Environmental groups lose case over off-road vehicles
Debbie Hummel
Associated Press
Published June 15, 2004
SALT LAKE CITY -- The Supreme Court on Monday blocked a lawsuit that accused the federal government of doing too little to protect undeveloped Western land from off-road vehicles.
The court, on a 9-0 vote, said environmental groups cannot use courts to force the federal Bureau of Land Management to more aggressively safeguard about 2 million acres of potential wilderness in Utah.
Justices had been asked to clarify when a federal agency can be sued for failing to follow a congressional mandate - in this case, to preserve the pristine quality of lands being considered for wilderness designation.
Tina Kreisher, an Interior Department spokeswoman, praised the decision, saying it allows federal resource managers to ``use their expertise to make day-to-day management decisions without unnecessary litigation.''
Environmentalists said the lawsuit nonetheless drew attention to the damage done by off-road vehicles.
``It is not going away and neither are we,'' said Heidi McIntosh, a staff attorney for Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance.
The environmental group sued the BLM to force land managers to be more aggressive in protecting lands adjacent to a state all-terrain vehicle park.
The case centered on 14,830 acres of forested high desert land abutting Coral Pink Sand Dunes State Park that are being considered for wilderness designation. The park, located about 250 miles south of Salt Lake City near the Utah-Arizona border, is a popular destination for off-road vehicle users.
Monday's decision overturns a federal appeals court ruling.
Justice Antonin Scalia, writing for the Supreme Court, said that Congress never envisioned ``pervasive oversight by federal courts over the manner and pace of agency compliance.''
Scalia said the land management agency has discretion to oversee lands being considered for wilderness designation, including allowing off-road vehicles there.
He noted, however, that the off-road vehicles have had negative consequences, ``including soil disruption and compaction, harassment of animals and annoyance of wilderness lovers.''
But he wrote that the agency is doing what it can with ``scarce resources and congressional silence with respect to wilderness designation.''
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Full Version: Environmental Groups Lose Case Over Off-road Vehic
Off-Road Vehicle Case Is Rejected
Environmental groups had sued to protect lands being studied for wilderness designation. Interior Department praises the 9-0 decision.
By Henry Weinstein, Times Staff Writer
The Supreme Court rejected a lawsuit by environmental groups Monday that accused the federal government of failing to safeguard Western wilderness areas from an onslaught of off-road vehicles.
The unanimous decision said environmental groups could not use the courts to compel the federal Bureau of Land Management to take more aggressive action to protect land that is under study for designation as wilderness.
The case directly involved about 2 million acres of "wilderness study areas" in Utah, but legal experts said the decision could more broadly affect the legal treatment of lands across the West, including California. The ruling will significantly limit the ability of citizen groups to use the courts to enforce a broad range of environmental protections, the legal experts said.
Interior Department officials and advocates for off-road-vehicle users praised the ruling. They had asserted that environmental groups were attempting to use the courts to micromanage government decisions regarding wilderness planning.
Monday's ruling comes amid controversy over the Bush administration's energy policies, which advocate more oil and gas development in the West. Officials of 14 states, including California Atty. Gen. Bill Lockyer, and a bevy of former federal environmental officials from the Nixon, Carter and first Bush administrations filed friend-of-the-court briefs supporting the environmental groups.
The case involved the four designated wilderness study areas in Utah, including the plateaus of the Moab area near Arches and Canyonlands national parks and canyons near Zion National Park. Congress has been deadlocked over whether to set aside the lands as official wilderness, a designation that would not allow off-road vehicles to use the areas.
In the years since the debate over the lands began, the number of off-road vehicles has increased sharply. The environmental groups that went to court told the justices that the number of such vehicles in Utah had increased from 9,000 to 83,000 between 1980 and 2000.
Federal land managers acknowledged in 2000 that "over the past several years, motorized recreation use has increased dramatically."
The Bureau of Land Management has had a policy, in theory, of controlling the use of off-road vehicles to prevent land that is being studied for wilderness designation from being harmed. But the agency conceded in 2000 that it had not carried out or enforced those policies.
Based on that failure, the environmental groups, including the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance, the Wilderness Society and Earthjustice, went to court, arguing that the BLM had a legal duty to protect the wilderness study areas. A federal trial judge in Salt Lake dismissed the case, but it was reinstated by the U.S. 10th Circuit Court of Appeals, based in Denver, which ruled the case could go to trial.
