[00:00:32] Speaker 03:
The next case is Clary County and Greenlee County versus the United States 2014-50-60.

[00:00:42] Speaker 03:
Mr. Saltman.

[00:00:44] Speaker 02:
Good morning, Your Honor.

[00:00:46] Speaker 02:
May it please the Court.

[00:00:48] Speaker 02:
In Salazar versus Rama, the Supreme Court indicated that in order to determine the meaning of the term subject to the availability of appropriation, that language, when used in a statute

[00:01:02] Speaker 02:
As it relates to who should bear the risk of underfunding, it is necessary to examine additional evidence of congressional intent.

[00:01:12] Speaker 02:
In this case, the Court of Federal Claims failed to do so, relying instead solely on the absence of a contract and deeming the Payments in Lue of Taxes Act as merely a gratuitous benefit program.

[00:01:25] Speaker 02:
not the subsidy guarantee that it is.

[00:01:27] Speaker 03:
Well, the absence of contract makes a big difference.

[00:01:31] Speaker 03:
The government is obligated under contract quite differently from other grants that it may make.

[00:01:38] Speaker 02:
There's no difference that the obligation is different, Your Honor.

[00:01:41] Speaker 02:
What Rama did was to reject the across-the-board indication that subject to the availability meant that the government's liability ended automatically when the funds in the account ran out.

[00:01:55] Speaker 01:
What they suggested... Even if we accept that proposition, though, isn't it true that what we have to do is to look at the statute that is at issue to determine whether the government intended to obligate the United States to pay or something?

[00:02:12] Speaker 02:
I think Rama goes beyond that, Your Honor.

[00:02:15] Speaker 02:
And it says that you must look at the legislative intent.

[00:02:21] Speaker 04:
Well, perhaps it may...

[00:02:23] Speaker 04:
Perhaps it may be more basic than that.

[00:02:25] Speaker 04:
So let me ask you, are you saying that the statute in this instance, is the statute established as a contract?

[00:02:32] Speaker 04:
Or does it establish benefits that are being paid out?

[00:02:35] Speaker 02:
It does not establish a contract.

[00:02:37] Speaker 02:
It establishes a subsidy to these counties.

[00:02:41] Speaker 02:
And it was intended, the Payment in Lue of Taxes Act was passed in 1970.

[00:02:45] Speaker 04:
If it's a benefits statute, then it runs up against our own precedent.

[00:02:50] Speaker 04:
And I think, isn't the precedent

[00:02:53] Speaker 04:
Where did we rule in this exact question?

[00:02:57] Speaker 02:
In that case, Your Honor, and you're talking about the Greenlee case, that was before Rama, and before Rama indicated that what was necessary is a review of congressional intent.

[00:03:08] Speaker 02:
In this case, as I said, the Payment in Lue of Taxes Act provided a guarantee to local governments against future shortfalls in revenues by providing a commensurate subsidy.

[00:03:20] Speaker 02:
The prior

[00:03:21] Speaker 02:
The prior system had provided money to the counties based on revenue sharing programs.

[00:03:28] Speaker 02:
They went up and down based on oil production, timber sales, etc.

[00:03:34] Speaker 02:
Pursuant to the statutory formula set forth in the PILT Act, when revenue sharing amounts declined, the payment in lieu of tax subsidy increased to cover the shortfall.

[00:03:49] Speaker 01:
Again, we have to go back.

[00:03:52] Speaker 01:
I'm looking at the Senate committee report, and it specifically says that subsection A contains a proviso stating that no funds may be paid available except to the extent they're provided in advance in appropriation.

[00:04:05] Speaker 01:
But then says, it also provides that when less than the full amount is appropriated, the payments to each unit of local government are reduced proportionally.

[00:04:13] Speaker 01:
Isn't that exactly what the government is arguing here?

[00:04:17] Speaker 02:
Yes.

[00:04:17] Speaker 02:
And that phrase.

[00:04:19] Speaker 02:
but the reduction of the payments was never enacted.

[00:04:24] Speaker 02:
Your reading from the Senate report, that's the Senate's markup, and they included that sentence.

[00:04:31] Speaker 02:
It was not enacted when Congress passed the bill.

