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SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
_________________
No. 17–949
_________________
john sturgeon, PETITIONER
v. BERT
FROST, in his official capacity as alaska regional di- rector 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 Kagan delivered the opinion of the
Court.
This Court first encountered John Sturgeon’s
lawsuit three Terms ago. See
Sturgeon v.
Frost, 577
U. S. ___ (2016) (
Sturgeon I ). As we explained
then, Sturgeon hunted moose along the Nation River in Alaska for
some 40 years. See
id., at
___ (slip op., at 1). He
traveled by hovercraft, an amphibious vehicle able to glide over
land and water alike. To reach his favorite hunting ground, he
would pilot the craft over a stretch of the Nation River that flows
through the Yukon-Charley Rivers National Preserve, a unit of the
federal park system managed by the National Park Service. On one
such trip, park rangers informed Sturgeon that a Park Service
regulation prohibits the use of hovercrafts on rivers within any
federal preserve or park. Sturgeon complied with their order to
remove his hovercraft from the Yukon-Charley, thus “heading home
without a moose.”
Id., at ___ (slip op., at 6). But soon
afterward, Sturgeon sued the Park Service, seeking an injunction
that would allow him to resume using his hovercraft on his
accustomed route. The lower courts denied him relief. This Court,
though, thought there was more to be said. See
id., at
___–___ (slip op., at 15–16).
As we put the matter then, Sturgeon’s case
raises the issue how much “Alaska is different” from the rest of
the country—how much it is “the exception, not the rule.”
Id., at ___–___ (slip op., at 13–14). The rule, just as the
rangers told Sturgeon, is that the Park Service may regulate
boating and other activities on waters within national parks—and
that it has banned the use of hovercrafts there. See 54
U. S. C. §100751(b); 36 CFR §2.17(e) (2018). 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), 94Stat. 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. When we last faced that argument, we disagreed with the
reason the lower courts gave to reject it. But we remanded the case
for consideration of two remaining questions. First, does “the
Nation River qualif[y] as ‘public land’ for purposes of ANILCA”?
577 U. S., at ___ (slip op., at 15). Second, “even if the
[Nation] is not ‘public land,’ ” does the Park Service have
authority to “regulate Sturgeon’s activities” on the part of the
river in the Yukon-Charley?
Id., at ___ (slip op., at 16).
Today, we take up those questions, and answer both “no.” That means
Sturgeon can again rev up his hovercraft in search of moose.
I
A
We begin, as
Sturgeon I did, with a
slice of Alaskan history. The United States purchased Alaska from
Russia in 1867. It thereby acquired “[i]n a single stroke” 365
million acres of land—an area more than twice the size of Texas.
Id., at ___ (slip op., at 2). You might think that would be
enough to go around. But in the years since, the Federal Government
and Alaskans (including Alaska Natives) have alternately contested
and resolved and contested and . . . so forth who should
own and manage that bounty. We offer here a few highlights because
they are the backdrop against which Congress enacted ANILCA. As we
do so, you might catch a glimpse of some former-day John
Sturgeons—who (for better or worse) sought greater independence
from federal control and, in the process, helped to shape the
current law.
For 90 years after buying Alaska, the Federal
Government owned all its land. At first, those living in Alaska—a
few settlers and some 30,000 Natives—were hardly aware of that
fact. See E. Gruening, The State of Alaska 355 (1968). American
citizens mocked the Alaska purchase as Secretary of State “Seward’s
Folly” and President Johnson’s “Polar Bear Garden.” They paid no
attention to the new area, leading to an “era of total neglect.”
Id., at 31. But as
Sturgeon I recounted, the turn of
the century brought “newfound recognition of Alaska’s economic
potential.” 577 U. S., at ___ (slip op., at 2). 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. In particular, Roosevelt (and
then President Taft) prevented settlers from logging or coal mining
on substantial acreage. See W. Borneman, Alaska: Saga of a Bold
Land 240–241 (2003). Alaskans responded by burning Pinchot in
effigy and, more creatively, organizing the “Cordova Coal Party”—a
mass dumping of imported Canadian coal (instead of English tea)
into the Pacific Ocean (instead of Boston Harbor). See
ibid.
The terms of future conflict were thus set: resource conservation
vs. economic development, federal management vs. local control.
By the 1950s, Alaskans hankered for both
statehood and land—and Congress decided to give them both. In
pressing for statehood, Alaska’s delegate to the House of
Representatives lamented that Alaskans were no better than “tenants
upon the estate of the national landlord”; and Alaska’s Governor
(then a Presidential appointee) called on the country to “[e]nd
American [c]olonialism.” W. Everhart, The National Park Service
126–127 (1983) (Everhart). Ever more aware of Alaska’s economic and
strategic importance, Congress agreed the time for statehood had
come. The 1958 Alaska Statehood Act, 72Stat. 339, made Alaska the
country’s 49th State. And because the new State would need
property—to propel private industry and create a tax base—the
Statehood Act made a land grant too. Over the next 35 years, Alaska
could select for itself 103 million acres of “vacant, unappropri-
ated, and unreserved” federal land—an area totaling the size of
California. §§6(a)–(b), 72Stat. 340, as amended; see Everhart 127.