At the Supreme Court, the environment groups told the justices that off-road-vehicle users, rather than being limited to existing roadways, had created "ever more 'ways,' scarring the landscape and converting formerly pristine features like streambeds to ORV raceways."
Washington attorney Paul Smith, arguing for the environmental groups, contended that the BLM had breached a "mandatory nondiscretionary duty" to protect the land.
But Justice Department attorney Edwin Kneedler, arguing for the administration, denied that, saying that the BLM's plans "do not impose legal obligations that are owed to the public."
The justices agreed. Justice Antonin Scalia, writing for the court, acknowledged that off-road vehicles have had significant negative effects on the environment, "including soil disruption and compaction, harassment of animals and annoyance of wilderness lovers."
However, Scalia said the BLM had done what it could with "scare resources and congressional silence with respect to wilderness designation." Congress never envisioned "pervasive oversight by federal courts over the manner and pace of agency compliance," Scalia wrote.
Robert Keiter, an environmental law professor at the University of Utah Law School, said the ruling could raise questions about whether a number of broadly worded legal protections for wilderness areas would "prove enforceable in the future ? because of the court's unwillingness to put any teeth" into the congressional mandates. Because of that, the ruling also could have an effect on laws governing national parks, he said.
Tina Kreisher, an Interior Department spokeswoman, said the agency was "pleased that the court has upheld the principle that the federal resource managers may use their expertise to make day-to-day management decisions without unnecessary litigation."
She said the agency would "continue to work cooperatively with the public to protect wilderness while allowing other congressionally approved uses of public lands."
Rainer Huck, the president of a Utah off-road-vehicle group, called the ruling "a complete victory on all fronts."
But Tom Dresslar, a spokesman for Lockyer, said he was troubled by the ruling. "This ruling shackles the enforcement of environmental protection laws with an overly technical legal interpretation that runs counter to congressional intent," Dresslar said, adding that the ruling could negatively affect 90,000 acres of wilderness in California.
"Under this decision, it is hard to imagine a scenario in which the courts could step in and tell a federal agency that it is not doing its job the way Congress intended," Dresslar added.
Environmental organizations expressed concern that the ruling would lead to further damage to wilderness areas.
Mike Matz, executive director of Campaign for America's Wilderness, said the decision "implies that our wild lands can be held hostage in infinite limbo while destruction and degradation go unstopped and uncorrected."
Environmental groups had sued to protect lands being studied for wilderness designation. Interior Department praises the 9-0 decision.
By Henry Weinstein, Times Staff Writer
The Supreme Court rejected a lawsuit by environmental groups Monday that accused the federal government of failing to safeguard Western wilderness areas from an onslaught of off-road vehicles.
The unanimous decision said environmental groups could not use the courts to compel the federal Bureau of Land Management to take more aggressive action to protect land that is under study for designation as wilderness.
The case directly involved about 2 million acres of "wilderness study areas" in Utah, but legal experts said the decision could more broadly affect the legal treatment of lands across the West, including California. The ruling will significantly limit the ability of citizen groups to use the courts to enforce a broad range of environmental protections, the legal experts said.
Interior Department officials and advocates for off-road-vehicle users praised the ruling. They had asserted that environmental groups were attempting to use the courts to micromanage government decisions regarding wilderness planning.
Monday's ruling comes amid controversy over the Bush administration's energy policies, which advocate more oil and gas development in the West. Officials of 14 states, including California Atty. Gen. Bill Lockyer, and a bevy of former federal environmental officials from the Nixon, Carter and first Bush administrations filed friend-of-the-court briefs supporting the environmental groups.
The case involved the four designated wilderness study areas in Utah, including the plateaus of the Moab area near Arches and Canyonlands national parks and canyons near Zion National Park. Congress has been deadlocked over whether to set aside the lands as official wilderness, a designation that would not allow off-road vehicles to use the areas.
In the years since the debate over the lands began, the number of off-road vehicles has increased sharply. The environmental groups that went to court told the justices that the number of such vehicles in Utah had increased from 9,000 to 83,000 between 1980 and 2000.
Federal land managers acknowledged in 2000 that "over the past several years, motorized recreation use has increased dramatically."
The Bureau of Land Management has had a policy, in theory, of controlling the use of off-road vehicles to prevent land that is being studied for wilderness designation from being harmed. But the agency conceded in 2000 that it had not carried out or enforced those policies.
