CALIFORNIA v. NORTON

Nos. 01-16637, 01-16690.

311 F.3d 1162 (2002)

State of CALIFORNIA; California Coastal Commission; Gray Davis, Governor; Bill Lockyer, Attorney General, Plaintiffs-Appellees, and Natural Resources Defense Council; League for Coastal Protection; Get Oil Out!; Citizens Planning Association of Santa Barbara; California Public Interest Research Group; Sierra Club; Friends of the Sea Otter; California Coastkeeper; Santa Barbara Channelkeeper; Santa Monica Baykeeper, Inc., Intervenors-Appellees, and Santa Barbara County; San Luis Obispo County, Intervenors-Appellees, v. Gale NORTON, Secretary of the Department of Interior; United States Department of the Interior Minerals Management Service; Regional Supervisor of the Minerals Management Service, Defendants-Appellants, and Aera Energy LLC; Conoco, Inc.; Nuevo Energy Company; Poseidon Petroleum, LLC; Samedan Oil Corp., Intervenors-Appellants. State of California; California Coastal Commission; Gray Davis, Governor; Bill Lockyer, Attorney General, Plaintiffs-Appellees, and Natural Resources Defense Council; League for Coastal Protection; Get Oil Out!; Citizens Planning Association of Santa Barbara; California Public Interest Research Group; Sierra Club; Friends of the Sea Otter; California Coastkeeper; Santa Barbara Channelkeeper; Santa Monica Baykeeper, Inc., Intervenors-Appellees, and Santa Barbara County; San Luis Obispo County, Intervenors-Appellees, v. Gale Norton, Secretary of the Department of Interior; United States Department of the Interior Minerals Management Service; Regional Supervisor of the Minerals Management Service, Defendants-Appellants, and Aera Energy LLC; Conoco, INC.; Nuevo Energy Company; Poseidon Petroleum, LLC; Samedan Oil Corp., Intervenors-Appellants.

United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit.

Filed December 2, 2002.


Attorney(s) appearing for the Case

Thomas L. Sansonetti, Assistant Attorney General, Environment & Natl. Resources Div., David W. Shapiro, United States Attorney, James Coda, Assistant U.S. Attorney, Edward S. Geldermann, William B. Lazarus, David C. Shilton, U.S. Dept. of Justice, Washington D.C., Fred E. Ferguson, Peter J. Schaumberg, Geoffrey R. Heath, Office of the Solicitor, Department of the Interior, for the appellants.

E. Edward Bruce, Steven J. Rosenbaum, Gregory M. Williams, Covington & Burling, Washington D.C., for the intervenors-appellants.

Bill Lockyer, Attorney General of the State of California, Richard M. Frank, Chief Assistant Attorney General, J. Matthew Rodriquez, Senior Assistant Attorney General, Jamee Jordan Patterson, Supervising Deputy Attorney General, San Diego California, for the plaintiffs-appellees.

Stephen Shane Stark, County Counsel, Santa Barbara County, Alan Seltzer, Chief Deputy County Counsel, Santa Barbara County, William M. Dillon, Senior Deputy County Counsel, Santa Barbara County, Santa Barbara, California, James B. Lindholm, Jr., County Counsel San Luis Obispo County, Timothy McNulty, Deputy County Counsel, San Luis Obispo County, San Luis Obispo, California, for the County intervenors-appellees.

Linda Krop, Environmental Defense Center, Santa Barbara, California, Andrew Caputo, Natural Resources Defense Council, San Francisco, California, for the Environmental Group intervenors-appellees.

Before SCHROEDER, Chief Judge, D.W. NELSON and REINHARDT, Circuit Judges.


OPINION

D.W. NELSON, Senior Circuit Judge.

Appellants ("United States")1 granted "suspensions" of thirty-six oil leases off-shore of central California pursuant to 43 U.S.C. § 1334(a)(1). The purpose of the lease suspensions was to extend the lives of the leases and to allow the lessees to "facilitate proper development of the lease[s]." 43 U.S.C. § 1334(a)(1). Without the...

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