And more: By incorporating the Submerged Lands Act of 1953, the
Statehood Act gave Alaska “title to and ownership of the lands
beneath navigable waters,” such as the Nation River. 43
U. S. C. §1311; see §6(m), 72Stat. 343. And a State’s
title to the lands beneath navigable waters brings with it
regulatory authority over “navigation, fishing, and other public
uses” of those waters.
United States v.
Alaska,
521 U.S.
1, 5 (1997). All told, the State thus emerged a formidable
property holder.
But the State’s bonanza provoked land claims
from Alaska Natives. Their ancestors had lived in the area for
thousands of years, and they asserted aboriginal title to much of
the property the State was now taking (and more besides). See
Everhart 127. When their demands threatened to impede the
trans-Alaska pipeline, Congress stepped in. The Alaska Native
Claims Settlement Act of 1971 (ANCSA) extinguished the Natives’
aboriginal claims. See 85Stat. 688, as amended, 43 U. S. C. §1601
et seq. But it granted the Natives much in return. Under the
law, corporations organized by groups of Alaska Natives could
select for themselves 40 million acres of federal land—equivalent,
when combined, to all of Pennsylvania. See §§1605, 1610–1615. So
the Natives became large landowners too.
Yet one more land dispute loomed. In addition to
settling the Natives’ claims, ANCSA directed the Secretary of the
Interior (Secretary) to designate, subject to congressional
approval, 80 million more acres of federal land for inclusion in
the national park, forest, or wildlife systems. See §1616(d)(2).
The Secretary dutifully made his selections, but Congress failed to
ratify them within the five-year period ANCSA had set. Rather than
let the designations lapse, President Carter invoked another
federal law (the 1906 Antiquities Act) to proclaim most of the
lands (totaling 56 million acres) national monuments, under the
National Park Service’s aegis. See 577 U. S., at ___ (slip
op., at 4). Many Alaskans balked. “[R]egard[ing] national parks as
just one more example of federal interference,” protesters
demonstrated throughout the State and several thousand joined in
the so-called Great Denali-McKinley Trespass. Everhart 129; see 577
U. S., at ___ (slip op., at 4). “The goal of the trespass,” as
Sturgeon I explained, “was to break over 25 Park Service
rules in a two-day period.”
Ibid. One especially eager
participant played a modern-day Paul Revere, riding on horseback
through the crowd to deliver the message: “The Feds are coming! The
Feds are coming!”
Ibid. (internal quotation marks
omitted).
And so they were—but not in quite the way
President Carter had contemplated. Responding to the uproar his
proclamation had set off, Congress enacted a third major piece of
legislation allocating land in Alaska. We thus reach ANILCA, the
statute principally in dispute in this case, in which Congress set
aside extensive land for national parks and preserves—but on terms
different from those governing such areas in the rest of the
country.
B
Starting with the statement of purpose in its
first section, ANILCA sought to “balance” two goals, often thought
conflicting. 16 U. S. C. §3101(d). The Act was designed
to “provide[] sufficient protection for the national interest in
the scenic, natural, cultural and environmental values on the
public lands in Alaska.”
Ibid. “[A]nd at the same time,” the
Act was framed to “provide[] adequate opportunity for satisfaction
of the economic and social needs of the State of Alaska and its
people.”
Ibid. So if, as you continue reading, you see some
tension within the statute, you are not mistaken: It arises from
Congress’s twofold ambitions.
ANILCA set aside 104 million acres of federally
owned land in Alaska for preservation purposes. See 577 U. S.,
at ___ (slip op., at 5). In doing so, the Act rescinded President
Carter’s monument designations. But it brought into the national
park, forest, or wildlife systems millions more acres than even
ANCSA had contemplated. The park system’s share of the newly
withdrawn land (to be administered, as usual, by the Park Service)
was nearly 44 million acres—an amount that more than doubled the
system’s prior (nationwide) size. See Everhart 132. With that land,
ANILCA created ten new national parks, monuments, and
preserves—including the Yukon-Charley Preserve—and expanded three
old ones. See §§410hh, 410hh–1. In line with the Park Service’s
usual terminol- ogy, ANILCA calls each such park or other area a
“conservation system unit.” §3102(4) (“The term . . .
means any unit in Alaska of the National Park System”); see 54
U. S. C. §100102(6) (similar).
In sketching those units’ boundary lines,
Congress made an uncommon choice—to follow “topographic or natural
features,” rather than enclose only federally owned lands.
§3103(b); see Brief for Respondents 24 (agreeing that “ANILCA [is]
atypical in [this] respect”). In most parks outside Alaska,
boundaries surround mainly federal property holdings. “[E]arly
national parks were carved out of a larger public domain, in which
virtually all land” was federally owned. Sax, Helpless Giants: The
National Parks and the Regulation of Private Lands, 75 Mich.
L. Rev. 239, 263 (1976); see Dept. of Interior, Nat. Park
Serv., Statistical Abstract 87 (2017) (Table 9) (noting that only 2
of Yellowstone’s 2.2 million acres are in non-federal hands). And
even in more recently established parks, Congress has used
gerrymandered borders to exclude most non-federal land. See Sax,
Buying Scenery, 1980 Duke L. J. 709, 712, and n. 12. 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. 126 Cong. Rec. 21882 (1980) (remarks of Sen.
