F I L E D
United States Court of Appeals
Tenth Circuit
PUBLISH
FEB 4 2004
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
PATRICK FISHER
Clerk
TENTH CIRCUIT
BIODIVERSITY ASSOCIATES and
BRIAN BRADEMEYER,
Plaintiffs-Appellants,
SIERRA CLUB and THE
WILDERNESS SOCIETY,
Plaintiffs,
v. No. 03-1002
RICK D. CABLES, in his official
capacity as Regional Forester of the
Rocky Mountain Region of the U.S.
Forest Service; DALE N.
BOSWORTH, in his official capacity
as Chief of the U.S. Forest Service;
JOHN C. TWISS, in his official
capacity as Supervisor of the Black
Hills National Forest; U.S. FOREST
SERVICE,
Defendants-Appellees,
LARRY GABRIEL, in his official
capacity as Secretary of the South
Dakota Department of Agriculture;
BLACK HILLS REGIONAL
MULTIPLE USE COALITION;
BLACK HILLS FOREST RESOURCE
ASSOCIATION; MEADE COUNTY,
LAWRENCE COUNTY, and
PENNINGTON COUNTY, all political
subdivisions the State of South
Dakota, *
Defendants-Intervenors-Appellees.
APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLORADO
(D.C. No. 99-N-2173)
Ray Vaughn of WildLaw, Montgomery, Alabama (Steve Novak of WildLaw,
Asheville, North Carolina, with him on the briefs), for Plaintiffs-Appellants.
Kevin Traskos, Assistant United States Attorney (John W. Suthers, United States
Attorney, with him on the brief), Denver, Colorado, for Defendants-Appellees.
Diane Best, Assistant Attorney General (Lawrence E. Long, Attorney General;
Charles D. McGuigan, Assistant Attorney General, with her on the brief), State of
South Dakota, Pierre, South Dakota, for Defendants-Intervenors-Appellees.
Before MURPHY , Circuit Judge, BRORBY , Senior Circuit Judge, and
McCONNELL , Circuit Judge.
*
Mr. Cables, Mr. Bosworth and Mr. Gabriel, who are the successors in
office of Lyle K. Laverty, Michael Dombeck and Darrell Cruea, respectively,
have been substituted as parties pursuant to Fed. R. App. 34(c)(2).
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McCONNELL , Circuit Judge.
For many years, Congress has been unable to come to agreement on
nationwide legislation to address the dangers of insect infestation and fire in the
national forests. In 2002, however, in a rider to a supplemental appropriations act
for the war on terrorism, Congress passed legislation applicable to selected
sections of the Black Hills National Forest in South Dakota and nowhere else,
permitting logging and other clearance measures as a means of averting forest
fires. The legislation specifies forest management techniques for these lands in
minute detail, overrides otherwise applicable environmental laws and attendant
administrative review procedures, and explicitly supersedes a settlement
agreement between the Forest Service and various environmental groups
regarding management of these lands.
The question presented is whether the extraordinary specificity of this
legislation, coupled with its displacement of a settlement agreement, amounts to
congressional violation of the Constitution’s separation of powers, by invading
the province of the executive branch, the judicial branch, or both. We hold that it
does not. Article IV, § 3, cl. 2 expressly grants Congress “Power to dispose of
and make all needful Rules and Regulations respecting the Territory or other
Property belonging to the United States.” With respect to this power – like most
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of its enumerated powers – Congress is permitted to be as specific as it deems
appropriate. Moreover, settlement agreements between private litigants and the
executive branch cannot divest Congress of its constitutionally vested authority to
legislate.
BACKGROUND
The first law involved in this case is the law of unintended consequences.
Fire suppression efforts conducted over more than a century in large parts of the
West have had the unintended effect of transforming forests from savannah-like
grasslands studded with well-spaced large, old, fire-resistant trees, into thicker,
denser forests. 1
Prior to the arrival of Europeans, these forests experienced
frequent, but relatively mild, forest fires caused primarily by lightning and Native
American activity. 2
These fires would clear the forest floor of undergrowth and
1
See Robert B. Keiter, Keeping Faith with Nature: Ecosystems,
Democracy, and America’s Public Lands 136, 140-41, 155 (2003); Marlin A.
Johnson, Changed Southwestern Forests: Resource Effects and Management
Remedies, at (last visited Dec. 23, 2003); W. Wallace Covington et al., Restoring
Ecosystem Health in Ponderosa Pine Forests of the Southwest, 95 Journal of
Forestry, April 1997, 23, 23, 27 tbl.1, corrected adaptation available at
(last visited Dec. 23,
2003); see generally Robert E. Keane et al., Cascading Effects of Fire Exclusion
in Rocky Mountain Ecosystems: A Literature Review (U.S. Forest Serv. Gen.
Technical Report RMRS-91, 2002).
Researchers have found that pre-European human inhabitants of North
2
America used fire and other techniques to alter the “natural” character of the
(continued...)
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saplings while leaving the larger trees unscathed. The denser forests produced by
fire suppression accumulate more combustible fuel and are more vulnerable to
infestations, such as mountain pine beetles, and to fires far more intense and
devastating than those of the pre-settlement era. 3
Forestry experts are divided as
2
(...continued)
forests. See Keiter, supra note 1, at 136 & 376-77 n.15; Stephen J. Pyne, A
Cultural History of Wildland and Rural Fire 46-50, 66-83 (1982); Homer
Aschmann, Aboriginal Use of Fire, in Proceedings of the Symposium on the
Environmental Consequences of Fire and Fuel Management in Mediterranean
Ecosystems 132, 133, 135, 137-38 (Harold A. Mooney & C. Eugene Conrad
technical coordinators, U.S. Forest Serv. Gen. Technical Report WO-3, 1977);
George E. Gruell, Indian Fires in the Interior West: A Widespread Influence, in
Proceedings of the Symposium and Workshop on Wilderness Fire 68 (James E.
Lotan et al. technical coordinators, U.S. Forest Serv. Gen. Technical Report INT-
182, 1985); Henry T. Lewis, Why Indians Burned: Specifics Versus General
Reasons, in id. 75.
Some speculate that before the arrival of the ancestors of Native Americans
on this continent, forests were denser, and that it was the Native Americans’
deployment of fire that created the savannah-like forests that European explorers
encountered and that are now deemed “natural.” See, e.g., Pyne, supra, at 79
(“[T]he general consequence of the Indian occupation of the New World was to
replace forested land with grassland or savannah, or, where the forest persisted, to
open it up and free it from underbrush.”); Nancy Langston, Forest Dreams, Forest
Nightmares: The Paradox of Old Growth in the Inland West 46-48 (1995)
(agreeing that Native American fires helped to open up the forest, but denying
that they were primarily responsible for creating the grasslands). But see, e.g.,
Thomas W. Swetnam & Christopher H. Baisan, Historical Fire Regime Patterns
in the Southwestern United States since AD 1700, in Proceedings of the Second
La Mesa Fire Symposium 11, 29 (C.D. Allen ed., U.S. Forest Serv. Gen.
