Cite as: 530 U. S. 604 (2000)
Opinion of the Court
B
In 1981, in return for up-front "bonus" payments to the United States of about $156 million (plus annual rental payments), the companies received 10-year renewable lease contracts with the United States. In these contracts, the United States promised the companies, among other things, that they could explore for oil off the North Carolina coast and develop any oil that they found (subject to further royalty payments) provided that the companies received exploration and development permissions in accordance with various statutes and regulations to which the lease contracts were made "subject." App. to Pet. for Cert. in No. 99-253, pp. 174a-185a.
The statutes and regulations, the terms of which in effect were incorporated into the contracts, made clear that obtaining the necessary permissions might not be an easy matter. In particular, the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act (OCSLA), 67 Stat. 462, as amended, 43 U. S. C. § 1331 et seq. (1994 ed. and Supp. III), and the Coastal Zone Management Act of 1972 (CZMA), 86 Stat. 1280, 16 U. S. C. § 1451 et seq., specify that leaseholding companies wishing to explore and drill must successfully complete the following four procedures.
First, a company must prepare and obtain Department of the Interior approval for a Plan of Exploration (Exploration Plan or Plan). 43 U. S. C. § 1340(c). Interior must approve a submitted Exploration Plan unless it finds, after "consider[ing] available relevant environmental information," § 1346(d), that the proposed exploration
"would probably cause serious harm or damage to life (including fish and other aquatic life), to property, to any mineral . . . , to the national security or defense, or to the marine, coastal, or human environment." § 1334(a)(2)(A)(i).
609
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