Stevens). The upshot was a vast set of so-called inholdings—more
than 18 million acres of state, Native, and private land—that wound
up inside Alaskan system units. See 577 U. S., at ___–___
(slip op., at 5–6).
Had Congress done nothing more, those inholdings
could have become subject to many Park Service rules—the same kind
of “restrictive federal regulations” Alaskans had protested in the
years leading up to ANILCA (and further back too).
Id., at
___ (slip op., at 4). That is because the Secretary, acting through
the Director of the Park Service, has broad authority under the
National Park Service Organic Act (Organic Act), 39Stat. 535, to
administer both lands and waters within all system units in the
country. See 54 U. S. C. §§100751, 100501, 100102. The
Secretary “shall prescribe such regulations as [he] considers
necessary or proper for the use and management of System units.”
§100751(a). And he may, more specifically, issue regulations
concerning “boating and other activities on or relating to water
located within System units.” §100751(b). Those statutory grants of
power make no distinctions based on the ownership of either lands
or waters (or lands beneath waters).[
1] And although the Park Service has sometimes chosen not
to regulate non-federally owned lands and waters, it has also
imposed major restrictions on their use. Rules about mining and
solid-waste disposal, for example, apply to all lands within system
units “whether federally or nonfederally owned.” 36 CFR §6.2; see
§9.2. And (of particular note here) the Park Service freely
regulates activities on all navigable (and some other) waters
“within [a park’s] boundaries”—once more, “without regard to
. . . ownership.” §1.2(a)(3). So Alaska and its Natives
had reason to worry about how the Park Service would regulate their
lands and waters within the new parks.
Congress thus acted, as even the Park Service
agrees, to give the State and Natives “assurance that their [lands]
wouldn’t be treated just like” federally owned property. Tr. of
Oral Arg. 50. (It is only—though this is quite a large “only”—the
nature and extent of that assurance that is in dispute.) The key
provision here is Section 103(c), which contains three sentences
that may require some re-reading. We quote it first in one block;
then provide some definitions; then go over it again a bit more
slowly. But still, you should expect to return to this text as you
proceed through this opinion.
Section 103(c) provides in full:
“Only those lands within the boundaries of
any conservation system unit which are public lands (as such term
is defined in this Act) shall be deemed to be included as a portion
of such unit. No lands which, before, on, or after [the date of
ANILCA’s passage], are conveyed to the State, to any Native
Corporation, or to any private party shall be subject to the
regulations applicable solely to public lands within such units. If
the State, a Native Corporation, or other owner desires to convey
any such lands, the Secretary may acquire such lands in accordance
with applicable law (including this Act), and any such lands shall
become part of the unit, and be administered accordingly.”
§3103(c).
Now for the promised definitions. The term
“land,” as found in all three sentences, actually—and crucially for
this case—“means lands, waters, and interests therein.” §3102(1).
The term “public lands,” in the first two sentences, then means
“lands” (including waters and interests therein) “the title to
which is in the United States”—except for lands selected for future
transfer to the State or Native Corporations (under the Statehood
Act or ANCSA). §3102(2), (3); see
supra, at 4–5. “Public
lands” are therefore most but not quite all lands (and again,
waters and interests) that the Federal Government owns.
Finally, to recap. As explained in
Sturgeon
I, “Section 103(c) draws a distinction between ‘public’ and
‘non-public’ lands within the boundaries of conservation system
units in Alaska.” 577 U. S., at __ (slip op., at 14). Section
103(c)’s first sentence makes clear that only public lands (again,
defined as most federally owned lands, waters, and associated
interests) would be considered part of a system unit (again, just
meaning a national park, preserve, or similar area). By contrast,
state, Native, or private lands would not be understood as part of
such a unit, even though they in fact fall within its geographic
boundaries. Section 103(c)’s second sentence then expressly exempts
all those non-public lands (the inholdings) from certain
regulations—though exactly which ones, as will soon become clear,
is a matter of dispute. And last, Section 103(c)’s third sentence
enables the Secretary to buy any inholdings. If he does, the lands
(because now public) become part of the park, and may be
administered in the usual way—
e.g., without the provision’s
regulatory exemption.
C
We can now return to John Sturgeon, on his way
to a hunting ground alternatively dubbed “Moose Meadows” or
“Sturgeon Fork.” As recounted above, Sturgeon used to travel by
hovercraft up a stretch of the Nation River that lies within the
boundaries of the Yukon-Charley Preserve. See
supra, at 1.
Until one day, three park rangers approached Sturgeon while he was
repairing his steering cable and told him he was violating a Park
Service rule. According to the specified regulation, “[t]he
operation or use of hovercraft is prohibited” on navigable (and
some other) waters “located within [a park’s] boundaries,” without
any “regard to . . . ownership.” 36 CFR §§2.17(e),
1.2(a)(3); see
supra, at 2. That regulation, issued under
the Secretary’s Organic Act authority, applies on its face to parks
across the country. See
supra, at 8 (describing Organic
Act). And Sturgeon did not doubt that the Nation River is a
navigable water. But Sturgeon protested that in Alaska (even though
nowhere else) the rule could not be enforced on a waterway—like, he
said, the Nation River—that is not owned by the Federal Government.