Technical Report RM-286, 1996) (arguing that because fuels and climatic
conditions controlled the extent of forest fires more than ignition sources did,
Native American activity in the Southwest did not significantly alter preexisting
fire patterns).
3
See Keane et al., supra note 1, at 14-15; Keiter, supra note 1, at 141;
(continued...)
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to the response to these conditions. Some advocate a hands-off approach,
allowing fire (outside areas of human habitation) to reconstitute the forests in
their natural state; some advocate controlled burns; and some advocate thinning
and fuel removal. 4
The role of commercial logging as part of the last approach
has been particularly controversial.
From 1983 to 1997, the Beaver Park Roadless Area, a relatively pristine
portion of the Black Hills National Forest, was free of logging activity, apparently
because the land management plan then in place did not allow it. In 1997,
however, the Forest Service approved a new Black Hills National Forest plan
revision (the “1997 Revised Plan”), which allowed logging in a significant
(...continued)
3
Langston, supra note 2, at 296-97.
4
Keiter, supra note 1, at 141 & 378 n.27. Compare Michael Axline, Forest
Health and the Politics of Expediency, 26 Envtl. L. 613, 626-39 (1996) (arguing
that there is no forest health emergency because fire and insect infestation are
natural parts of forest ecology, and dismissing tree-thinning measures as
motivated by logging interests), with James K. Agee, Alternatives for
Implementing Fire Policy, in Proceedings: Symposium on Fire in Wilderness and
Park Mangement 107, 108-111 (James K. Brown et al. technical coordinators,
U.S. Forest Serv. Gen. Technical Report INT-320, 1995) (warning that given the
current unnatural forest densities, it would be foolish to rely on natural fires
without prescribed burns to reproduce natural forest ecosystems), and with
Covington et al., supra note 1, at 24-25 (noting that because prescribed burns are
difficult to control and unpredictable in their results, they must be supplemented
by tree thinning and deadwood removal); Johnson, supra note 1 (recommending a
mixed strategy using natural fires, prescribed burns, and tree thinning). See also
Langston, supra note 2, at 260-63 (expressing doubt about the possibility of
successfully engineering a return to the old forests by any method).
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portion of Beaver Park’s 5,109 acres. It subsequently began preparations for a
timber sale in an area called the “Veteran/Boulder Project Area,” which included
most of the Beaver Park land newly authorized for logging. Especially in a part
of the area known as Forbes Gulch, a major purpose of the logging was to counter
an infestation of mountain pine beetles. The Forest Service proceeded to clear
various administrative hurdles in preparation for the Veteran/Boulder timber sale,
issuing a final environmental impact statement on the proposed sale and records
of decision approving timber harvest both inside and outside the Beaver Park
Roadless Area.
Several environmental groups, including the Sierra Club, the Wilderness
Society, and Appellant Biodiversity Conservation Alliance (BCA), 5
objected
strenuously to the timber sale. The Beaver Park Roadless Area was one of the
last areas in the Black Hills National Forest still eligible for designation as a
wilderness, and logging activity would likely disqualify it from being designated
as such. 6
The environmental groups were also concerned about the effects that
At the time of these events, BCA was known as Biodiversity Associates.
5
For the sake of simplicity, we use its current name.
The Wilderness Act requires that a wilderness area have “at least five
6
thousand acres of land or . . . sufficient size as to make practicable its
preservation and use in an unimpaired condition.” 16 U.S.C. § 1131(c)(3). Since
recently logged areas are not eligible for wilderness protection, the proposed
logging would decrease the eligible acreage of the Beaver Park Roadless Area
below the 5,000-acre threshold, potentially compromising its eligibility for
(continued...)
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the Veteran/Boulder timber sale would have on the viability of the northern
goshawk population in the Forest. Accordingly, they brought administrative
challenges to both the particular project and the recently revised plan under which
it was approved.
The groups met with mixed success in their administrative challenges.
Their challenge to the Veteran/Boulder sale was initially denied in its entirety,
though the sale was stayed pending review of the Revised Plan itself. Then, on
October 12, 1999, the Chief of the Forest Service upheld the 1997 Revised Plan in
most respects, but found that there was inadequate support in the record for the
conclusion that the Revised Plan’s proposed changes would not threaten the
viability of several species, including the northern goshawk. He therefore ordered
further research into that question. In the meanwhile, the Forest Service did not
stop all pending projects, but instead provided interim directions that would apply
until the identified defects in the Revised Plan were remedied. As a result, when
the stay on the sale expired, the Forest Service went forward and put the timber
out for bid.
The Sierra Club, the Wilderness Society, and BCA brought suit challenging
the sale in federal district court, claiming that the Forest Service could not rely on
6
(...continued)
wilderness designation for the indefinite future.
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an “illegal” plan to justify project-level decisions under that plan. Specifically,
they argued that the final environmental impact statement’s conclusion that the
Veteran/Boulder sale would not affect the viability of the northern goshawk was
based on the very findings in the 1997 Revised Plan that had been disapproved.
In the waning days of the Clinton Administration, in September of 2000,
the Forest Service signed a settlement agreement with the plaintiff groups, under
which it agreed not to allow any tree cutting in the Beaver Park Roadless Area, at
least until the Service approved a new land and resource management plan
remedying the defects of the 1997 plan. The settlement was approved by the
United States District Court for the District of Colorado, which had jurisdiction
over the lawsuit because the relevant Forest Service offices were in Colorado.
The process of approving a new plan took much longer than anticipated.
The record does not reveal whether the mountain pine beetles of western South
Dakota were aware of the settlement agreement or participated in the plan
revision process, but it is clear that they did not wait for authorization from
Washington before undertaking an expanded program of forest resource
exploitation. Just two years after the initial Veteran/Boulder environmental
impact statement, the mountain pine beetle infestation in this section of the Black
Hills had reached epidemic proportions. According to Forest Service estimates,
the pine beetles killed 114,000 trees in 2002, as compared to only 15,000 in 1999.
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This convinced forest managers that immediate harvesting of deadwood and
infested trees, which the settlement agreement prohibited, was necessary to guard
against further spread of the infestation and potentially disastrous forest fires.
Given that approval of a corrected resource management plan was still a
long way off, the Forest Service and the local South Dakota interests that shared
its concerns had a choice: they could either attempt to obtain consent to the tree
cutting from the original parties to the agreement, or with the help of South
Dakota’s congressional delegation, they could attempt to overturn the settlement
agreement’s prohibition by legislation. The Forest Service began by trying the
consensual approach. Perhaps spurred by the threat of intervention from
Congress, the signatories to the settlement met with the Forest Service to discuss
changing the agreement in light of the mountain pine beetle problem. The Forest
Service reached agreement with the Sierra Club and the Wilderness Society, but
BCA and Brian Brademeyer, then chair of the Black Hills Sierra Club, refused to
agree to proposed modifications in the settlement. 7
Stymied, South Dakota
interests turned to Congress for a legislative solution.
7
Mr. Brademeyer had represented the Sierra Club in the settlement
modification negotiations, but resigned after higher-ups in the Sierra Club agreed
with the Forest Service to allow certain tree-cutting activities in the Black Hills
National Forest, which he considered to be a “suspension of law.” Brademeyer
Decl. ¶ 13, App. 299-300.