[00:04:35] Speaker 04:
But Rama is decided in the background of a contract, correct?

[00:04:40] Speaker 02:
Rama was decided in the background of a statute that required a contract.

[00:04:45] Speaker 02:
But the subject to the availability language existed both in the statute and in the contract.

[00:04:51] Speaker 04:
But what does it say that its reasoning applies outside of the contract context into a benefits contract?

[00:04:58] Speaker 02:
It says on page 2193.

[00:05:06] Speaker 02:
What it says there, Your Honor, is that Rama was rejecting the wildly held view, and I'll get to the quote in a second.

[00:05:14] Speaker 02:
that subject availability language means that the United States duty to make payments terminates when the total amount appropriated by Congress is exhausted in the absence of evidence that Congress intended that a recipient bear the risk of a lump sum appropriation that was insufficient to pay all recipients.

[00:05:34] Speaker 02:
And I'm quoting from 2193.

[00:05:36] Speaker 01:
So that's the question that we have to

[00:05:39] Speaker 01:
Yes.

[00:05:40] Speaker 01:
What is the evidence that the government did not intend to be bound in the circumstances that are already issued here?

[00:05:49] Speaker 01:
Now isn't the fact that after character nations that Congress amended this current statute to make it clear that payments are to be made indicative of the fact that Congress recognized that the earlier statute did not clarify that?

[00:06:03] Speaker 02:
I think it's indicative of the fact that Congress wanted

[00:06:07] Speaker 02:
to make sure that counties receive full payments.

[00:06:10] Speaker 02:
If I may, Your Honor, if the analysis that we're suggesting is accomplished, we believe that the court will find not only that there is no evidence of any congressional intent to impose the risk of under appropriation on the recipients with regard to subsidy payments, but as I pointed out, there is in fact evidence that Congress did not intend to reduce those subsidy payments when there was under appropriation.

[00:06:36] Speaker 02:
The statutory formula in the statute for determining the amount of the subsidy was intended to guarantee that each county would receive at least a specific total amount from the United States.

[00:06:51] Speaker 02:
Secondly, in enacting the payment in lieu of taxes act, Congress chose not to limit the subsidies to be paid all of the counties to the amount appropriated by Congress.

[00:07:03] Speaker 02:
As Your Honor pointed out,

[00:07:05] Speaker 02:
in the markup of the Senate version, they include a certain language.

[00:07:10] Speaker 02:
But the language that you're quoting, which I will repeat, is in the event the sums appropriated for any fiscal year to make payments pursuant to the Act are less than the amounts necessary to pay all units of local governments, then the payment or payments to each local government shall be proportionally reduced.

[00:07:30] Speaker 02:
That language was deliberately omitted in the final version

[00:07:34] Speaker 02:
of the PILT Act as it passed Congress in 1976.

[00:07:37] Speaker 02:
Such language was never included in any of the many amendments to the Payment in Lue of Taxes Act made since then.

[00:07:48] Speaker 02:
Not including this language in the Payment in Lue of Taxes Act makes clear that Congress did not intend to limit the liability of the government for all annual formula payments to the amounts appropriated by Congress.

[00:08:04] Speaker 03:
What about 31 U.S.

[00:08:07] Speaker 03:
CA 6906?

[00:08:10] Speaker 02:
We're talking about that, Your Honor.

[00:08:11] Speaker 03:
That's what I thought.

[00:08:13] Speaker 03:
Necessary amounts may be appropriated.

[00:08:15] Speaker 03:
Amounts are available only as provided in appropriation.

[00:08:19] Speaker 02:
Has this Court held that that is the functional equivalent of being subject to the availability of appropriations?

[00:08:27] Speaker 02:
That's almost an exact quote from Greenlee County.

[00:08:29] Speaker 02:
The question now is what does that term mean

[00:08:33] Speaker 02:
in light of Rama.

[00:08:36] Speaker 02:
And Rama withdrew, as I said, the across-the-board view that was held by this circuit and many other circuits.

[00:08:44] Speaker 02:
But that language meant that when the money in the appropriation account is exhausted, the government's liability ends.