And when his objection got nowhere with the rangers (or with the
Secretary, to whom he later petitioned), Sturgeon stopped using his
hovercraft—but also brought this lawsuit, based on ANILCA’s Section
103(c).
In
Sturgeon I, we rejected one ground for
dismissing Sturgeon’s case, but remanded for consideration of two
further questions. The District Court and Court of Appeals for the
Ninth Circuit had held that even assuming the Nation River is
non-public land, the Park Service could enforce its hovercraft ban
there. See 2013 WL 5888230 (Oct. 30, 2013); 768 F.3d 1066 (2014).
Those two courts interpreted Section 103(c) to limit only the
Service’s authority to impose Alaska-specific regulations on such
lands—not its authority to apply nationwide regulations like the
hovercraft rule. But we viewed that construction as “implausible.”
577 U. S., at ___ (slip op., at 15). ANILCA, we reasoned,
“repeatedly recognizes that Alaska is different.”
Id., at
___ (slip op., at 13); see
id., at ___ (slip op., at 14)
(The Act “reflect[s] the simple truth that Alaska is often the
exception, not the rule”). Yet the lower courts’ reading would
“prevent the Park Service from recognizing Alaska’s unique
conditions”—thus producing a “topsy-turvy” result.
Ibid.
Still, we thought two hurdles remained before Sturgeon could take
his hovercraft out of storage. We asked the Court of Appeals to
decide whether the Nation River “qualifies as ‘public land’ for
purposes of ANILCA,” thus indisputably subjecting it to the
Service’s regulatory authority.
Id., at ___ (slip op., at
15). And if the answer was “no,” we asked the Ninth Circuit to
address whether the Service, on some different theory from the one
just dispatched, could still “regulate Sturgeon’s activities on the
Nation River.”
Id., at ___ (slip op., at 16).
The Ninth Circuit never got past the first
question because it concluded that the Nation River is “public
land[.]” See 872 F.3d 927, 936 (2017). The court explained that it
was bound by three circuit decisions construing that term, when
used in ANILCA’s provisions about subsistence fishing, as including
all navigable waters.
Id., at 933–934. Accordingly, the
court again rejected Sturgeon’s challenge.
Id., at 936.
And we again granted certiorari. 585 U. S.
___ (2018).
II
We first address whether, as the Ninth Circuit
found, the Nation River is “public land” under ANILCA. As defined,
once again, that term means (almost all) “lands, waters, and
interests therein” the “title to which is in the United States.” 16
U. S. C. §3102(1)–(3). If the Nation River comes within
that definition, even Sturgeon agrees that the Park Service may
enforce its hovercraft rule in the stretch traversing the
Yukon-Charley. That is because the Organic Act authorizes the Park
Service to regulate boating and similar activities in parks and
other system units—and under ANILCA’s Section 103(c) those units
include all “public land” within their boundaries. 54
U. S. C. §100751(a)–(b); 16 U. S. C. §3103(c); see
supra, at 8–10.
But the United States does not have “title” (as
the just-quoted definition demands) to the Nation River in the
ordinary sense. As the Park Service acknowledges, running waters
cannot be owned—whether by a government or by a private party. See
FPC v.
Niagara Mohawk Power Corp.,
347 U.S.
239, 247, n. 10 (1954); Brief for Respondents 33. In
contrast, the lands beneath those waters—typically called submerged
lands—can be owned, and the water regulated on that basis. But that
does not help the Park Service because, as noted earlier, the
Submerged Lands Act gives each State “title to and ownership of the
lands beneath [its] navigable waters.” 43 U. S. C. §1311;
see
supra, at 4. That means Alaska, not the United States,
has title to the lands beneath the Nation River.
So the Park Service argues instead that the
United States has “title” to an “interest” in the Nation River,
under what is called the reserved-water-rights doctrine. See Brief
for Respondents 32–37. The canonical statement of that doctrine
goes as follows: “[W]hen the Federal Government withdraws its land
from the public domain and reserves it for a federal purpose, the
Government, by implication, reserves appurtenant water then
unappropriated to the extent needed to accomplish the purpose of
the reservation.”
Cappaert v.
United States,
426 U.S.
128, 138 (1976). For example, this Court decided that in
reserving land for an Indian tribe, the Government impliedly
reserved sufficient water from a nearby river to enable the tribe
to farm the area. See
Winters v.
United States,
207 U.S.
564, 576 (1908). 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. See
Cappaert, 426
U. S., at 147. According to the Park Service, the United
States has an analogous interest in the Nation River and other
navigable waters in Alaska’s national parks. “Because th[e]
purposes [of those parks] require that the waters within [them] be
safeguarded against depletion and diversion,” the Service contends,
“Congress’s reservations of park lands also reserved interests in
appurtenant navigable waters.” Brief for Respondents 35.
That argument first raises the question whether
it is even possible to hold “title,” as ANILCA uses the term, to
reserved water rights. 16 U. S. C. §3102(2). Those
rights, as all parties agree, are “usufructuary” in nature, meaning
that they are rights for the Government to use—whether by
withdrawing or maintaining—certain waters it does not own. See
Niagara Mohawk Power Corp., 347 U. S., at 246; Brief for
Petitioner 36; Brief for Respondents 36. The Park Service has found
a couple of old cases suggesting that a person can hold “title” to
such usufructuary interests. See
ibid.;
Crum v.