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For some years, Congress had been considering national legislation that
would streamline the process of obtaining environmental approval of logging and
other clearance projects in fire- and disease-threatened national forests; but these
efforts were caught up in the debate over the role of commercial logging in forest
restoration. By limiting legislative action to a narrow geographical area,
however, and with the acquiescence of some influential environmental groups and
the active support of the state’s congressional delegation, Congress was able to
reach agreement on a bill that would permit logging and other measures in the
Beaver Park Roadless Area. In a rider to an unrelated appropriations bill,
Congress enacted into law essentially the terms of the modified agreement
negotiated between the Forest Service and the Sierra Club and the Wilderness
Society. See Supplemental Appropriations Act for Further Recovery From and
Response to Terrorist Acts on the United States, Pub. L. No. 107-206, § 706, 116
Stat. 820, 864 (2002) (the “706 Rider” or “Rider”). The Rider, which was signed
into law on August 2, 2002, required the Forest Service to take a variety of
actions that violated the settlement agreement, see, e.g. , id. § 706(d)(5), 116 Stat.
at 867, and prohibited judicial review of those actions, id. § 706(j), 116 Stat. at
868. It also specifically referred to the settlement agreement, and stated that the
agreement should continue in effect to the extent it was not preempted by the
Rider. See id. , 116 Stat. at 869.
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After the Rider was passed, BCA and Mr. Brademeyer (hereinafter referred
to, jointly, as “BCA”) went to the federal district court in Colorado to obtain an
order requiring continued enforcement of the settlement agreement, claiming that
the 706 Rider unconstitutionally trenched on both the executive and judicial
branches. The district court denied the motion, and BCA appealed.
DISCUSSION
I
As a preliminary matter, we must determine the scope of this Court’s
jurisdiction over this case. Although we would normally have jurisdiction under
28 U.S.C. § 1291, the 706 Rider limits that jurisdiction:
Due to the extraordinary circumstances present here,
actions authorized by this section shall proceed
immediately and to completion notwithstanding any
other provision of law including, but not limited to,
NEPA and the National Forest Management Act (16
U.S.C. 1601 et seq.). Such actions shall not be subject
to the notice, comment, and appeal requirements of the
Appeals Reform Act, (16 U.S.C. 1612 (note), Pub. Law
No. 102-381 sec. 322). Any action authorized by this
section shall not be subject to judicial review by any
court of the United States.
Rider § 706(j), 116 Stat. at 868 (emphasis added). At oral argument, BCA
contended that the italicized language does not preclude us from considering the
constitutionality of the Rider itself. The government disagrees, arguing that we
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have jurisdiction at most to determine whether the denial of jurisdiction, not the
entire Rider, is constitutional.
In determining the extent of our jurisdiction, we must start with the precise
language of the Rider, keeping in mind that such limitations of jurisdiction are to
be construed narrowly to avoid constitutional problems. See Johnson v. Robison ,
415 U.S. 361, 366-67 (1974). What is prohibited here is judicial review of “[a]ny
action authorized by” the Rider. Rider § 706(j), 116 Stat. at 868. BCA, however,
does not seem to be seeking judicial review of any specific actions already taken
or soon to be taken by the Forest Service. Rather, it has moved for enforcement
of the settlement agreement in the face of the new Congressional legislation.
Admittedly, the basis for the lawsuit, and the alleged injury that gives BCA
standing, is the prospect of Forest Service action pursuant to the Rider and in
violation of the settlement agreement. Yet at this point, no past or prospective
actions of the Forest Service are directly at issue. The question before us is
simply whether the settlement agreement has continuing validity in the face of
Congress’s intervening act.
The situation here is thus different from one in which the court is asked to
hold a party who has violated an injunction in contempt. In such a case, the
“actions” taken by a party to the injunction are directly at issue. BCA’s motion is
more analogous to a suit for declaratory judgment holding the Rider itself to be
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unconstitutional. Because BCA seeks judicial review of the congressional act
mandating that the settlement agreement be violated, rather than judicial review
of the Forest Service’s acts authorized by the Rider, the jurisdictional bar does
not apply. See Nat’l Coalition to Save Our Mall v. Norton , 269 F.3d 1092, 1095
(D.C. Cir. 2001). We therefore must reach the question of whether the Rider is
constitutional. Because this question is purely legal, our review is de novo. See
United States v. Pompey , 264 F.3d 1176, 1179 (10th Cir. 2001).
II
BCA’s chief argument is that the Rider trenches on the Executive by giving
the Forest Service marching orders so detailed that they go beyond merely
“passing new legislation” to interpreting the law, which is “the very essence of
‘execution’ of the law.” Bowsher v. Synar , 478 U.S. 714, 733 (1986). However,
they never clearly explain what, in their view, separates permissible legislation
from impermissible interpretation. The main flaw they find in the Rider is its
extreme particularity, making it seem as if their theory is that extreme
particularity by itself infringes the Executive’s power to enforce and execute the
law. At times, though, they make a more limited claim: that while specificity is
not per se unconstitutional, at least in this case it is “indicative” of the fact that
Congress has unconstitutionally “direct[ed] how law is to be implemented,” rather
than (constitutionally) changing the applicable law. Appellants’ Reply Br. 5.
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This more limited claim suggests that it is particularity in combination with some
other feature that raises the constitutional problem. We consider each theory in
turn.
A
BCA bases its argument on a handful of cases in which the Supreme Court
has held that the legislative branch cannot play a role in the interpretation and
execution of the law. See, e.g. , Metro. Washington Airports Auth. v. Citizens for
the Abatement of Aircraft Noise, Inc. , 501 U.S. 252, 271-72 (1991); Bowsher , 478
U.S. at 725-26; INS v. Chadha , 462 U.S. 917, 951-52 (1983); Springer v.
Philippine Islands , 277 U.S. 189, 201-02 (1928). There is no basis, however, for
BCA’s assertion that the sheer specificity of the 706 Rider takes it beyond the
realm of Congress’s legislative powers. Certainly the cases cited above do not
support this position. In each of those cases, Congress sought a role for itself in
the execution of the laws, beyond enactment of legislation, through mechanisms
such as a one-house legislative veto or the vesting of law-executing powers in
officers appointed by, or accountable to, Congress. In Bowsher , the Court held
that the Comptroller General, who serves at the pleasure of Congress, could not
be the officer who determined what spending cuts would be made in order to
reduce the deficit under the Gramm-Rudman-Hollings Act of 1985. 478 U.S. at
717-18, 736. Springer held that it violated separation of powers for members of
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the legislative branch to be directors of government-owned businesses. 277 U.S.
at 202-03. Similarly, Metropolitan Washington Airports struck down an
arrangement whereby a board of review composed of members of Congress had
authority to veto key acts of the Metropolitan Washington Airport Authority. 501
U.S. at 275-77. Chadha struck down a law that delegated authority to the
Attorney General to suspend certain deportations, but allowed either house of
Congress acting alone to veto the Attorney General’s decisions. 462 U.S. at 923,
944-59. None of these cases, or any others of which we are aware, suggest that
Congress is required to speak with some minimum degree of generality, so as to
leave play for the Executive to exercise discretion in interpreting the law. Rather,
the Constitution expressly leaves it up to Congress to determine how specific it
may deem it “necessary and proper” for the laws to be. U.S. Const. art. I, § 8, cl.