[00:08:52] Speaker 02:
Rama says that's not the question.

[00:08:54] Speaker 02:
The question is, what is Congress's intent?

[00:08:59] Speaker 02:
Did Congress intend to put that risk on the recipients

[00:09:03] Speaker 02:
If the answer is yes, obviously we would lose.

[00:09:06] Speaker 02:
If the answer is no, as I believe the case is here, then we would prevail.

[00:09:09] Speaker 01:
OK.

[00:09:10] Speaker 01:
Even if, again, even if we agree with your proposition that Rama changes the analysis that we used in Greenlee and that the underlying assumption that this appropriations language is always enough to remove the obligation, that that's gone.

[00:09:27] Speaker 01:
Here we have Rama on one end, where they mentioned the word contract 46 times in the statute, where there were very specific criteria laid out.

[00:09:36] Speaker 01:
That's true.

[00:09:37] Speaker 01:
So what is it in this very cryptic statute, where we're not even clear what the funds are going to be used for at the local level?

[00:09:46] Speaker 01:
What is it in this statute that you think establishes congressional intent to bind Congress, to bind the government?

[00:09:53] Speaker 02:
Well, first of all, Your Honor, I would say that they

[00:09:56] Speaker 02:
the formula that was used in the statute.

[00:10:01] Speaker 02:
Prior to the enactment of PILT, these counties were receiving funds from the federal government in lieu of taxes, and that took the form of a shared receipts program.

[00:10:13] Speaker 02:
Congress recognized that that wasn't working.

[00:10:16] Speaker 02:
It varied up and down.

[00:10:17] Speaker 02:
It provided no predictability, and there were many years when it was insufficient

[00:10:22] Speaker 02:
to cover the taxes that had been foregone.

[00:10:26] Speaker 01:
Right.

[00:10:26] Speaker 01:
So before, there were tons of times when parties weren't getting fully repaid.

[00:10:32] Speaker 01:
Now Congress wants to reduce the extent to which there are not.

[00:10:35] Speaker 02:
The bill comes along and provides, in effect, a guarantee, a sort of insurance policy.

[00:10:40] Speaker 01:
That's my question.

[00:10:40] Speaker 01:
Where do you find the guarantee?

[00:10:42] Speaker 02:
You look at it in that's the way the statutory formula works.

[00:10:46] Speaker 02:
When receipts decline, the formula steps in automatically.

[00:10:52] Speaker 02:
and increases the subsidy.

[00:10:55] Speaker 02:
Congress did not want these counties to go wanting in the event, in any event, certainly not the event of under appropriation.

[00:11:03] Speaker 02:
It was a subsidy to guarantee a stable level of receipts from the United States to these counties.

[00:11:11] Speaker 02:
That's first of all.

[00:11:12] Speaker 01:
Second of all.

[00:11:13] Speaker 01:
Where in the formula description does that happen?

[00:11:17] Speaker 02:
It requires how the formula is computed

[00:11:22] Speaker 02:
in the first part, it said the formula will be, I think it's 71 cents per acre, reduced by the amount of revenue sharing funds received by the county from, and it lists about eight separate programs.

[00:11:39] Speaker 02:
So if you put that together, you can see that when the receipts are high, under that formula, the money's gonna run out at some point.

[00:11:47] Speaker 04:
If there's not enough money that's been appropriated, then money will run out.

[00:11:53] Speaker 02:
Well, I think that's a separate question, Your Honor.

[00:11:56] Speaker 02:
But under the formula, the amount due to county increases when the revenue sharing amounts decrease.

[00:12:04] Speaker 02:
When revenue sharing is high, the amount of PILT payment is very, very low.

[00:12:08] Speaker 04:
This case doesn't revolve around the formula, though, does it?

[00:12:12] Speaker 04:
Oh, yes, it does, Your Honor.

[00:12:13] Speaker 04:
It revolves around what happens when the appropriate amount has been... True.

[00:12:20] Speaker 02:
True, Your Honor.

[00:12:21] Speaker 04:
What this case is about.

[00:12:22] Speaker 02:
But what I'm saying is that Rama requires the court

[00:12:27] Speaker 02:
to examine the intent of Congress very carefully.

