The dispute centers on 416,000 acres of land in Idaho originally part of the Fort Hall Indian Reservation, which the Shoshone-Bannock Tribes sold to the United States government in 1898. In 2020, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) approved a land exchange under the Federal Land Policy and Management Act of 1976 (FLPMA) to transfer a portion of these lands to J.R. Simplot Company in exchange for other land Simplot owned, which was needed for storing gypsum by-products. The Tribes sued to stop the exchange, arguing that a specific statute enacted in 1900 governing these ceded lands prohibited the transfer. The 1900 Act 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 district court granted summary judgment for the Tribes, ruling that the 1900 Act barred the FLPMA exchange. 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 panel majority's reasoning rests on the principle that a specific statute controls over a general one, and that the 1900 Act was not repealed by the FLPMA. The court focused on the plain text of the 1900 Act, which explicitly limits the disposal of the Fort Hall lands to four specific categories of laws: homestead, town-site, stone and timber, and mining laws. The word 'only' was interpreted as creating an exclusive list of permissible disposal methods. The government argued that the FLPMA, enacted later in 1976, should apply as a general authorization for land exchanges. However, the court found that the FLPMA did not repeal or supersede the 1900 Act. The majority rejected the dissenting view that the word 'only' was intended merely to exclude pre-existing laws that were not on the list, rather than future laws. The court noted that when Congress wanted to add disposal options for these specific lands after 1900, it did so through laws that explicitly referenced the Fort Hall lands, such as the Acts of 1926 and 1932. Since the FLPMA contains no such specific reference to the Fort Hall lands and does not expressly repeal the 1900 Act, the court held that the specific mandate of the 1900 Act remains in force. The majority also addressed the 'Indian canons of construction,' noting that while ambiguities are resolved in favor of tribes, there was no ambiguity here because the 1900 Act's text was clear and the FLPMA did not conflict with it in a way that required harmonization that would override the specific restriction.
The government's proposed land exchange with J.R. Simplot is permanently blocked unless Congress amends the 1900 Act or the FLPMA to explicitly authorize such a transfer for these specific lands. The decision preserves the status quo of federal ownership for the ceded Fort Hall lands under the strict constraints of the 1900 Act. The ruling creates a significant limitation on the BLM's ability to use FLPMA exchange mechanisms for lands governed by similar late-19th-century statutes that contain 'only' language, potentially freezing the disposal of thousands of acres of public land across the Ninth Circuit. The court did not remand the case for further proceedings on the exchange itself, as the legal authority for the exchange was found to be absent.
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