18. The cases cited above have simply forbidden Congress, or its members or
servants, from exerting legal authority without observing the formalities for the
passage of legislation under the Constitution: “bicameral passage followed by
presentment to the President.” Bowsher , 478 U.S. at 726 (quoting Chadha , 462
U.S. at 954-55). This is a structural and institutional means of guaranteeing that
Congress stays within the bounds of legislating, and is far superior to asking
courts to police the shades of gray between the poles of general and specific.
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To be sure, the Constitution imposes certain specific constraints on the
power of Congress to legislate with overmuch particularity. The Bill of Attainder
Clause, U.S. Const. art. I, § 9, cl. 3, and the “uniform Duties, Imposts, and
Excises” Clause, id. , § 8, cl. 1, are examples. See Nixon v. Adm’r of Gen. Servs. ,
433 U.S. 425, 468-73 (1977); United States v. Ptasynski , 462 U.S. 74, 80-85
(1983). Due process and equal protection principles similarly prevent Congress
from acting with respect to specific persons or groups in some contexts, and
specificity may be relevant to determining whether Congress has trenched on the
Executive’s ability to carry out its specifically enumerated executive powers.
Nixon , 433 U.S. at 443. But when Congress is exercising its own powers with
respect to matters of public right, the executive role of “tak[ing] Care that the
Laws be faithfully executed,” U.S. Const. art. II, § 3, is entirely derivative of the
laws passed by Congress, and Congress may be as specific in its instructions to
the Executive as it wishes. Indeed, as the Supreme Court has noted, Congress
may even pass legislation governing “a legitimate class of one.” Nixon , 433 U.S.
at 472.
In the instant case, none of the Constitution’s explicit restrictions on
specificity apply. The Property Clause states that “Congress shall have Power to
dispose of and make all needful Rules and Regulations respecting the Territory or
other Property belonging to the United States.” U.S. Const. art. IV, § 3, cl. 2.
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The Supreme Court has “repeatedly observed that the power over the public land
thus entrusted to Congress is without limitations.” Kleppe v. New Mexico , 426
U.S. 529, 539 (1976) (internal brackets and quotation marks omitted); see also
Wyoming v. United States , 279 F.3d 1214, 1227 (10th Cir. 2002). It would be
difficult if not impossible to control the use of federal lands without reference to
specific actions affecting specific tracts of land, and we see no reason why
Congress should be forced to avoid such directives. See Save Our Mall , 269 F.3d
at 1097 (noting that particularity is especially unproblematic when addressing
unique public amenities). The Supreme Court’s remark in Metropolitan
Washington Airports seems relevant here:
Because National and Dulles are the property of the
Federal Government and their operations directly affect
interstate commerce, there is no doubt concerning the
ultimate power of Congress to enact legislation defining
the policies that govern those operations. Congress
itself can formulate the details , or it can enact general
standards and assign to the Executive Branch the
responsibility for making necessary managerial decisions
in conformance with those standards.
501 U.S. at 271-72 (emphasis added).
Thus, BCA is mistaken when it argues that Congress has arrogated power to
itself at the expense of the executive branch because it “specifically ordered the
Executive Branch to carry out a duty which had been expressly delegated to the
Department of Agriculture, the management of the Black Hills National Forest.”
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Appellants’ Br. 23. To give specific orders by duly enacted legislation in an area
where Congress has previously delegated managerial authority is not an
unconstitutional encroachment on the prerogatives of the Executive; it is merely
to reclaim the formerly delegated authority. Such delegations, which are
accomplished by statute, are always revocable in like manner; they cannot extend
the domain reserved by the Constitution to the Executive alone. See Stop H-3
Ass’n v. Dole , 870 F.2d 1419, 1435 n.24 (9th Cir. 1989).
B
We now turn to consider the view that although the 706 Rider’s specificity
is unobjectionable in the abstract, it is still unconstitutional because it attempts to
mandate specific results without changing the underlying environmental laws.
BCA relies for this view chiefly on Robertson v. Seattle Audubon Society , where
the Supreme Court upheld a similar provision because it “compelled changes in
law, not findings or results under old law.” 503 U.S. 429, 438 (1992); see also
Apache Survival Coalition v. United States , 21 F.3d 895, 904 (9th Cir. 1994);
Stop H-3 Ass’n , 870 F.2d at 1434 (upholding a statute authorizing construction of
a highway despite an environmental regulation because it “does not interpret [the
relevant regulation’s] requirements but rather exempts H-3 from them”);
Armuchee Alliance v. King , 922 F. Supp. 1541, 1550 (N.D. Ga. 1996).
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Far from supporting BCA’s position, however, Seattle Audubon rejects an
argument very much like its own. The case concerned logging litigation to which
Congress responded by passing the Northwest Timber Compromise of 1990,
applicable only to timber sales entered before September 30, 1990, in thirteen
national forests in the Pacific Northwest. The key section of that legislation
stated that “Congress determines and directs that management of areas according
to [new rules set forth in the Northwest Timber Compromise] . . . meet[s] the
statutory requirements that are the basis for [the litigation].” 503 U.S. at 434-35.
The Ninth Circuit, below, had held that this did not “establish new law, but
direct[ed] the court to reach a specific result and make certain factual findings
under existing law in connection with two cases pending in federal court,” thus
encroaching on the judicial branch under United States v. Klein , 80 U.S. (13
Wall .) 128 (1872). Seattle Audubon Soc’y v. Robertson , 914 F.2d 1311, 1316 (9th
Cir. 1990) ( Seattle Audubon I ). In reversing, the Supreme Court criticized the
Ninth Circuit’s focus on the form of the enactment; instead, it looked to the legal
effect of the Seattle Audubon provision:
We conclude that subsection (b)(6)(A) compelled
changes in law, not findings or results under old law.
Before subsection (b)(6)(A) was enacted, the original
claims would fail only if the challenged harvesting
violated none of five old provisions. Under subsection
(b)(6)(A), by contrast, those same claims would fail if
the harvesting violated neither of two new provisions.
Its operation, we think, modified the old provisions.
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Seattle Audubon , 503 U.S. at 438.
