United States Ninth Circuit

In an challenge to the relicensing to operate Snoqualmie Falls Hydroelectric Project for another forty years, petition for review of the licensing decision is denied where: 1) the relicensing decision does not substantially burden the petitioner-tribe's free exercise of religion; 2) members of tribe were not forced to choose between following the tenets of their religion and receiving a governmental benefit, nor coerced to act contrary to their religious beliefs by the threat of civil or criminal sanction; and 3) because tribe gained federal recognition after 1997, the National Historic Preservation Act did not require negotiation on a government-to-government basis.

Appellate Information

• Argued 02/08/2007
• Decided 10/07/2008
• Published 10/07/2008

Judges

• TALLMAN, Circuit Judge:, Before: RAYMOND C. FISHER and RICHARD C. TALLMAN, Circuit Judges, and DAVID A. EZRA, District Judge.

Court

• United States Ninth Circuit

Counsel

• For Appellant:
  
• Andrea Rodgers, Charles M. Tebbutt, Western Environmental Law Center, Eugene, OR, for petitioner Snoqualmie Indian Tribe., Mark W. Schneider, Markham A. Quehrn, and Kristine R. Wilson, Perkins Coie LLP, Bellevue, WA, for petitioner/intervenor Puget Sound Energy, Inc., Rob McKenna, Joan M. Marchioro, Olympia, WA, for intervenor Washington Department of Ecology., Michael W. Gendler, Gendler & Mann LLP, Seattle, WA, for amici curiae Washington Association of Churches, the Church Council of Greater Seattle, and the Lutheran Public Policy Office of Washington State., Harold S. Shepherd, Clinton, CO, for amicus curiae Center for Water Advocacy.


• For Appellees:
  
• John S. Moot, Robert H. Solomon, Michael E. Kaufmann, Washington, DC, for respondent Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.