Based on that failure, the environmental groups, including the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance, the Wilderness Society and Earthjustice, went to court, arguing that the BLM had a legal duty to protect the wilderness study areas. A federal trial judge in Salt Lake dismissed the case, but it was reinstated by the U.S. 10th Circuit Court of Appeals, based in Denver, which ruled the case could go to trial.
At the Supreme Court, the environment groups told the justices that off-road-vehicle users, rather than being limited to existing roadways, had created "ever more 'ways,' scarring the landscape and converting formerly pristine features like streambeds to ORV raceways."
Washington attorney Paul Smith, arguing for the environmental groups, contended that the BLM had breached a "mandatory nondiscretionary duty" to protect the land.
But Justice Department attorney Edwin Kneedler, arguing for the administration, denied that, saying that the BLM's plans "do not impose legal obligations that are owed to the public."
The justices agreed. Justice Antonin Scalia, writing for the court, acknowledged that off-road vehicles have had significant negative effects on the environment, "including soil disruption and compaction, harassment of animals and annoyance of wilderness lovers."
However, Scalia said the BLM had done what it could with "scare resources and congressional silence with respect to wilderness designation." Congress never envisioned "pervasive oversight by federal courts over the manner and pace of agency compliance," Scalia wrote.
Robert Keiter, an environmental law professor at the University of Utah Law School, said the ruling could raise questions about whether a number of broadly worded legal protections for wilderness areas would "prove enforceable in the future ? because of the court's unwillingness to put any teeth" into the congressional mandates. Because of that, the ruling also could have an effect on laws governing national parks, he said.
Tina Kreisher, an Interior Department spokeswoman, said the agency was "pleased that the court has upheld the principle that the federal resource managers may use their expertise to make day-to-day management decisions without unnecessary litigation."
She said the agency would "continue to work cooperatively with the public to protect wilderness while allowing other congressionally approved uses of public lands."
Rainer Huck, the president of a Utah off-road-vehicle group, called the ruling "a complete victory on all fronts."
But Tom Dresslar, a spokesman for Lockyer, said he was troubled by the ruling. "This ruling shackles the enforcement of environmental protection laws with an overly technical legal interpretation that runs counter to congressional intent," Dresslar said, adding that the ruling could negatively affect 90,000 acres of wilderness in California.
"Under this decision, it is hard to imagine a scenario in which the courts could step in and tell a federal agency that it is not doing its job the way Congress intended," Dresslar added.
Environmental organizations expressed concern that the ruling would lead to further damage to wilderness areas.
Mike Matz, executive director of Campaign for America's Wilderness, said the decision "implies that our wild lands can be held hostage in infinite limbo while destruction and degradation go unstopped and uncorrected."
From the SF Chronicle:
Court blocks citizen suits to compel land agencies to enforce laws
Case claimed BLM failed in its duty to protect wild areas
Bob Egelko, Chronicle Staff Writer <mailto:begelko@sfchronicle.com>
The U.S. Supreme Court jolted environmental groups Monday by ruling unanimously that private citizens can't sue a federal agency for allegedly failing to enforce a law protecting potential wilderness areas from off-road vehicles.
The ruling leaves protection of 2 million acres of land in southern Utah up to the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, which is charged by law with preserving its value as undeveloped wilderness. About 90,000 acres in California are in the same category, mostly in the Sierra Nevada and desert areas, said Tom Dresslar, spokesman for state Attorney General Bill Lockyer.
More broadly, the court made it harder for private citizens and organizations to require federal land-management agencies, such as the BLM and the U.S. Forest Service, to follow priorities laid out in federal laws and agency land-use plans.
Congress, while authorizing certain private environmental suits against the government, intended "to protect agencies from undue judicial interference with their lawful discretion,'' said Justice Antonin Scalia.
For example, he said, the federal law requiring the BLM to prevent damage to potential wilderness areas does not authorize a suit against the agency for failing to keep off-road vehicles out. And a land-use plan saying the BLM would supervise and monitor a certain area was merely a "statement of priorities'' rather than a legally binding commitment enforceable in court, he said.
A wilderness advocate was alarmed.
"This is tantamount to watching a car accident, but just standing on the curb and not taking action to help the victim,'' said Mike Matz, executive director of Campaign for America's Wilderness. "Here, our wilderness is the victim, and the American people are being told to watch and wait.''
