When the Secretary of the Interior proposed Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) Lease Sale 57, the Alaska Native villages of Gambell and Stebbins sought to enjoin him from proceeding with the sale, claiming that it would adversely affect their aboriginal rights to hunt and fish on the OCS and that the Secretary had failed to comply with ANILCA §810(a), 16 U. S. C. §3120(a), which provides protection for natural resources used for subsistence in Alaska.' The District Court denied their motion for a preliminary injunction and thereafter granted summary judgment in favor of the Secretary and oil company intervenors, holding that the villagers had

U. S. C. § 1601 et seq. (1982 ed. and Supp. III), extinguished their aboriginal rights on the OCS. The cross-petition has been held pending our disposition in Nos. 85-1239 and 85-1406.

*Section 810(a), 16 U. S. C. § 3120(a), provides:

"In determining whether to withdraw, reserve, lease, or otherwise permit the use, occupancy, or disposition of public lands under any provision of law authorizing such actions, the head of the Federal agency having primary jurisdiction over such lands or his designee shall evaluate the effect of such use, occupancy, or disposition on subsistence uses and needs, the availability of other lands for the purposes sought to be achieved, and other alternatives which would reduce or eliminate the use, occupancy, or disposition of public lands needed for subsistence purposes. No such withdrawal, reservation, lease, permit, or other use, occupancy or disposition of such lands which would significantly restrict subsistence uses shall be effected until the head of such Federal agency

"(1) gives notice to the appropriate State agency and the appropriate local committees and regional councils established pursuant to section 3115 of this title;

“(2) gives notice of, and holds, a hearing in the vicinity of the area involved; and

“(3) determines that (A) such a significant restriction of subsistence uses is necessary, consistent with sound management principles for the utilization of the public lands, (B) the proposed activity will involve the minimal amount of public lands necessary to accomplish the purposes of such use, occupancy or other disposition, and (C) reasonable steps will be taken to minimize adverse impacts upon subsistence uses and resources resulting from such actions."

argument, which focuses on the scope of the FELA, we believe that the record is insufficiently developed at this preliminary stage to allow us, or the Court of Appeals, to express an opinion on respondent's ultimate chances of recovery under the FELA.

III

The Railroad asserts first that employees have the right to have defects in the workplace corrected by resorting to the grievance machinery that is in place pursuant to the RLA, and that the RLA is the exclusive remedy for such minor disputes. Indeed, in this case, preliminary though abortive steps in that direction were actually taken. Thus, the Railroad argues that an FELA action for damages is barred. We find no merit in this argument. The fact that an injury otherwise compensable under the FELA was caused by conduct that may have been subject to arbitration under the RLA does not deprive an employee of his opportunity to bring an FELA action for damages. Presumably a host of personal injuries suffered by railroad employees are caused by negligent practices and conditions that might have been cured or avoided by the timely invocation of the grievance machinery." See Yawn v. Southern R. Co., 591 F. 2d 312, 317 (CA5 1979). But we have never considered that possibility a bar to an employee's bringing an FELA claim for personal injuries, and the Railroad has not persuaded us to do so

now.

This Court has, on numerous occasions, declined to hold that individual employees are, because of the availability of arbitration, barred from bringing claims under federal statutes. See, e. g., McDonald v. West Branch, 466 U. S. 284

FELA does not provide damages for purely emotional injury. The preclusion argument turns, not on the nature of an employee's injury, but on the source of the injury.

"See, e. g., Bailey v. Central Vermont R. Co., 319 U. S. 350 (1943); Lavender v. Kurn, 327 U. S. 645 (1946); Ellis v. Union Pacific R. Co., 329 U. S. 649 (1947); cf. Gateway Co. v. Mine Workers, 414 U. S. 368 (1974).

(1984); Barrentine v. Arkansas-Best Freight System, Inc., 450 U. S. 728 (1981); Alexander v. Gardner-Denver Co., 415 U. S. 36 (1974). Although the analysis of the question under each statute is quite distinct, the theory running through these cases is that notwithstanding the strong policies encouraging arbitration, “different considerations apply where the employee's claim is based on rights arising out of a statute designed to provide minimum substantive guarantees to individual workers." Barrentine, supra, at 737.

This principle is instructive on the question before us. The FELA not only provides railroad workers with substantive protection against negligent conduct that is independent of the employer's obligations under its collective-bargaining agreement, but also affords injured workers a remedy suited to their needs, unlike the limited relief that seems to be available through the Adjustment Board.12 It is inconceivable that Congress intended that a worker who suffered a disabling injury would be denied recovery under the FELA simply because he might also be able to process a narrow labor grievance under the RLA to a successful conclusion. As then District Judge J. Skelly Wright concluded, "the Railway Labor Act... has no application to a claim for damages to the employee resulting from the negligence of an employer railroad." Barnes v. Public Belt R. R. Comm'n for City of New York, 101 F. Supp. 200, 203 (ED La. 1951).