Mt. Shasta Power Corp., 220 Cal. 295, 307, 30 P.2d 30, 36
(1934);
Radcliff’s Ex’rs v.
Mayor of Brooklyn,
4 N.Y. 195, 196 (1850). But the more common understanding, recently
noted in another ANILCA case, is that “reserved water rights are
not the type of property interests to which title can be held”;
rather, “the term ‘title’ applies” to “fee ownership of property”
and (sometimes) to “possessory interests” in property like those
granted by a lease. See
Totemoff v.
State,
905 P.2d 954, 965 (Alaska 1995) (collecting cases); Brief for
State of Idaho et al. as
Amici Curiae 21–22 (same). And we
see no evidence that the Congress enacting ANILCA meant to use the
term in any less customary and more capacious sense.
But even assuming so, the Nation River itself
would not thereby become “public land” in the way the Park Service
argues. Under ANILCA’s definition, the “public land” at issue would
consist only of the Federal Government’s specific “interest” in the
River—that is, its reserved water right. §3102(1), (3). And that
reserved right, by its nature, is limited. It does not give the
Government plenary authority over the waterway to which it
attaches. Rather, the interest merely enables the Government to
take or maintain the specific “amount of water”—and “no
more”—required to “fulfill the purpose of [its land] reservation.”
Cappaert, 426 U. S., at 141. So, for example, in the
cases described above, the Government could control only the volume
of water necessary for the tribe to farm or the fish to survive.
See
Winters, 207 U. S., at 576–577;
Cappaert,
426 U. S., at 141. And likewise here, the Government could
protect “only th[e] amount of water” in the Nation River needed to
“accomplish the purpose of the [Yukon-Charley’s] reservation.”
Id., at 138, 141.
And whatever that volume, the Government’s
(purported) reserved right could not justify applying the
hovercraft rule on the Nation River. That right, to use the Park
Service’s own phrase, would support a regulation preventing the
“depletion or diversion” of waters in the River (up to the amount
required to achieve the Yukon-Charley’s purposes). Brief for
Respondents 34–35. But the hovercraft rule does nothing of that
kind. A hovercraft moves above the water, on a thin cushion of air
produced by downward-directed fans; it does not “deplet[e]” or
“diver[t]” any water. Nor has the Park Service explained the
hovercraft rule as an effort to protect the Nation River from
pollution or other similar harm. To the contrary, that rule is
directed against the “sight or sound” of “motorized equipment” in
remote locations—concerns not related to safeguarding the water. 48
Fed. Reg. 30258 (1983). So the Park Service’s “public lands”
argument runs aground: Even if the United States holds title to a
reserved water right in the Nation River, that right (as opposed to
title in the River itself) cannot prevent Sturgeon from wafting
along the River’s surface toward his preferred hunting
ground.[
2]
III
We thus move on to the second question we
posed in
Sturgeon I, concerning the Park Service’s power to
regulate even non-public lands and waters within Alaska’s system
units (or, in our unofficial terminology, national parks). The
Service principally relies on that sort of ownership-indifferent
authority in defending its decision to expel Sturgeon’s hovercraft
from the Nation River. See Brief for Respondents 16–18, 25–32. And
we can see why. If Sturgeon lived in any other State, his suit
would not have a prayer of success. As noted earlier, the Park
Service has used its Organic Act authority to ban hovercrafts on
navigable waters “located within [a national park’s] boundaries”
without any “regard to . . . ownership.” 36 CFR
§§2.17(e), 1.2(a)(3); see
supra, at 10–11. And no one
disputes that Sturgeon was driving his hovercraft on a stretch of
the Nation River (a navigable water) inside the borders of the
Yukon-Charley (a national park). So case closed. Except that
Sturgeon lives in Alaska. And as we have said before, “Alaska is
often the exception, not the rule.”
Sturgeon I, 577
U. S., at ___ (slip op., at 14). Here, Section 103(c) of
ANILCA makes it so. As explained below, that section provides that
even when non-public lands—again, including waters—are
geographically within a national park’s boundaries, they may not be
regulated as part of the park. And that means the Park Service’s
hovercraft regulation cannot apply there.[
3]
To understand why, first recall how Section
103(c) grew out of ANILCA’s unusual method for drawing park
boundaries. See
supra, at 7–8. Those lines followed the
area’s “natural features,” rather than (as customary) the Federal
Government’s property holdings. 16 U. S. C. §3103(b). The
borders thus took in immense tracts owned by the State, Native
Corporations, and private individuals. And as you might imagine,
none of those parties was eager to have its lands newly regulated
as national parks. To the contrary, all of them wanted to preserve
the regulatory status quo—to prevent ANILCA’s maps from subjecting
their properties to the Park Service’s rules. Hence arose Section
103(c). Cf. Tr. of Oral Arg. 50 (Solicitor General acknowledging
that Section 103(c) responds to the State’s and Native
Corporations’ “concern[s]” about the effects of “includ[ing their
lands] within the outer boundaries” of the new parks). Now might be
a good time to review that provision, block quoted above. See
supra, at 9. In broad brush strokes,
Sturgeon I
described it as follows: “Section 103(c) draws a distinction
between ‘public’ and ‘non-public’ lands,” including waters, “within
the boundaries of [Alaska’s] conservation system units.” 577
U. S., at ___ (slip op., at 14).
Section 103(c)’s first sentence sets out the
essential distinction, relating to what qualifies as parkland. It
provides, once again, that “[o]nly” the “public lands”
(essentially, the federally owned lands) within any system unit’s
boundaries would be “deemed” a part of that unit. §3103(c). 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.”