This case follows a fortiori from Seattle Audubon . Just as in Seattle
Audubon , the 706 Rider has the practical effect of changing the scope of the
government’s legal duties. Before the Rider, the Forest Service was prohibited by
law from cutting trees without meeting various requirements of various
environmental laws; after the Rider, it is required to cut trees in the Black Hills
“notwithstanding” those laws. Rider § 706(j), 116 Stat. at 868. But the 706 Rider
lacks the problematic language – “the Congress determines and directs that
management of areas according to [new rules set forth in the Northwest Timber
Compromise] . . . meet[s] the statutory requirements that are the basis for [the
litigation]” – which the Ninth Circuit construed as interpreting rather than
amending the law. Seattle Audubon I, 914 F.2d at 1316. By contrast, the 706
Rider orders that certain actions be taken “notwithstanding” the requirements of
certain prior-enacted laws, thus effectively replacing the old standards, in this one
case, with new ones. Similar statutes have been upheld as constitutionally valid
amendments of the underlying law. See Save Our Mall , 269 F.3d at 1097; Apache
Survival Coalition , 21 F.3d at 904; Stop H-3 Ass’n , 870 F.2d at 1434. Thus, we
need not decide whether directing specific actions without changing the law
would be an unconstitutional attempt by Congress to usurp the Executive’s role in
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interpreting the law. 8
In accordance with the counsel in Bowsher , Congress has
influenced the execution of the law here only “indirectly – by passing new
legislation.” 478 U.S. at 734 (citing Chadha , 462 U.S. at 958).
III
Next, BCA claims that the 706 Rider encroaches on the Judiciary, in three
ways: (1) by disturbing final dispositions of cases in violation of Plaut v.
Spendthrift Farms, Inc. , 514 U.S. 211 (1995); (2) by prescribing rules of decision
to the Judiciary in pending cases, in violation of United States v. Klein , 80 U.S.
(13 Wall.) 128 (1871); and (3) by vesting review of judicial decisions in the
executive branch, in violation of the rule in Hayburn’s Case , 2 U.S. (2 Dall.) 408
(1792). We reject all three claims.
A
BCA’s first contention, that the 706 Rider impermissibly sets aside a final
judicial disposition, depends on a crucial but questionable premise: that the
settlement agreement is actually a judicial disposition rather than a mere private
8
We underscore that by relying on the fact that the 706 Rider changed
applicable law, we do not mean to suggest, any more than did Seattle Audubon,
that if the Rider had not changed the law it would necessarily have run afoul of
United States v. Klein. By interpreting the provision at issue in Seattle Audubon
as a change in the law, the Supreme Court expressly avoided addressing any such
constitutional question. 503 U.S. at 441. Thus, if a provision cannot be read as a
change in the law, the most that follows from this case or Seattle Audubon is that
the constitutional question of whether there is a Klein violation must be faced –
not that it must be answered in the affirmative.
-22-
agreement between the parties. Although the district court did incorporate the
settlement agreement by reference in its order dismissing the suit, it nevertheless
preferred the latter characterization in addressing BCA’s current request for
injunctive relief:
This case doesn’t even rise to the level where the Court
executed a consent decree. This is a case where the
parties sat down among themselves and settled the case.
The more proper analogy here is to an executory
settlement contract. It is true that the Court approved
the settlement agreement, but that is different from a
consent decree.
....
. . . [A]s far as I’m concerned, the Court’s
approval of the settlement agreement is entitled to very,
very little weight, because it was negotiated among the
parties.
Tr. of Mot. Hr’g dated Dec. 26, 2002, at 12, App. 405. Nevertheless, because the
settlement agreement was a judicial disposition in form if not in substance, we
assume for purposes of this appeal that it is entitled to the same constitutional
protection that it would have if the court had decided its terms.
1
Within the scope of its enumerated powers, Congress has authority to enact
laws to govern matters of public right, such as the management of the public
lands, and authority to change those laws. Even when the Judiciary has issued a
legal judgment enforcing a congressional act – for example, by a writ of
injunction – it is no violation of the judicial power for Congress to change the
-23-
terms of the underlying substantive law. The purpose of an injunction is to define
and enforce legal obligations, not to freeze them into place. Thus, when Congress
changes the laws, it is those amended laws – not the terms of past injunctions –
that must be given prospective legal effect. See, e.g. , Miller v. French , 530 U.S.
327, 347-50 (2000); Hall v. Beals , 396 U.S. 45, 48 (1969); System Fed’n No. 91 v.
Wright , 364 U.S. 642, 648-650 (1961); Am. Steel Foundries v. Tri-City Cent.
Trades Council , 257 U.S. 184, 201-07 (1921).
The Supreme Court applied this principle to dispose of a contention very
similar to BCA’s as long ago as 1855, in the venerable case of Pennsylvania v.
Wheeling & Belmont Bridge Co. , 59 U.S. (18 How.) 421 (1855). In that case,
Pennsylvania had previously brought suit to enjoin the construction of a bridge
over the Ohio River, which would obstruct access to Pennsylvania’s ports. The
Supreme Court eventually granted an injunction requiring the bridge to be
removed or raised. It reasoned that because Congress had “regulated the
navigation of the Ohio River, and had thereby secured to the public, by virtue of
its authority, the free and unobstructed use of the same,” the Virginia-authorized
bridge impeding travel on the Ohio River was “in conflict with the acts of
congress, which were the paramount law.” 59 U.S. (18 How.) at 430
(summarizing the earlier opinion).
-24-
Thereafter, Congress passed a new law authorizing the construction of the
bridge and stating that the bridge and one other were “lawful structures in their
present positions and elevations.” Wheeling Bridge , 59 U.S. (18 How.) at 429.
Pennsylvania sued again, claiming that the intervening enactment was an
unconstitutional attempt to overturn a final decision of the Judiciary. The
Supreme Court disagreed:
[I]f the remedy in this case had been an action at law,
and a judgment rendered in favor of the plaintiff for
damages, the right to these would have passed beyond
the reach of the power of congress. It would have
depended, not upon the public right of the free
navigation of the river, but upon the judgment of the
court. . . . But that part of the decree, directing the
abatement of the obstruction, is executory, a continuing
decree, which requires not only the removal of the
bridge, but enjoins the defendants against any
reconstruction or continuance. Now, whether it is a
future existing or continuing obstruction depends upon
the question whether or not it interferes with the right of
navigation. If, in the mean time, since the decree, this
right has been modified by the competent authority, so
that the bridge is no longer an unlawful obstruction, it is
quite plain the decree of the court cannot be enforced.
There is no longer any interference with the enjoyment
of the public right inconsistent with the law, no more
than there would be where the plaintiff himself had
consented to it, after the rendition of the decree.
Id. at 431-32. Central to the Court’s analysis was the fact that the right to
unobstructed waterways was a “public right . . . under the regulation of congress.”
Id. at 431. In other words, the plaintiff had no vested property right in an
-25-
unobstructed waterway. The core violation was against Congress’s right to
control the waterways, and Pennsylvania’s right to an unobstructed waterway was
only the derivative right to enjoy whatever degree of navigation Congress saw fit
to allow. So long as the will of Congress was to leave the river unimpeded, any
impediment was a violation of the public right thus defined. But once Congress
changed its mind, the contours of that right changed, and there was no more
ground for injunctive relief. If a landowner grants her neighbor a revocable
license to use a private road across her property, the neighbor could conceivably
obtain an injunction against any third party who prevents him from using that
road. However, that does not affect the right of the landowner to revoke the
license at any time. Should the license be revoked, the neighbor’s right to use the
private road ceases, and enforcing the injunction is no longer appropriate.