[00:12:31] Speaker 04:
Now Rama says that if the money runs out, and yet you have a contract in place, the government is still obligated to steal that contract.

[00:12:40] Speaker 04:
But it doesn't speak out to what they're calling the subsidy program.

[00:12:46] Speaker 02:
Rama talks, and I'm quoting, Your Honor, that the thing that has to be looked at is, in terms of interpreting, subject to the availability language, does it

[00:12:58] Speaker 02:
destroy the government's liability when there's no money left, quote, evidence that Congress intended that the recipient bear the risk that a appropriation will not prove sufficient to pay all recipients.

[00:13:12] Speaker 02:
That's what this court has to look at.

[00:13:14] Speaker 02:
What is that evidence?

[00:13:17] Speaker 02:
And we submit that the evidence lies in the fact that the formula was intended to make these payments, the total payments received by the county, stable

[00:13:28] Speaker 02:
And if Congress wanted to have reduced the liability of the government, it would have included that sentence from the Senate report that they chose not to adopt.

[00:13:40] Speaker 03:
Thank you.

[00:14:01] Speaker 00:
May I please support?

[00:14:03] Speaker 00:
This court held in Greenlee County versus United States in May of 2007 that the government's liability for payment to local governments under the Payment in Lue of Taxes Act or PILT is limited to the amounts appropriated by Congress.

[00:14:20] Speaker 00:
That ruling is controlling precedent here.

[00:14:22] Speaker 00:
There's been nothing in the law or the facts that changes

[00:14:26] Speaker 01:
Do you think there's nothing in Rama that calls into question the analysis in Greenlee County?

[00:14:31] Speaker 00:
There is nothing in Rama, Your Honor.

[00:14:33] Speaker 00:
Rama was specifically focused on government contracts.

[00:14:39] Speaker 00:
The Rama court specifically said, we are relying on the well-established principles of government contracts in reaching our decision.

[00:14:48] Speaker 00:
The Rama case looked at legislative intent, no doubt about that.

[00:14:53] Speaker 00:
The legislative intent indicated that the Congress wanted the government to enter into contracts with local Indian tribes to perform services in payment for

[00:15:09] Speaker 01:
the government was going to provide payment for services that the government had previously couldn't congressional intent to bind the government to a specific payment appear just as clearly in a benefits program as it could in a contract?

[00:15:26] Speaker 00:
It could your honor and in fact the Greenlee County Court recognized that there were statutes that required payment

[00:15:35] Speaker 00:
Without contracts, for example, the New York Airways case and the New York Railways Central case, the Langston versus United States case all relied on a statute that provided for the payment of specific amounts for services rendered.

[00:15:50] Speaker 00:
For example, in Langston, Langston was an ambassador to Haiti.

[00:15:56] Speaker 00:
The statute provided $7,500 for his ambassadorship.

[00:16:01] Speaker 00:
Congress only appropriated $5,000.

[00:16:04] Speaker 00:
he too and the court found yet the statute provide and obligate and guarantee you seventy five hundred and you have a lot of action and you and you have been uh... damages under that under that contract so wrong and wrong uh...

[00:16:26] Speaker 04:
fulfilling a full payment under their contract.

[00:16:29] Speaker 04:
Does it say anything as to a benefits program?

[00:16:32] Speaker 04:
Does it sign up as to a benefits program, or does it speak to a benefits program?

[00:16:37] Speaker 00:
Rama does not speak to a benefits program, and appellants request this court to broaden Rama beyond its actual scope.

[00:16:46] Speaker 00:
The facts in Rama that the court relied upon are important.

[00:16:50] Speaker 00:
There was a contract between the government and the Indian tribes.

[00:16:54] Speaker 00:
The contract, there was a model contract in the statute that Congress required the government to use.

[00:17:01] Speaker 00:
The statute provided that the Indian tribes could, under the Contract Disputes Act, go to court if payment was not full and sue for full payment.

[00:17:15] Speaker 01:
sort of do away with this notion that subject to appropriation is very meaningful in this context and say that what we have to look at is Congress's intent to be bound.

[00:17:26] Speaker 01:
In that case, they then looked at these contractual references.