"We believe it shackles the enforcement of environmental protection with an overly technical legal interpretation,'' said Dresslar, spokesman for Lockyer, whose office filed arguments on behalf of California and 13 other states. He said the ruling would also hamstring a state's ability to sue the federal government over some aspects of land management.
A supporter of the ruling agreed that it could apply broadly.
"It cuts across all the federal agencies, especially the major resource agencies that do general planning,'' said attorney Robin Rivett of the Pacific Legal Foundation in Sacramento. He said the law that allows private suits "is not designed to allow the courts to micromanage the day-to-day activities of these agencies.''
Environmental groups sued the BLM in 1999 for allegedly violating its duty to prevent off-road vehicles from harming "wilderness study areas,'' land set aside by Congress for possible future designation as wilderness, free of roads and other development.
The Supreme Court, reversing a lower-court ruling, said a federal agency can be sued for refusing to take some legally required action but not for simply failing to act as quickly or as specifically as private plaintiffs might prefer. Scalia said the wilderness study law allows the BLM, not the courts, to decide how to achieve its preservation goals.
The ruling makes that law unenforceable, said James Angell, lawyer for the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance and other plaintiffs. "We'll have to take the agency at its word,'' he said.
The case is Norton vs. Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance, 03-101.
Court blocks citizen suits to compel land agencies to enforce laws
Case claimed BLM failed in its duty to protect wild areas
Bob Egelko, Chronicle Staff Writer <mailto:begelko@sfchronicle.com>
The U.S. Supreme Court jolted environmental groups Monday by ruling unanimously that private citizens can't sue a federal agency for allegedly failing to enforce a law protecting potential wilderness areas from off-road vehicles.
The ruling leaves protection of 2 million acres of land in southern Utah up to the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, which is charged by law with preserving its value as undeveloped wilderness. About 90,000 acres in California are in the same category, mostly in the Sierra Nevada and desert areas, said Tom Dresslar, spokesman for state Attorney General Bill Lockyer.
More broadly, the court made it harder for private citizens and organizations to require federal land-management agencies, such as the BLM and the U.S. Forest Service, to follow priorities laid out in federal laws and agency land-use plans.
Congress, while authorizing certain private environmental suits against the government, intended "to protect agencies from undue judicial interference with their lawful discretion,'' said Justice Antonin Scalia.
For example, he said, the federal law requiring the BLM to prevent damage to potential wilderness areas does not authorize a suit against the agency for failing to keep off-road vehicles out. And a land-use plan saying the BLM would supervise and monitor a certain area was merely a "statement of priorities'' rather than a legally binding commitment enforceable in court, he said.
A wilderness advocate was alarmed.
"This is tantamount to watching a car accident, but just standing on the curb and not taking action to help the victim,'' said Mike Matz, executive director of Campaign for America's Wilderness. "Here, our wilderness is the victim, and the American people are being told to watch and wait.''
"We believe it shackles the enforcement of environmental protection with an overly technical legal interpretation,'' said Dresslar, spokesman for Lockyer, whose office filed arguments on behalf of California and 13 other states. He said the ruling would also hamstring a state's ability to sue the federal government over some aspects of land management.
A supporter of the ruling agreed that it could apply broadly.
"It cuts across all the federal agencies, especially the major resource agencies that do general planning,'' said attorney Robin Rivett of the Pacific Legal Foundation in Sacramento. He said the law that allows private suits "is not designed to allow the courts to micromanage the day-to-day activities of these agencies.''
Environmental groups sued the BLM in 1999 for allegedly violating its duty to prevent off-road vehicles from harming "wilderness study areas,'' land set aside by Congress for possible future designation as wilderness, free of roads and other development.
The Supreme Court, reversing a lower-court ruling, said a federal agency can be sued for refusing to take some legally required action but not for simply failing to act as quickly or as specifically as private plaintiffs might prefer. Scalia said the wilderness study law allows the BLM, not the courts, to decide how to achieve its preservation goals.
The ruling makes that law unenforceable, said James Angell, lawyer for the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance and other plaintiffs. "We'll have to take the agency at its word,'' he said.
The case is Norton vs. Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance, 03-101.
saw this in the paper this morning ...
0 for the eco-nazi's
1 for the duners ... I hope ...
0 for the eco-nazi's
1 for the duners ... I hope ...
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