626 MOBIL OIL EXPLORATION & PRODUCING
SOUTHEAST, INC. v. UNITED STATES Stevens, J., dissenting
I
To understand the nature of the breach, and the appropriate remedy for it, it is necessary to supplement the Court's chronological account. From the time petitioners began discussing their interest in drilling an exploratory well 45 miles off the coast from Cape Hatteras in the fall of 1988, until (and even after) the enactment of the Outer Banks Protection Act (OBPA), § 6003, on August 18, 1990, their exploration proposal was fraught with problems. It was clear to petitioners as early as October 6, 1988 (and almost certainly before), that the State of North Carolina, whose approval petitioners knew they had to have under their lease terms in order to obtain the requisite permits from the Department of the Interior (DOI), was not going to go along readily. App. 61-63 (letter from North Carolina Governor James G. Martin to Ralph Ainger, Acting Regional Manager, Minerals Management Service (MMS) (a division of the DOI)). As the Court explains, ante, at 610, without the State's approval pursuant to the Coastal Zone Management Act (CZMA), 16 U. S. C. § 1451 et seq., incorporated into the OCSLA by multiple references, no DOI licensing, permitting, or lessee exploration of any kind could ensue, 43 U. S. C. § 1340(c).
That is why petitioners pursued multiparty negotiations with the Federal Government and the State to help facilitate the eventual approval of their proposal. As part of these negotiations, petitioners entered into a memorandum of understanding with North Carolina and the Federal Government, and, according to the terms of that agreement, submitted a draft plan of exploration (POE) to DOI and to the State. App. 79-85. The Government also agreed to prepare draft and final environmental impact reports on petitioners' draft POE and to participate in public meetings and hearings regarding the draft POE and the Government's findings about its environmental impact. Id., at 81-82. Among other things, this agreement resulted in the Government's preparation in 1990 of a three-volume, 2,000-page special environ-
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