[00:17:29] Speaker 01:
Even in our Greenland County case, we distinguished Cherokee Nation.

[00:17:36] Speaker 01:
And that ground upon which we distinguished Cherokee Nation was rejected by Justice Sotomayor in Brown.

[00:17:44] Speaker 00:
only, Your Honor, in the context of contracts.

[00:17:47] Speaker 00:
The statutes here provide specifically necessary amounts may be appropriated to the Secretary of the Interior to carry out this chapter.

[00:17:58] Speaker 00:
Amounts are available only as provided in appropriations law.

[00:18:02] Speaker 00:
The congressional intent, Congress said what it meant.

[00:18:06] Speaker 00:
That is, that we are, in circumstances where we don't have the money, we don't have the budget, you may not get a full statutory formula payment.

[00:18:16] Speaker 01:
Is it telling though, that the minute Cherokee Nation comes out, Congress, when it was actually doing things, amended this statute to say, you gotta make these payments?

[00:18:28] Speaker 01:
I mean, today, you wouldn't argue that it was limited to appropriations that are available, would you?

[00:18:35] Speaker 00:
The, it would depend on the facts, Your Honor.

[00:18:38] Speaker 01:
It would totally get- The statute right now says Congress shall appropriate all money necessary to pay for these programs.

[00:18:44] Speaker 00:
But that's not the, that's not the language that we're talking about in this case.

[00:18:49] Speaker 01:
I understand that, but isn't it telling that once Cherokee Nation came out and even before Rama, Congress amended the statute to make it clear what they intended?

[00:18:59] Speaker 00:
And so what you're suggesting, Your Honor, is that the language

[00:19:04] Speaker 00:
prior to Cherokee Nation reflected congressional intent in that Congress said we will appropriate certain funds and those funds will be, that is the only amount that will be available for payment under the statute.

[00:19:24] Speaker 00:
And the government comes back to the plain language of Rama

[00:19:29] Speaker 00:
and the fact that Rama strictly applied the principles there within the government contracting context.

[00:19:39] Speaker 00:
It did not go beyond that and there is no reason for this court to go beyond that given the congressional intent in the PILT statute that specifically says amounts are to be appropriated

[00:19:52] Speaker 01:
up to whatever, even if you don't meet the... Where else do you get the congressional intent from other than that phrase?

[00:20:03] Speaker 00:
Well, the Senate report reflects that that

[00:20:09] Speaker 00:
Exactly, approvingly to that language.

[00:20:13] Speaker 01:
But the Senate report says there's actually a provision that talks about pro rata shares if the money runs out.

[00:20:22] Speaker 01:
And that provision was removed from the final bill, was it not?

[00:20:26] Speaker 00:
It was.

[00:20:27] Speaker 00:
And the Secretary of the Interior, under its authorization to manage the statute, filled that gap and passed regulations

[00:20:39] Speaker 00:
that provide for a pro rata share.

[00:20:42] Speaker 00:
And so where there is a gap, and there was a gap in the statute in terms of, well, what are we going to do if Congress, in fact, doesn't appropriate the full amount?

[00:20:53] Speaker 00:
The Department of the Interior stepped in and passed regulations that provide for pro rata shares.

[00:21:00] Speaker 00:
And that's exactly how Greenlea County and Prairie County were paid in 2006 and 2007.

[00:21:06] Speaker 01:
So you're arguing that there was at least an ambiguity in the statute that was explained in the regulations and we have to give deference to those regulations?

[00:21:15] Speaker 00:
Absolutely.

[00:21:16] Speaker 00:
Absolutely.

[00:21:18] Speaker 00:
If there was a gap in terms of, well, what are we going to do if amounts are not appropriated as it suggests in the statute may happen, then the Department of Interior stepped in and provided regulations to fill that gap.

[00:21:35] Speaker 00:
Appellants here are attempting to basically hamstring Congress and insist that Congress appropriate funds for a statute when it has a number of budgetary concerns and specifically indicated, at least in 2006 and 2007,

[00:21:57] Speaker 00:
at the issue with the area with the context within which we're looking at that we're going to appropriate funds up, you know, the amounts are available only as we appropriate them.