2
Wheeling Bridge has remained a fixed star in the Supreme Court’s
separation-of-powers jurisprudence, and numerous subsequent cases have relied
on it. See, e.g. , The Clinton Bridge , 77 U.S. 454, 463 (1870) (concluding, on the
basis of Wheeling Bridge , that in public rights cases, Congress could not only
modify injunctive relief already granted, but also could “g[i]ve the rule of
decision” in pending cases); Hodges v. Snyder , 261 U.S. 600, 603 (1923) (noting
that the normal rule against disturbing final judgments “does not apply to a suit
-26-
brought for the enforcement of a public right, which, even after it has been
established by the judgment of the court, may be annulled by subsequent
legislation and should not be thereafter enforced”); Sys. Fed’n No. 91 , 364 U.S. at
648-650 (holding that it is an abuse of discretion for a district court not to modify
an injunction to reflect changes in underlying law); Miller v. French , 530 U.S. at
347-48.
Even Plaut v. Spendthrift Farms, Inc. , the principal case on which BCA
relies, is careful not to disturb the holding of Wheeling Bridge . There the
Supreme Court had previously imputed a uniform nationwide statute of
limitations on actions brought under § 10(b) of the Securities Echange Act of
1934, Lampf, Pleva, Lipkind, Prupis & Petigrow v. Gilbertson , 501 U.S. 350
(1991), and held that the newly established statute of limitations applied to all
pending cases in the federal courts. James B. Beam Distilling Co. v. Georgia , 501
U.S. 529 (1991). Six months later, Congress passed a law changing the statute of
limitations for those cases commenced before Lampf to what it would have been
had the Supreme Court not imposed a uniform nationwide limitations period, and
reinstating all actions dismissed as time-barred if they would have been timely
under the limitations period of their local jurisdiction. See Federal Deposit
Insurance Corporation Act of 1991, Pub. L. No. 102-242, sec. 476, § 27A, 105
Stat. 2236 (codified at 15 U.S.C. § 78aa-1 (1988 Supp. V)). The Supreme Court
-27-
held that this action violated the separation of powers by requiring federal courts
to reopen final judgments. Plaut , 514 U.S. at 240. It reasoned that once the
judicial branch has given its final word on a case, to allow Congress to reopen the
case by legislation would destroy the power of the Judiciary to render final
judgments. Id. at 219. Instead, Congress would be in effect a court of last resort
to which one could appeal any “final” decision of the Judiciary.
In rejecting such an outcome, the Court in Plaut did no more than follow
the dicta of Wheeling Bridge itself:
But it is urged, that the act of congress cannot
have the effect and operation to annul the judgment of
the court already rendered, or the rights determined
thereby in favor of the plaintiff. This, as a general
proposition, is certainly not to be denied, especially as it
respects adjudication upon the private rights of the
parties . When they have passed into judgment the right
becomes absolute, and it is the duty of the court to
enforce it.
....
Now, we agree, if the remedy in this case had
been an action at law, and a judgment rendered in favor
of the Plaintiff for damages , the right to these would
have passed beyond the reach of the power of congress.
Wheeling Bridge , 59 U.S. (18 How.) at 431 (emphasis added), quoted in Plaut ,
514 U.S. at 226. As Plaut itself insists, it does not call the holding of Wheeling
Bridge into question at all. 514 U.S. at 232. The disturbed court decision in
Plaut definitively resolved a private claim to a certain amount of money, leaving
the defendants with an unconditional right to the sum in question; the judgments
-28-
in this case and in Wheeling Bridge merely prohibited future interference with the
enjoyment of a public right that remained revocable at Congress’s pleasure.
The Supreme Court has since reaffirmed the continued vitality of Wheeling
Bridge in Miller v. French . In that case, the Prison Litigation Reform Act had set
new limits on the power of courts to give injunctive relief to prisoners, requiring
(among other things) that any injunctive relief granted be both narrowly drawn to
correct the violation of federal rights and also the least intrusive means of
correcting the violation. 18 U.S.C. § 3626(a)(1)(A). The provision at issue in
Miller directed that an action to modify or terminate injunctive relief pursuant to
the PLRA would act as an automatic stay of any existing injunctive relief if a
court did not find that the injunctive relief remained appropriate under the new
standards within 30 days. Id. § 3626(b)(2).
In upholding the PLRA’s automatic stay, the Supreme Court found
Wheeling Bridge controlling, distinguishing Plaut because in that case Congress
had disturbed final judgments in actions for money damages. Miller , 530 U.S. at
344-45. The Court held that when courts grant prospective injunctive relief, they
remain obligated to modify that relief to the extent that “subsequent changes in
the law” render it illegal. Id. at 347.
3
-29-
This case falls squarely within the principle of Wheeling Bridge . BCA’s
members’ rights with respect to the national forests is a “public right . . . under
the regulation of congress,” Wheeling Bridge , 59 U.S. (18 How.) at 431, in
exactly the same way that the right to unimpeded navigation of the Ohio River
was. Both rights are entirely contingent on Congress’s continuing will that the
federal lands or interstate waterways be managed in a particular way. The
settlement agreement in the Veteran/Boulder matter in no way touched on vested
private rights. To be sure, the private interests of BCA’s members are
sufficiently affected to give rise to standing, but the interest they represented in
their lawsuit was nothing other than the interest of the public in seeing that
Congress’s environmental directives are observed by the Forest Service.
BCA’s attempts to distinguish Miller and Wheeling Bridge are unavailing.
It argues, first, that in those cases, Congress simply changed the law, leaving it
for the courts to decide whether to modify their injunctions, whereas here
Congress is directly requiring the courts to modify the settlement agreement. We
see no such distinction. In those cases, as here, Congress enacted rules in direct
conflict with existing legal obligations. In those cases, as here, courts later had to
decide whether those previous legal obligations remained enforceable in light of
Congress’s act.
-30-
Second, BCA argues that the 706 Rider specifically refers to a particular
settlement agreement it means to supercede, whereas the PLRA provision in
Miller “did not speak directly to any pre-existing judicial ruling or issuance of
relief.” Appellants’ Br. 27. The same was true in Wheeling Bridge. There,
legislation was targeted at two named bridges, one of which was the subject of the
injunction in the case. See 59 U.S. (18 How.) at 429. It is true that in Seattle
Audubon , the Court declined to address the question of whether such targeting
raised a constitutional problem. 503 U.S. at 441. However, its silence ended four
years later in Plaut . There, a concurrence found a constitutional violation
precisely because the reopening of dismissed cases “applie[d] only to a few
individual instances.” 514 U.S. at 243 (Breyer, J., concurring). A majority of the
Court rejected that position, describing it as “wrong in law.” Id. at 238. The
majority concluded that the infringement of the judicial power consisted “ not of
the Legislature’s acting in a particularized and thus (according to the
concurrence) nonlegislative fashion; but rather of the Legislature’s nullifying
prior, authoritative judicial action. It makes no difference whatever to that
separation-of-powers violation that it is in gross rather than particularized.” Id. at
239 (emphasis in original; footnote omitted); see also id. at 239 n.9 (“While
legislatures usually act through laws of general applicability, that is by no means
their only legitimate mode of operation.”).
