Sturgeon v. Frost

• Decision Date: 26 March 2019
• Docket Number: No. 17-949,17-949
• Citation: 139 S.Ct. 1066,203 L.Ed.2d 453
• Parties: John STURGEON, Petitioner v. Bert FROST, in His Official Capacity as Alaska Regional Director of the National Park Service, et al.
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

139 S.Ct. 1066

203 L.Ed.2d 453

John STURGEON, Petitioner

v.Bert FROST, in His Official Capacity as Alaska Regional Director of the National Park Service, et al.

No. 17-949

Supreme Court of the United States.

Argued November 5, 2018

Decided March 26, 2019

Matthew T. Findley, Anchorage, AK, for the petitioner.

Ruth Botstein for Alaska, as amicus curiae, by special leave of the Court, supporting the petitioner.

Deputy Solicitor General Edwin S. Kneedler for the respondents.

William S. Consovoy, Jeffrey M. Harris, J. Michael Connolly, Consovoy McCarthy Park PLLC, Arlington, VA, Douglas Pope, Pope & Katcher, Anchorage, AK, Matthew T. Findley, Eva R. Gardner, Ashburn & Mason, P.C., Anchorage, AK, for petitioner.

Noel J. Francisco, Solicitor General, Jeffrey H. Wood, Acting Assistant Attorney General, Edwin S. Kneedler, Deputy Solicitor General, Rachel P. Kovner, Assistant to the Solicitor General, Andrew C. Mergen, Elizabeth Ann Peterson, Attorneys, Department of Justice, Washington, DC, for respondents.

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. ––––, 136 S.Ct. 1061, 194 L.Ed.2d 108 (2016) ( Sturgeon I ). As we explained then, Sturgeon hunted moose along the Nation River in Alaska for some 40 years. See id., at ––––, 136 S.Ct., at 1064. 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 ––––, 136 S.Ct., at 1067. 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 –––– – ––––, 136 S.Ct., at 1071–1072.

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 –––– – ––––, 136 S.Ct., at 1071. 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 C.F.R. § 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), 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. 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 ––––, 136 S.Ct., at 1072. 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 ––––, 136 S.Ct., at 1072. 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 ––––, 136 S.Ct., at 1064. 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 ––––, 136 S.Ct., at 1065. 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, 72 Stat. 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, unappropriated, and unreserved" federal land—an area totaling the size of California. §§ 6(a)–(b), 72 Stat. 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), 72 Stat. 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, 117 S.Ct. 1888, 138 L.Ed.2d 231 (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 85 Stat. 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 ––––, 136 S.Ct., at 1065–1066. 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 ––––, 136 S.Ct., at 1065–1066. "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...