[00:22:09] Speaker 04:
So when you look at the language in all these different cases, they're pretty much the same.

[00:22:17] Speaker 04:
I mean, we can make distinctions, but we're almost talking about the same type of language.

[00:22:24] Speaker 04:
Rama says that the government's obligation continues on

[00:22:27] Speaker 04:
the case where the statute establishes a contract.

[00:22:31] Speaker 04:
What's the guiding principle here with respect to what Rama said in connection with the benefit statute?

[00:22:38] Speaker 04:
Is there anything that we can take from Rama and say, this is what's going to guide this court with respect to its existing precedent?

[00:22:48] Speaker 00:
The Rama court, the principles under the Rama court are

[00:22:56] Speaker 00:
focus on government contracting and it should be reviewed and analyzed only in the context of government contracts.

[00:23:06] Speaker 00:
It does not extend to a benefits program and there's no language in Rama that anyone can point to that suggests otherwise.

[00:23:21] Speaker 01:
a bright line distinction between a government contract and a benefit program.

[00:23:28] Speaker 01:
The reality is that I don't read Rama to draw that bright line distinction.

[00:23:33] Speaker 01:
I read Rama to say, did the government intend to be bound like it would be in a contract or did it not?

[00:23:43] Speaker 01:
And so I think that not all benefits

[00:23:46] Speaker 01:
programs would be as open to this, we don't have to pay them if we don't want to, response.

[00:23:54] Speaker 01:
I think there are plenty of benefits programs, including now the current version of this one, where Congress has made it clear we want to pay these people.

[00:24:03] Speaker 01:
So that's my problem with your argument, is that I don't think the distinction is as bright as you are drawing it.

[00:24:12] Speaker 00:
In terms of

[00:24:15] Speaker 00:
congressional intent, the principles of statutory construction apply within the context of Rama and outside of the context of Rama.

[00:24:29] Speaker 00:
It is the court's job to look at the statute and determine what the legislative intent was in the statute.

[00:24:37] Speaker 01:
Tell me where in the statute, other than that one phrase, that you find legislative intent in legislative history, in other portions of the statute.

[00:24:48] Speaker 01:
Your friend on the other side argues that the formula itself that's within the statute is a different intent.

[00:24:57] Speaker 00:
Your Honor, the government rests

[00:25:00] Speaker 00:
rests in part on 6906, which in fact provides a clear statement of legislative intent that with respect to this statute, the amounts will be appropriated and those amounts appropriated will be distributed to local governments.

[00:25:23] Speaker 00:
In terms of Rama, the Rama court also looked at legislative intent.

[00:25:28] Speaker 00:
But it did so in the context of government contracting.

[00:25:32] Speaker 00:
And going back to Rama, the rationale for Rama was clearly stated by the court.

[00:25:39] Speaker 00:
And it included the concern that a government contractor has to count on payments for the services that it provides without having to keep an eye on appropriations at every moment.

[00:25:55] Speaker 00:
on the one hand and the government has a vested interest in being a reliable contracting party.

[00:26:03] Speaker 00:
That's not the case with PILT.

[00:26:06] Speaker 00:
There are no services that are provided specifically for the payments that are made.

[00:26:26] Speaker 00:
Certainly the PILT is designed to mitigate the loss of tax revenues

[00:26:33] Speaker 00:
because of federal lands in a particular local area.

[00:26:37] Speaker 00:
There's no question about that.

[00:26:38] Speaker 00:
But at least within the confines of this particular case, it is

[00:26:47] Speaker 04:
clear from six nine oh six what's the difference between some of the earlier cases the ambassador to another country where he establishes a fixed figure as the payment for the services rendered and in this instance for example the counties are given a formula an allocation formula and this formula applies in order to to mitigate the loss of revenue under PIL

[00:27:16] Speaker 04:
under the tax exempt laws?

[00:27:19] Speaker 00:
In cases such as the Langston case where there is a specific set amount, there is no, as you've noted, there is a formula but there's no specific set amount that needs to be transferred to each local government.

[00:27:37] Speaker 03:
Wasn't there a promise that was intended to be relied on?