It is true that the RLA remedy for the resolution of minor disputes is "in at least some situations" exclusive. Andrews v. Louisville & Nashville R. Co., 406 U. S. 320, 325 (1972).

12 See Lewy v. Southern Pacific Transportation Co., 799 F. 2d 1281, 1295, 1297 (CA9 1986) (RLA remedies are backpay and reinstatement); National Railroad Ajustment Board, First Division, Award No. 16111 (Feb. 23, 1953) ("[T]here is a remedy to correct the practice if it is wrong, even though it does not extend to a money damage"). Counsel for petitioner also represented that the Adjustment Board only awards "damages in the sense of reinstatement and back pay," and cannot "award damages in the sense of the kinds of damages that a court would under an FELA" action. Tr. of Oral Arg. 11.

In Andrews, an employee brought a state wrongful discharge claim based squarely on an alleged breach of the collectivebargaining agreement. We held that Congress had intended the RLA dispute resolution mechanism to be mandatory for that type of dispute, and that courts were therefore foreclosed from addressing claims that properly arise under the RLA. In this case, by contrast, Congress has enacted the FELA to serve as the statutory basis for the award of damages to employees injured through an employer's or coworker's negligence.

Unwilling to rely solely on the argument that any injury caused by a condition that could have been the subject of a grievance under the RLA is not actionable under the FELA, petitioner and various amici argue, in the alternative, that the RLA requires that a narrow "emotional injury" exception be carved out of the FELA. Because they fear that many workers alleging emotional injuries are really complaining of unhappiness arising out of everyday workplace disputes, they ask us to hold that the RLA provides the exclusive remedy for this ill-defined class of injuries. Even if we were to find some authority allowing us to rewrite the FELA in this manner, we are not persuaded that it would be appropriate to do so. There is no basis for assuming that allowing FELA actions for emotional injury will wreak havoc with the general scheme of RLA arbitration," and absent an intolerable

"Petitioner predicts that if emotional injuries are cognizable under the FELA, virtually no employees will pursue grievances through the RLA since "every employee who believes he has a legitimate grievance will doubtless have some emotional anguish."" Brief for Petitioner 24 (quoting Magnuson v. Burlington Northern, Inc., 576 F. 2d 1367, 1369 (CA9), cert. denied, 439 U. S. 930 (1978)). Indeed, one amicus asserts that a large portion of the 183,800 grievances filed in 1985 would be pursued as FELA actions instead, thus creating the "potential for doubling the volume of civil filings in the federal courts." Brief for Association of American Railroads et al. as Amici Curiae 16. This parade of horribles mistakenly assumes that a significant percentage of employees bringing grievances suffer the type of severe emotional injury that has generally been required to estab

that the execution of the leases, which permitted lessees to conduct only limited preliminary activities on the OCS, had not and would not significantly restrict subsistence uses. He further found that the exploration stage activities, including seismic activities and exploratory drilling, that had occurred in Norton Sound had not significantly restricted subsistence uses and were not likely to do so in the future. Finally, he found that, if development and production activities were ever conducted, which was not likely, they might, in the event of a major oilspill, significantly restrict subsistence uses for limited periods in limited areas.'

In April 1985, the villages sought a preliminary injunction in the District Court against exploratory activities in Norton Sound. At the same time, the village of Gambell, joined by Nunam Kitlutsisti, an organization of Yukon Delta Natives, filed a complaint seeking to void Lease Sale 83 and to enjoin imminent exploratory drilling in the Navarin Basin. The District Court consolidated the motions for preliminary injunctions and denied them. It found that respondents had established a strong likelihood of success on the merits. Although the Secretary, in the EIS's for the Five Year Leasing Plan and for the Norton Sound and Navarin Basin Lease Sales, had evaluated in some detail the effect of OCS oil and

production. Each stage involves separate regulatory review that may, but need not, conclude in the transfer to lease purchasers of rights to conduct additional activities on the OCS." The Secretary examined the effects on subsistence uses of Lease Sale 57 itself, present and future exploratory activities, and development and production activities, which the Secretary estimated had a 13% probability of being undertaken. App. to Pet. for Cert. in No. 85-1406, pp. 81a-106a. The Secretary stressed that a definite evaluation with respect to the latter stage could only be made if and when plans for development and production were submitted and that a separate § 810 evaluation would be prepared at that time. The Secretary relied to a considerable degree on the 1982 Final EIS.

'The Secretary approved exploration plans for the Navarin Basin after the decision in Gambell I and accordingly made explicit ANILCA evaluations. See App. to Pet. for Cert. in No. 85-1406, pp. 107a-115a. The lessees planned exploration activities for the summer of 1985.