-31-
To avoid constant interbranch friction, the lines separating the branches
should be clear. As the Supreme Court noted in Plaut , and as BCA’s arguments
illustrate, it only “prolongs doubt and multiplies confrontation” to make the
constitutional analysis hinge on the murky distinction between generalized
lawmaking and particularized application of the law. 514 U.S. at 240.
4
It is true that the injunction BCA seeks to enforce differs from the one in
Wheeling Bridge in that it is the product of a settlement agreement rather than a
product of a judicial declaration of right. Thus, Appellants’ claimed right to keep
Beaver Park unmolested might be said to rest directly on the terms of their
contractual agreement, and only indirectly on public rights provided by the
environmental laws. We must therefore consider whether the settlement
agreement has interposed a new set of contractual rights that adequately support
keeping the injunction in place, making changes to the scope of the underlying
public right irrelevant.
A negative answer to that question has been clear since at least 1961, when
the Supreme Court decided System Federation No. 91 v. Wright , 364 U.S. 642,
648-650 (1961). In that case, several nonunion railway employees brought a class
action against the railroad and various unions for discrimination against them and
other nonunion workers. The district court eventually entered a consent decree
-32-
enjoining the defendants “from discriminating against the plaintiffs and the
classes represented by them in this action by reason of or on account of the
refusal of said employees to join or retain their membership in any of defendant
labor organizations, or any labor organization.” Sys. Fed’n , 364 U.S. at 644. At
the time, labor law did not allow collective bargaining agreements to require
union shops. Id. at 645-46.
Later, when the applicable law had changed to allow such contracts, the
unions sought modification of the decree to make it clear that it would not prevent
them from bargaining for a union shop. Id. The district court refused to modify
the injunction; since nothing in the amended law made it illegal for parties to
agree not to have a union shop, the court concluded that the parties were stuck
with their agreement. Id.
The Sixth Circuit affirmed, but the Supreme Court reversed, holding that
the district court’s refusal to modify the decree was an abuse of discretion. Id. at
646, 650-53. The Court reasoned that, under Wheeling Bridge , the district court
would have had to modify the decree if it had been the result of litigation instead
of consent. Id. at 650-51. It then concluded that the same principles applied to
consent decrees:
The result is all one whether the decree has been entered
after litigation or by consent . . . . In either event, a
court does not abdicate its power to revoke or modify its
mandate, if satisfied that what it has been doing has
-33-
been turned through changing circumstances into an
instrument of wrong. We reject the argument . . . that a
decree entered upon consent is to be treated as a contract
and not as a judicial act . . . .
Id. at 650-51 (quoting United States v. Swift & Co. , 286 U.S. 106, 114-15 (1932)
(Cardozo, J.)) (some ellipses in original). The Court’s reasons are also applicable
here:
The parties cannot, by giving each other consideration,
purchase from a court of equity a continuing injunction.
In a case like this the District Court’s authority to adopt
a consent decree comes only from the statute which the
decree is intended to enforce. Frequently of course the
terms arrived at by the parties are accepted without
change by the adopting court. But just as the adopting
court is free to reject agreed-upon terms as not in
furtherance of statutory objectives, so must it be free to
modify the terms of a consent decree when a change in
law brings those terms in conflict with statutory
objectives. In short, it was the Railway Labor Act, and
only incidentally the parties, that the District Court
served in entering the consent decree now before us. The
court must be free to continue to further the objectives
of that Act when its provisions are amended. The parties
have no power to require of the court continuing
enforcement of rights the statute no longer gives.
Id. at 651. Put briefly, a settlement agreement or consent decree designed to
enforce statutory directives is not merely a private contract. It implicates the
courts, and it is the statute – and “only incidentally the parties” – to which the
courts owe their allegiance. The primary function of a settlement agreement or
consent decree, like that of a litigated judgment, is to enforce the congressional
-34-
will as reflected in the statute. The court should modify or refuse to enforce a
settlement agreement or proposed decree unless it is “in furtherance of statutory
objectives.” The agreement or consent decree is contractual only to the extent
that it represents an agreement by the parties regarding the most efficient means
of effectuating their rights under the statute. It does not freeze the provisions of
the statute into place. If the statute changes, the parties’ rights change, and
enforcement of their agreement must also change. Any other conclusion would
allow the parties, by exchange of consideration, to bind not only themselves but
Congress and the courts as well.
This principle applies even more clearly here than it did in System
Federation itself. There, the original injunction was not inconsistent with the
new law; it merely ruled out an option that Congress had since made permissible
but not mandatory. If that injunction had to change, then a fortiori the injunction
at issue here, which is inconsistent with the 706 Rider, must give way.
B
Having disposed of the claim that the 706 Rider disturbs the district court’s
final judgment in violation of Plaut , we turn to BCA’s somewhat inconsistent
claim that the Rider violates United States v. Klein because it dictates “rules of
decision” to the district court in a pending case.
-35-
Klein involved one episode in a series of conflicts between the
Reconstruction Congress and the balking President Andrew Johnson. Various
presidential proclamations had offered a “full pardon, with restoration of all
rights of property,” to certain broad classes, conditioned on taking an oath of
loyalty. Klein , 80 U.S. (13 Wall.) at 139-40. In the Abandoned and Captured
Property Act, 12 Stat. 820 (Mar. 12, 1863), however, Congress provided that the
owner of seized property could sue in the Court of Claims to recover its proceeds
only on proof that the owner “had never given aid or comfort to the rebellion.”
Id. at 138-39. In United States v. Padelford , 76 U.S. (9 Wall.) 531, 542-43
(1869) (mem.), the Supreme Court held that a presidential pardon renders the
pardoned “as innocent as if he had never committed the offense,” and concluded
that proof of pardon was equivalent to proof that the claimant had not aided the
rebellion. Congress responded to Padelford by passing an appropriations proviso
directing the Court of Claims to take the fact of a pardon, with some narrow
exceptions, as conclusive proof that the claimant had “given aid or comfort to the
rebellion,” and as grounds for dismissing the claimant’s suit. Klein , 80 U.S. (13
Wall.) at 142-43. The proviso also removed the Supreme Court’s authority to
hear appeals of such suits. Id. at 144-45. In Klein , the administrator of the estate
of V.F. Wilson, who had taken the oath and qualified for the pardon, sued to
recover the proceeds of Wilson’s seized property. Id. at 136, 143. The Supreme
-36-
Court found the proviso to be unconstitutional, both because it attempted to
impair the effect of a presidential pardon and because it “prescribe[d] rules of
decision to the Judicial Department of the government in cases pending before it.”
Id. at 146.
Klein is a notoriously difficult decision to interpret. Read broadly, the
“rules of decision” language of Klein would seem to contradict the well-
established principle that courts must decide cases according to statutes enacted
by Congress. See United States v. Schooner Peggy , 5 U.S. (1 Cranch) 103, 109
(1801); Miller , 530 U.S. at 344, 346-47.
In any event, the 706 Rider is very different from the unusual legislation
found unconstitutional in Klein. Central to the Court’s analysis in Klein was its
conclusion that the government’s seizure of the private property at issue did not
divest its owner of his property rights. See Klein, 80 U.S. (13 Wall.) at 136-39.
