Cite as: 530 U. S. 604 (2000)
Stevens, J., dissenting
to this day); and responding over years to petitioners' appeal from the State's CZMA objection.7
The Court also asserts, without support, that "[w]hether an applicant approaches Commerce with an Interior Department approval already in hand can make a difference (as can failure to have obtained that earlier approval)." Ibid. Although the Court thereby implies that the Secretary of Commerce's handling of petitioners' CZMA override request was somehow tied to the DOI's failure to issue the required approval, there is record evidence that petitioners' CZMA appeals were not "suspended, impeded, or otherwise delayed by enactment or implementation of the . . . OBPA . . . ." App. 187 (declaration of Margo E. Jackson, Conoco Inc. v. United States, No. 92-331-C (Fed. Cl., Apr. 6, 1994) (Commerce Department supervisor in charge of handling Mobil's appeals)). Whether or not the Secretary's decision was in-7 The Court's cursory efforts to discount this evidence of continued performance fall far short. In light of the Weetman letter's detailed description of the Government's efforts to evaluate the POE as submitted, the Court's assertion that "in respect to the exploration plan, the companies received nothing," ante, at 622, cannot be correct. The Court itself insists on making an indispensable part of the parties' contract mutual promises to follow certain procedures, ante, at 620; if that is the case, we must credit the Government's efforts to follow those procedures as performance of that promise, and that performance was "received" by petitioners.
The Court also suggests that the Government was obligated to extend the lease suspensions to petitioners under the terms of the parties' separately adopted memorandum of understanding; the Government should therefore, by the Court's logic, receive no credit under the lease contracts for continuing to perform. Ante, at 623. Whether or not the Government was separately obligated to extend the suspensions it did (and of course the memorandum agreement only exists because of and as part of the parties' efforts to fulfill the lease contract terms), both the Government in extending the initial suspensions, and petitioners, in requesting additional suspensions, expressly relied upon regulations incorporated into the OCSLA lease contracts, see supra, at 631-632. The Court must stretch to avoid crediting the Government's performance.
637
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