Ibid.
(quoting G.C. Thornton, Legislative Drafting 99 (4th ed. 1996)).
The fiction in Section 103(c) involves considering certain lands
actually within the new national parks as instead without them. As
a matter of geography, both public and non-public lands fall inside
those parks’ boundaries. But as a matter of law, only public lands
would be viewed as doing so. All non-public lands (again, including
waters) would be “deemed,” abracadabra-style, outside Alaska’s
system units.[
4]
The effect of that exclusion, as Section
103(c)’s second sentence affirms, is to exempt non-public lands,
including waters, from the Park Service’s ordinary regulatory
authority. Recall that the Organic Act pegs that authority to
system units. See
supra, at 8. The Service may issue rules
thought “necessary or proper” for “System units.” 54
U. S. C. §100751(a). And more pertinently here, the
Service may prescribe rules about activities on “water located
within System units.” §100751(b). Absent Section 103(c), those
grants of power enable the Service to administer even non-federally
owned waters or lands inside national parks. See
supra, at
8. But add Section 103(c), and the equation changes. Now, according
to that section’s first sentence, non-federally owned waters and
lands inside system units (on a map) are declared outside them (for
the law). So those areas are no longer subject to the Service’s
power over “System units” and the “water located within” them.
§100751(a), (b). Instead, only the federal property in system units
is subject to the Service’s authority.[
5] And that is just what Section 103(c)’s second sentence
pronounces, for waters and lands alike. Again, that sentence says
that no state, Native, or private lands “shall be subject to the
regulations applicable solely to public lands within [system]
units.” 16 U. S. C. §3103(c). The sentence thus expressly
states the consequence of the statute’s prior “deeming.” The
Service’s rules will apply exclusively to public lands (meaning
federally owned lands and waters) within system units. The rules
cannot apply to any non-federal properties, even if a map would
show they are within such a unit’s boundaries. Geographic
inholdings thus become regulatory outholdings, impervious to the
Service’s ordinary authority.[
6]
And for that reason, Section 103(c)’s third
sentence provides a kind of escape hatch—for times when the Park
Service believes regulation of the inholdings is needed. In that
event, “the Secretary may acquire such lands” from “the State, a
Native Corporation, or other owner.” §3103(c). (As noted earlier,
facilitating those acquisitions was one reason Congress put
non-federal lands inside park boundaries in the first instance. See
supra, at 7.) When the Secretary makes such a purchase, the
newly federal land “become[s] part of the [system] unit.”
§3101(c)
. And the Park Service may then “administer[ ]”
the land just as it does (in the second sentence’s phrase) the
other “public lands within such units.”
Ibid. In thus
providing a way out of the Section’s first two sentences, the third
underlines what they are doing: insulating the state, Native, or
private lands that ANILCA enclosed in national parks from new and
unexpected regulation. In sum, those lands may be regulated only as
they could have been before ANILCA’s enactment, unless and until
bought by the Federal Government.
The Park Service interprets Section 103(c)
differently, relying wholly on its second sentence and mostly on
the single word “solely” there. True enough, the Service
acknowledges, that anxiety about how it would regulate inholdings
was “really what drove [Section] 103(c).” Tr. of Oral Arg. 46; see
supra, at 9, 17. But still, the Service argues, the
Section’s second sentence exempts those non-public lands from only
“one particular class of Park Service regulations”—to wit, rules
“ ‘applicable
solely to public lands.’ ” Brief for
Respondents 30 (quoting and adding emphasis to §3103(c)). In other
words, if a Park Service regulation on its face applies only
(“solely”) to public lands, then the regulation shall not apply to
a park’s non-public lands. But if instead the regulation covers
public and non-public lands alike, then the second sentence has
nothing to say: The regulation can indeed cover both. See
ibid. 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 . . . will
apply to both. (Or, to say the same thing, but with approximate
statutory definitions plugged in: It tells Alaskans that rules
applying only to the Federal Government’s lands . . .
will apply only to the Federal Government’s lands. And that rules
applying to federal, state, Native, and private lands alike
. . . will apply to them all.) In short, under the Park
Service’s reading, Section 103(c)’s second sentence does nothing
but state the obvious. Its supposed exemption does not in fact
exempt anyone from anything to which they would otherwise be
subject. Remove the sentence from ANILCA and everything would be
precisely the same. For it curtails none of the Service’s ordinary
regulatory authority over inholdings.[
7]
And more: 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. Nor is there a need to create a special
legal fiction if the end result is to treat Alaskan inholdings no
differently from those in the rest of the country. And similarly,
the third sentence’s acquisition option has far less utility if the
Service has its full regulatory authority over lands the Federal
Government does not own. Why cough up money to “administer[ ]”
property as “part of the [system] unit” unless doing so makes a
real difference, by removing a regulatory exemption otherwise in
effect? The Service’s reading effectively turns the whole of
Section 103(c) into an inkblot.