Thus, the basis of the Klein suit (at least in the eyes of the Klein court) was a
private right to property vindicated by a presidential pardon, which Congress was
therefore powerless to extinguish. See id. at 148. Since Congress could not
manipulate these private rights, Klein merely refused to allow Congress to
accomplish indirectly (by manipulating the judiciary’s interpretation of those
private rights) what it could not accomplish directly.
-37-
Thus understood, Klein is precisely in accord with Wheeling Bridge, as
Klein itself observes. See 80 U.S. (13 Wall.) at 146-47. When Congress does not
control the substance of a right, there are limits to its ability to influence the
judiciary’s determination of that right, either by directing the judiciary to decide a
particular way, or by setting aside judicial determinations after the fact. But
when rights are the creatures of Congress, as they were in Wheeling Bridge,
Congress is free to modify them at will, even though its action may dictate results
in pending cases and terminate prospective relief in concluded ones. Thus,
Klein’s prohibition on prescribing rules of decision in pending cases has no
application to public rights cases like this one.
The Supreme Court explicitly made this point in The Clinton Bridge, a case
decided only one year before Klein. That case addressed facts almost identical to
those in Wheeling Bridge. The only difference was that Congress passed
legislation authorizing the bridge in question while the suit over its legality was
still pending, not after the injunction issued. See 77 U.S. (10 Wall.) at 462-63.
The Court noted that, in so doing, Congress “gave the rule of decision for the
court” in the pending case. Id. at 463. While it found that to be unobjectionable
under Wheeling Bridge, it warned that “very different considerations would have
arisen” if Congress had attempted to dictate the rule of decision in a case
-38-
concerning a “private right of action.” Id. Klein must be read as the fulfillment
of that narrow warning, not the enunciation of any broader principle. 9
Furthermore, the Supreme Court has made it clear that Klein does not apply
to cases like this one: “Whatever the precise scope of Klein , . . . its prohibition
does not take hold when Congress amends applicable law.” Plaut , 514 U.S. at
218, quoted in Miller , 530 U.S. at 349 (internal quotation marks and brackets
omitted). Because, as we explained in Part II of this opinion, the 706 Rider did
“amend[] applicable law,” the Klein principle does not apply here.
C
Last, BCA claims that the 706 Rider violates the rule in Hayburn’s Case .
Hayburn’s Case has come to stand “for the principle that Congress cannot vest
review of the decisions of Article III courts in officials of the Executive Branch.”
Plaut , 514 U.S. at 218. BCA admits that the 706 Rider does not literally
authorize Forest Service officials to review judicial determinations. Nevertheless,
it maintains that the 706 Rider orders the Executive to ignore and violate judicial
orders, and that this is close enough to make out a claim under Hayburn’s Case .
The same analysis disposes of BCA’s contention that the 706 Rider
9
disturbed the result in another then-pending case, Sierra Club-Black Hills Group
v. United States Forest Serv., No. 94-D-2273 (D. Colo. Feb. 20, 2003).
Subsections (h) and (i) of the Rider directed the Forest Service to take specific
actions in the Norbeck Wildlife Preserve, the area under dispute in the Sierra
Club litigation.
-39-
We disagree. As discussed above, it is well-established that new law can modify
old injunctive decrees. Whenever that happens, the new law at least implicitly
orders the Executive to ignore the old decrees.
BCA maintains that in such circumstances, Congress’s act cannot
constitutionally modify an injunction directly. Instead, it claims, any
modification must be the made by the court itself (though the court may be
obliged to do it), and until the court does so, the injunction remains in force.
Thus, because the 706 Rider directs the Forest Service to proceed with its tree-
cutting activities regardless of whether the court modifies the settlement
agreement, it unconstitutionally directs the Executive to ignore an injunction in
force. But this is not the lesson of our cases. Wheeling Bridge held, not merely
that Congress’s legislation made modification of the injunction necessary, but that
it rendered the injunction unenforceable. 59 U.S. (18 How.) at 432; Miller , 530
U.S. at 346. Similarly, the provision upheld in Miller v. French went beyond
ordering judges to stay prospective relief after 30 days; instead, it stated that a
motion to terminate injunctive relief “shall operate as a stay” of that relief
beginning 30 days after the motion – thus staying the injunctive relief without any
action by the court. Miller , 530 U.S. at 331. When Congress is acting within the
boundaries set by Wheeling Bridge and Miller , the parties to a modified injunction
-40-
need not wait upon the court to ratify the congressional change. Thus, we see no
violation of Hayburn’s Case or any other constitutional principle here.
IV
Viewed realistically, the 706 Rider intrudes on neither executive nor
judicial authority. The Rider comports with the current view of executive branch
officials regarding management of the national forest. And while the Rider
overrides a settlement agreement entered by the district court, that agreement was
in fact a private agreement between the parties, in which the Judiciary had little or
no independent involvement. To overturn the Rider would thus serve not to
vindicate the constitutionally entrusted prerogatives of those two branches, but
rather to keep in place a private group’s own preferences about forest
preservation policy in the face of contrary judgments by the Executive and
Congress. True principles of separation of powers prevent settlement agreements
negotiated by private parties and officials of the executive branch from
encroaching either on the constitutionally vested authority of Congress or on the
statutorily vested authority of those officials’ successors in office. BCA’s claim
amounts to the argument that an agreement forged by a private group with a
former administration, without serious judicial involvement, can strip both
Congress and the Executive of their discretionary powers. The Constitution
neither compels nor permits such a result.
-41-
The executive branch does not have authority to contract away the
enumerated constitutional powers of Congress or its own successors, and certainly
neither does a private group. 10
Accordingly, the governance of the Black Hills
National Forest must be conducted according to the new rules set by Congress, as
Article IV of the Constitution provides.
For the foregoing reasons, the district court’s denial of BCA’s motion is
AFFIRMED.
10
Even when the Government unmistakably contracts not to exercise its
sovereign powers in otherwise permissible ways, that promise cannot be enforced
by injunction, as BCA seeks to do here. At most, such a contract may give rise in
certain circumstances to a suit for damages. See United States v. Winstar Corp.,
518 U.S. 839, 910 (1996) (plurality opinion); id. at 923 (Scalia, J., concurring);
Perry v. United States, 294 U.S. 330, 351-53 (1935); Lynch v. United States, 292
U.S. 571, 580 (1934); The Sinking Fund Cases, 99 U.S. 700, 718-19 (1878). As
the plurality stated in Winstar,“[t]he Government cannot make a binding contract
that it will not exercise a sovereign power, but it can agree in a contract that if it
does so, it will pay the other contracting party the amount by which its costs are
increased by the Government’s sovereign act.” 518 U.S. at 881-82 (quoting
Amino Bros. v. United States, 372 F.2d 485, 491 (Ct. Cl. 1967)). Appellants have
made no claim for damages in this case, nor could they.
-42-
Biodiversity Associates v. Cables
Court: Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit
Date filed: 2004-02-04
Citations: 357 F.3d 1152
Copy CitationsCombined Opinion