## Facts

- Sahara Coal Co., Inc. (Sahara) operated surface coal mines in southern Illinois and sought to expand mining operations to an adjacent 189-acre tract that it largely owned.
- Sahara submitted a surface-mining permit application to the Illinois Department of Mines and Minerals (IDMM), the agency administering Illinois’s strip-mining and reclamation program.
- IDMM regulations included Rule 1104, which imposed specific reclamation standards if the Department determined the land’s “optimum use” after mining would be row-crop agriculture.
- The IDMM Director denied Sahara’s permit application, relying on Rule 1104 and the Director’s determination that the tract’s optimum post-mining use was row-crop agriculture.
- The administrative materials supporting the Director’s “optimum use” determination contained little evidence favoring row-crop use; much of the information in the record (including testimony from federal officials and land-use information) indicated the land, with eroded topsoil, would be better suited to pasture rather than intensive row-crop cultivation.
- The Director’s statement that row-crop agriculture was the optimum use was largely conclusory and was not supported by other record evidence.
- Sahara sought judicial review under the Illinois Administrative Review Act. The circuit court set aside the permit denial and also ordered IDMM to issue the permit.
- IDMM appealed the portion of the judgment rejecting the denial and the portion ordering the permit issued.

## Issues

1. Whether IDMM’s denial of Sahara’s surface-mining permit—based on the Director’s determination that the land’s optimum use was row-crop agriculture under Rule 1104—was supported by the administrative record (i.e., not against the manifest weight of the evidence).
2. Whether the circuit court, after setting aside the denial, had authority to order IDMM to issue the permit rather than remanding to the agency for further proceedings.

## Decision

- The appellate court agreed the Director’s “optimum use” determination (row-crop agriculture) lacked support in the administrative record and that the permit denial based on that determination was properly set aside.
- The appellate court held the circuit court erred by ordering IDMM to issue the permit.
- The court affirmed the judgment setting aside the denial, reversed the directive to issue the permit, and remanded to IDMM for further proceedings consistent with the opinion.

## Legal Principles

- On administrative review, an agency’s factual determinations must have support in the administrative record and may be set aside when contrary to the manifest weight of the evidence.
- A conclusory assertion by an agency decisionmaker, standing alone and especially when contradicted by the rest of the record, is not enough to support an agency finding used to deny a permit.
- When a reviewing court sets aside an agency decision, the usual remedy is remand to the agency to act within its statutory role; courts generally should not substitute their judgment for the agency by ordering the issuance of a permit where the agency retains decision-making authority on remand.

## Conclusion

The appellate court held that IDMM’s denial of Sahara’s surface-mining permit, based on a record-unsupported finding that the land’s optimum post-mining use was row-crop agriculture under Rule 1104, could not stand; however, the circuit court went too far by ordering the permit issued, so the proper disposition was to set aside the denial and remand the matter to IDMM for further proceedings.


Sahara Coal Co. v. Illinois Department of Mines and Minerals, 431 N.E.2d 394 (1981)