Portal:Supreme Court of the United States

“ ANILCA changed nothing for all the state, Native, and private lands (and waters) swept within the new parks’ boundaries. Those lands, of course, remain subject to all the regulatory powers they were before, exercised by the EPA, Coast Guard, and the like. But they did not become subject to new regulation by the happenstance of ending up within a national park. In those areas, Section 103 (c) makes clear, Park Service administration does not replace local control. For that reason, park rangers cannot enforce the Service’s hovercraft rule on the Nation River. ”

“ But Congress had no real way to do that in Alaska. Its prior cessions of property to the State and Alaska Natives had created a “confusing patchwork of ownership” all but impossible to draw one’s way around. C. Naske & H. Slotnick, Alaska: A History 317 (3d ed. 2011) . What’s more, an Alaskan Senator noted, the United States might want to reacquire state or Native holdings in the same “natural areas” as reserved federal land; that could occur most handily if Congress drew boundaries, “wherever possible, to encompass” those holdings and authorized the Secretary to buy whatever lay inside. ”

“ But Sturgeon claims that Congress created an Alaska-specific exception to that broad authority when it enacted the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act (ANILCA) , 94 Stat. 2371, 16 U. S. C. §3101 et seq. In Alaska, Sturgeon argues, the Park Service has no power to regulate lands or waters that the Federal Government does not own; rather, the Service may regulate only what ANILCA calls “public land” (essentially, federally owned land) in national parks. And, Sturgeon continues, the Federal Government does not own the Nation River—so the Service cannot ban hovercrafts there. ”

“ The Park Service labels that sentence a “tailored limitation” on its authority over inholdings. Ibid. And it concludes that the sentence has no bearing on the hovercraft rule, which expressly applies “without regard to... ownership.” 36 CFR §1.2 (a) (3) .
But on the Park Service’s view, Section 103 (c) ’s second sentence is a mere truism, not any kind of limitation (however “tailored”) . Once again: It tells Alaskans, so the Park Service says, that rules applying only to public lands... will apply only to public lands. And that rules applying to both public and non-public lands... ”

“ See Brief for State of Alaska as Amicus Curiae 12. And rivers function as the roads of Alaska, to an extent unknown anyplace else in the country. Over three-quarters of Alaska’s 300 communities live in regions unconnected to the State’s road system. See id., at 11. Residents of those areas include many of Alaska’s poorest citizens, who rely on rivers for access to necessities like food and fuel. See id., at 11–12. Who knows? maybe John Sturgeon could have found a comparable hunting ground that did not involve traveling by hovercraft through a national park. ”

“ In my view, the Service likely retains power over navigable rivers that run through Alaska’s parks when that power is necessary to protect Alaska’s parklands.
The Service’s default ability to regulate comes from the Organic Act. That Act gives the Service general authority to promulgate all regulations “necessary or proper” for managing park units, including power to regulate activities “on or relating to water located within [Park] System units.” ”

“ And similarly, we held that in creating a national monument to preserve a species of fish inhabiting an underground pool, the United States acquired an enforceable interest in preventing others from depleting the pool below the level needed for the fish to survive. ”

“ First, as a default, the Service may well have authority to regulate out-of-park, nonpublic areas in the midst of parklands when doing so is necessary or proper to protect in-park, public areas—for instance, to ban pollution of the Nation River if necessary to preserve habitat on the riverbanks or to ban hovercraft use on that river if needed to protect adjacent public park areas. ”

“ The non-public lands (everything else) were, by negative implication, “deemed” not a part of the unit—even though within the unit’s geographic boundaries. The key word here is “deemed.” That term is used in legal materials “ [t] o treat (something) as if... it were really something else.” Black’s Law Dictionary 504 (10th ed. 2014) . Legislators (and other drafters) find the word “useful” when “it is necessary to establish a legal fiction,” either by “‘deeming’ something to be what it is not” or by “‘deeming’ something not to be what it is.” ”

“ BERT FROST, IN HIS OFFICIAL CAPACITY AS ALASKA REGIONAL DIRECTOR OF THE NATIONAL PARK SERVICE, ET AL.
ON WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT
[March 26, 2019]
Justice Sotomayor, with whom Justice Ginsburg joins, concurring.
Professors have long asked law students to interpret a hypothetical ordinance that prohibits bringing “a vehicle into the park.” [1] The debate usually centers on what counts as a “vehicle.” Is a moped forbidden? How about a baby stroller? In this case, we can all agree that John Sturgeon’s hovercraft is a vehicle. ”

“ Opportunities to mine, trap, and fish attracted tens of thousands more settlers and sparked an emerging export economy. And partly because of that surge in commercial activity, the country’s foremost conservationists—President Theodore Roosevelt and Gifford Pinchot, chief of the fledgling Forest Service—took unprecedented action to protect Alaska’s natural resources. ”

“ Instead, the Service satisfies all its obligations under the provision by reporting on the panoply of federal and state statutes and regulations that apply to any non-public land (whether or not in a park) . And indeed, the Service’s management plans have taken exactly that form. ”

“ United States, 444 U. S. 164, 177 (1979) (“The navigational servitude... gives rise to an authority in the Government to assure that [navigable] streams retain their capacity to serve as continuous highways for the purpose of navigation in interstate commerce”) ”

“ The Service’s out-of-park authority is not at issue in this case given that the hovercraft regulation applies only within park boundaries, see ante, at 19, n. 5. Hovercraft can be unsightly, be loud, and disturb sensitive ecosystems within the park. See 48 Fed. Reg. 30258 (1983) (“The Service has determined that hovercraft should be prohibited because they provide virtually unlimited access to park areas and introduce a mechanical mode of transportation into locations where the intrusion of motorized equipment by sight or sound is generally inappropriate”) . ”

“ The Park Service’s reading of Section 103 (c) ’s second sentence also strips the first and third sentences of their core functions. Under the Service’s approach, the first sentence’s “deeming” has no point. There is no reason to pretend that inholdings are not part of a park if they can still be regulated as parklands. ”

“ Park Serv., Kobuk Valley National Park: Land Protection Plan 123–124 (1986) (noting that “ [w] hile [Park Service] regulations do not generally apply to private lands in the park (Section 103, ANILCA) ,” the regulations “that do apply” include those issued under “the Alaska Anadromous Fish Act, the Endangered Species Act, the Clean Water and Clean Air acts, and the Protection of Wetlands, to name a few”) ”

“ It is so ordered.
↑ None of the parties here have questioned the constitutional validity of the above statutory grants as applied to inholdings, and we therefore do not address the issue. Cf. Kleppe v. New Mexico, 426 U. S. 529, 536–541 (1976) ; Kansas v. Colorado, 206 U. S. 46, 88–89 (1907) . ↑ As noted earlier, the Ninth Circuit has held in three cases—the so-called Katie John trilogy—that the term “public lands,” when used in ANILCA’s subsistence-fishing provisions, encompasses navigable waters like the Nation River. See Alaska v. Babbitt, 72 F. 3d 698 (1995) ”