[00:27:42] Speaker 00:
no there's no binding obligation here in any of the captain there's no promise there is a suggestion that these funds are to be used in order to mitigate a lot of our contract isn't there a promise

[00:28:01] Speaker 04:
because of what's happened with the removal of your revenues.

[00:28:06] Speaker 04:
Your revenues are diminished.

[00:28:08] Speaker 04:
So the payment in lieu of taxes is we're going to establish this formula to put you whole.

[00:28:14] Speaker 04:
Isn't that a promise?

[00:28:16] Speaker 04:
To make the county whole.

[00:28:19] Speaker 00:
There is no suggestion anywhere in the statute

[00:28:24] Speaker 00:
that there is going to be a specific amount of money provided to any particular local government.

[00:28:31] Speaker 03:
There's no promise.

[00:28:32] Speaker 03:
There was an intention, but not a binding contract.

[00:28:35] Speaker 00:
Exactly.

[00:28:37] Speaker 00:
Certainly, there was an intention to mitigate the loss of revenues, the loss of tax revenues.

[00:28:42] Speaker 00:
That's certainly the point of the statute.

[00:28:45] Speaker 00:
But there is no binding obligation that any particular amount needs to be

[00:28:50] Speaker 00:
needs to be provided to any particular local government.

[00:28:54] Speaker 00:
If there are no further questions, the government respectfully requests that the judgment of the trial court be affirmed.

[00:29:02] Speaker 03:
Thank you, Ms.

[00:29:03] Speaker 03:
Snider.

[00:29:04] Speaker 03:
Ms.

[00:29:04] Speaker 03:
Saltman has a couple of minutes, two minutes for the volume.

[00:29:07] Speaker 02:
Just a couple of things, Your Honor.

[00:29:11] Speaker 02:
My opponent said that Rama only deals with contracts.

[00:29:15] Speaker 02:
And I think at some other point she did say that you are required to determine legislative intent.

[00:29:20] Speaker 02:
We couldn't agree with that more.

[00:29:22] Speaker 02:
The quote that I have cited at 2193 asks this court or any court to look for the evidence that Congress intended.

[00:29:33] Speaker 02:
That's words of statutory, not words related to a contract.

[00:29:37] Speaker 02:
Did Congress intend that the recipient bear the risk of underfunding?

[00:29:42] Speaker 02:
Greenlee County.

[00:29:44] Speaker 02:
Greenlee County, we're not saying it was incorrect at the time.

[00:29:47] Speaker 02:
What we're suggesting is it needs to be revisited in the wake of Rama.

[00:29:51] Speaker 01:
That's all.

[00:29:52] Speaker 01:
What about, I mean, again, even if we agree with you that we're looking for congressional intent in the statute, this statute does not have all of the pieces and parts that the Rama statute did.

[00:30:06] Speaker 02:
It is certainly a very different statute, yes ma'am.

[00:30:09] Speaker 01:
So it's your burden to establish that, in fact, congressional intent was something other than the government's intent.

[00:30:16] Speaker 01:
Yes.

[00:30:17] Speaker 01:
And the government says that, at minimum, we should find that the statute was ambiguous and that, therefore, its ambiguities can be filled in or resolved by reasonable regulations to which we must defer.

[00:30:32] Speaker 02:
And I don't think, in this case, deferring is appropriate.

[00:30:34] Speaker 02:
Because if you look at the legislative history, the legislative history

[00:30:38] Speaker 02:
the Senate report made it very clear that we are going to limit the government's liability to the amount appropriated.

[00:30:44] Speaker 02:
Didn't get enacted.

[00:30:46] Speaker 02:
Yet the regulation comes along and says, notwithstanding the fact that Congress didn't impose that, we're going to impose that.

[00:30:53] Speaker 02:
That violates the intent of Congress.

[00:30:55] Speaker 02:
It's not entitled to deference under the Milwaukee case and under the Stargo case of this court.

[00:31:02] Speaker 02:
So I don't think that they can step in and say the regulation fills that void

[00:31:08] Speaker 02:
I'm not even sure regulations were authorized in this instance.

[00:31:15] Speaker 03:
I think you should reverse the Court of Federal Claims.