This dispute centers on a proposed land exchange between the United States government and J.R. Simplot Company involving 416,000 acres of land in the Snake River Plain of Idaho. The land was originally part of the Fort Hall Indian Reservation, which the Shoshone-Bannock Tribes ceded to the federal government in 1898. In 2020, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) approved an exchange under the Federal Land Policy and Management Act of 1976 (FLPMA), allowing the government to transfer a portion of these ceded lands to Simplot in exchange for Simplot's adjacent land to accommodate the company's gypsum storage needs. The Tribes sued to block the exchange, arguing that a specific statute from 1900, the Act of June 6, 1900, restricted the disposal of these lands to only four specific types of laws: homestead, town-site, stone and timber, and mining laws. The district court granted summary judgment for the Tribes, holding that the 1900 Act precluded the application of FLPMA. The Ninth Circuit panel affirmed this decision, and the government and Simplot subsequently petitioned for panel and en banc rehearing, which the full court denied.
The core legal issue was whether the general disposal authority granted by FLPMA could override the specific restrictions imposed by the 1900 Act regarding the Fort Hall ceded lands. The panel majority applied the principle of statutory interpretation that a specific statute controls over a general one. The court reasoned that the 1900 Act explicitly stated that the residue of the ceded lands 'shall be subject to disposal under the homestead, town-site, stone and timber, and mining laws of the United States only.' The word 'only' was interpreted as creating an exclusive list of permissible disposal methods for these specific lands. The court rejected the government's argument that FLPMA, enacted later in 1976, implicitly repealed or superseded the 1900 Act. The majority noted that FLPMA contained a savings clause stating that nothing in the Act should be deemed to repeal existing laws by implication, and the 1900 Act was not among the specific laws repealed by FLPMA. The court further addressed the dissenting view that the two statutes could be harmonized. The majority concluded that the 1900 Act's restriction was not merely a limitation on pre-existing laws but a permanent bar on other disposal methods, including the land exchange mechanism provided by FLPMA. The court also rejected the argument that the 1900 Act's 'only' was intended solely to prevent disposal to speculators rather than to block later-enacted disposal statutes. Consequently, because the proposed exchange did not fall within the four specific laws listed in the 1900 Act, the BLM lacked the statutory authority to proceed.
The denial of rehearing en banc makes the panel's decision final. The Bureau of Land Management is permanently enjoined from conducting the land exchange with J.R. Simplot under the authority of FLPMA. The government cannot dispose of these specific Fort Hall ceded lands through a land exchange unless Congress amends the 1900 Act to explicitly authorize such exchanges or FLPMA is amended to override the 1900 Act's restrictions. The decision leaves open the question of whether the government can dispose of the land through the four specific methods listed in the 1900 Act (homestead, town-site, stone and timber, and mining laws), though many of those laws have been repealed or suspended. The ruling effectively freezes the government's ability to exchange these specific lands, potentially impacting local economic development plans tied to the Simplot project.
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