And still more (if implicit in all the above):
That construction would undermine ANILCA’s grand bargain. Recall
that ANILCA announced its Janus-faced nature in its statement of
purpose, reflecting the century-long struggle over federal
regulation of Alaska’s resources. See
supra, at 3–6. In that
opening section, ANILCA spoke about safeguarding “natural, scenic,
historic[,] recreational, and wildlife values.” 16
U. S. C. §3101(a). Yet it in- sisted as well on
“provid[ing] for” Alaska’s (and its citizens’) “economic and social
needs.” §3101(d). In keeping with the statute’s conservation goal,
Congress reserved huge tracts of land for national parks. But to
protect Alaskans’ economic well-being, it mitigated the
consequences to non-federal owners whose land wound up in those new
system units. See
supra, at 17–20. Once again, even the Park
Service acknowledges that Section 103(c) was supposed to provide an
“assurance” that those owners would not be subject to all the
regulatory constraints placed on neighboring federal properties.
See Tr. of Oral Arg. 50; see
id., at 46–47;
supra, at
9, 17, 20. But then the Service (head-spinningly) posits that it
need only draft its regulations to cover both federal and
non-federal lands in order to apply those rules to ANILCA’s
inholdings. On that view, limitations on the Service’s authority
are purely a matter of administrative grace, dependent on how
narrowly (or broadly) the Service chooses to write its regulations.
And ANILCA’s carefully drawn balance is thrown off-kilter, as
Alaskan, Native, and private inholdings are exposed to the full
extent of the Service’s regulatory authority.
The word “solely” in Section 103(c)’s second
sentence does not support that kind of statute-gutting. We do not
gainsay that the Park Service has identified a grammatically
possible way of viewing that word’s function: as pinpointing a
narrow class of the Service’s regulations (those “solely applicable
to public lands”).[
8] But that
reading, for all the reasons just stated, is “ultimately
inconsistent” with the “text and context of the statute.”
Sturgeon I, 577 U. S., at ___ (slip op., at 12). And a
different understanding of “solely” instead aligns with that text
and context. That word encapsulates Congress’s view that the Park
Service’s regulations should apply “solely” to public lands (and
not to state, Native, or private ones). See
supra, at 19,
and n. 5. And the word serves to distinguish between the Park
Service’s rules and other regulations, both federal and state.
Consider if Congress had exempted non-public lands in a system unit
from regulations “applicable to public lands” there (without the
“solely”). That language would apparently exempt those lands not
just from park regulations but from a raft of others—
e.g.,
pollution regulations of the Environmental Protection Agency, water
safety regulations of the Coast Guard, even employment regulations
of Alaska itself. For those rules, too, apply to public lands
inside national parks. By adding “solely,” Congress made clear that
the exemption granted was not from such generally applicable
regulations. Instead, it was from rules applying only in national
parks—
i.e., the newly looming Park Service rules. Congress
thus ensured that inholdings would emerge from ANILCA not worse
off—but also not better off—than before.[
9]
The legislative history (for those who consider
it) confirms, with unusual clarity, all we have said so far. The
Senate Report notes that state, Native, and private lands in the
new Alaskan parks would be subject to “[f ]ederal laws and
regulations of general applicability,” such as “the Clean Air Act,
the Water Pollution Control Act, [and] U. S. Army Corps of
Engineers wetlands regulations.” S. Rep. No. 96–413, p. 303 (1980).
But that would not be so of regulations applying only to parks. The
Senate Report states:
“Those private lands, and those public
lands owned by the State of Alaska or a subordinate political
entity, are not to be construed as subject to the management
regulations which may be adopted to manage and administer any
national conservation system unit which is adjacent to, or
surrounds, the private or non-Federal public lands.”
Ibid.
The sponsor of Section 103(c) in the House of
Representatives described that provision’s effect in similar terms.
The section was designed, he observed, to ensure that ANILCA’s new
boundary lines would “not in any way change the status” of the
state, Native, and private lands placed within them. 125 Cong. Rec.
11158 (1979) (statement of Rep. Seiberling). Those lands, he
continued, “are not parts of th[e system] unit and are not subject
to regulations which are applied” by virtue of being “part of the
unit.”
Ibid. In short, whatever the new map might suggest,
they are not subject to regulation as parkland.
We thus arrive again at the conclusion that the
Park Service may not prevent John Sturgeon from driving his
hovercraft on the Nation River. We held in an earlier part of this
opinion that the Nation is not public land. See
supra, at
12–15. And here we hold that it cannot be regulated as if it were.
Park Service regulations—like the hovercraft rule—do not apply to
non-public lands in Alaska even when those lands lie within
national parks. Section 103(c) “deem[s]” those lands outside the
parks and in so doing deprives the Service of regulatory
authority.
IV
Yet the Park Service makes one last plea—for
some kind of special rule relating to Alaskan navigable waters.
