of its decision to issue the injunction in this
case.
Having examined the submissions of the parties, I have decided
to stay the preliminary injunction pending this Court's resolution
of the question presented in
Clark v. California,
concluding as I do that in the interim the traditional
considerations affecting the award of equitable relief favor the
applicants.
It is so ordered.
* Together with No. A-471,
Western Oil & Gas Association
et al. v. California et al., also on application for stay of
the same preliminary injunction.
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