Even suppose, the argument runs, that those waters do not count as
“public lands.” And even assume that Section 103(c) strips the
Service of power to regulate
most non-public lands. Still,
the Service avers—invoking “the overall statutory scheme”—that
ANILCA must at least allow it to regulate navigable waters. Brief
for Respondents 40; see
id., at 40–45; Tr. of Oral Arg. 42
(ANILCA’s regulatory restrictions were “not about navigable
waters”);
id., at 63–64 (similar). Here, the Service points
to ANILCA’s general statement of purpose, which lists (among many
other things) the “protect[ion] and preserv[ation]” of “rivers.” 16
U. S. C. §3101(b). Similarly, the Service notes that the statements
of purpose associated with particular system units refer to
“protect[ing]” named rivers there.
E.g., §410hh–1(1). And
the Service highlights several statutory sections that in some way
speak to its ability to regulate motorboating and fishing within
the new units. See §§3121, 3170, 3201, 3203(b), 3204.[
10] According to the Service, all of
those provisions show that “ANILCA preserves [its] authority to
regulate conduct on navigable waters” in national parks. Brief for
Respondents 42.
But ANILCA does not readily allow the decoupling
of navigable waters from other non-federally owned areas in Alaskan
national parks for regulatory (or, indeed, any other) purposes.
Section 103(c), as we have described, speaks of “lands (as such
term is defined in th[e] Act).” 16 U. S. C. §3103(c); see
supra, at 9. The Act, in turn, defines “land” to mean
“lands, waters, and interests therein.” §3102(1)–(3); see
supra, at 9. So according to an express definition, when
ANILCA refers to “lands,” it means waters (including navigable
waters) as well. And that kind of definition is “virtually
conclusive.” A. Scalia & B. Garner, Reading Law: The
Interpretation of Legal Texts 228 (2012); see
ibid. (“It is
very rare that a defined meaning can be replaced” or altered). Save
for some exceptional reason, we must read ANILCA as treating
identically solid ground and flowing water. So if the Park Service
were right that it could regulate the Nation River under its
ordinary authorities, then it also could regulate the private
fields and farms in the surrounding park. And more to the point,
once Section 103(c) is understood to preclude the regulation of
those landed properties, then the same result follows—“virtually
conclusive[ ly]”—for the river.
And nothing in the few aquatic provisions to
which the Park Service points can flip that strong presumption, for
none conflicts with reading Section 103(c)’s regulatory exemption
to cover non-federal waters. The most substantive of those
provisions, as just noted, contemplate some role for the Service in
regulating motorboating and fishing. But contra the Park Service,
those sections have effect under our interpretation because both
activities can occur on federally owned (and thus fully regulable)
non-navigable waters. The other provisions the Service emphasizes
are statements of purpose, which by their nature “cannot override
[a statute’s] operative language.”
Id., at 220. And anyway,
our construction leaves the Park Service with multiple tools to
“protect” rivers in Alaskan national parks, as those statements
anticipate. §3101(b); §410hh–1(1). The Park Service may at a
minimum regulate the public lands flanking rivers. It may,
additionally, enter into “cooperative agreements” with the State
(which holds the rivers’ submerged lands) to preserve the rivers
themselves. §3181(j). It may similarly propose that state or other
federal agencies with appropriate jurisdiction undertake needed
regulatory action on those rivers. See §3191(b)(7); see also Kobuk
Valley: Land Protection Plan, at 118, 121 (recommending that the
Alaska Department of Natural Resources classify navigable parts of
the Kobuk River for preservation efforts). And if all else fails,
the Park Service may invoke Section 103(c)’s third sentence to buy
from Alaska the submerged lands of navigable waters—and then
administer them as public lands. See §§3103(c), 3192; see also
Kobuk Valley: Land Protection Plan, at 133 (proposing that if
Alaska does not adequately protect the Kobuk River, the Park
Service should “seek to acquire title to th[o]se state lands
through exchange”).
Those authorities, though falling short of the
Service’s usual power to administer navigable waters in system
units, accord with ANILCA’s “repeated[ ] recogni[tion] that
Alaska is different.”
Sturgeon I, 577 U. S., at ___
(slip op., at 13). ANILCA’s broadly drawn parks include stretches
of some of the State’s most important rivers, such as the Yukon and
Kuskokwim. 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. But some Alaskans have no such options. The
State’s extreme climate and rugged terrain make them dependent on
rivers to reach a market, a hospital, or a home. So ANILCA
recognized that when it came to navigable waters—just as to
non-federal lands—in the new parks, Alaska should be “the
exception, not the rule.”
Sturgeon I, 577 U. S., at ___
(slip op., at 14). Which is to say, exempt from the Park Service’s
normal regula- tory authority.
V
ANILCA, like much legislation, was a
settlement. The statute set aside more than a hundred million acres
of Alaska for conservation. In so doing, it enabled the Park
Service to protect—if need be, through expansive regulation—“the
national interest in the scenic, natural, cultural and
environmental values on the public lands in Alaska.” 16
U. S. C. §3101(d). But public lands (and waters) was
where it drew the line—or, at any rate, the legal one. 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. And John Sturgeon can once
again drive his hovercraft up that river to Moose Meadows.
We accordingly reverse the judgment below and
remand the case for further proceedings consistent with this
opinion.
It is so ordered.