Page:John Sturgeon v. Bert Frost, in his official capacity as Alaska Regional Director of the National Park Service.pdf/21

Rh To understand why, first recall how Section 103(c) grew out of ANILCA’s unusual method for drawing park boundaries. See supra, at 7–8. Those lines followed the area’s “natural features,” rather than (as customary) the Federal Government’s property holdings. 16 U. S. C. §3103(b). The borders thus took in immense tracts owned by the State, Native Corporations, and private individuals. And as you might imagine, none of those parties was eager to have its lands newly regulated as national parks. To the contrary, all of them wanted to preserve the regulatory status quo—to prevent ANILCA’s maps from subjecting their properties to the Park Service’s rules. Hence arose Section 103(c). Cf. Tr. of Oral Arg. 50 (Solicitor General acknowledging that Section 103(c) responds to the State’s and Native Corporations’ “concern[s]” about the effects of “includ[ing their lands] within the outer boundaries” of the new parks). Now might be a good time to review that provision, block quoted above. See supra, at 9. In broad brush strokes, Sturgeon I. described it as follows: “Section 103(c) draws a distinction between ‘public’ and ‘non-public’ lands,” including waters, “within the boundaries of [Alaska’s] conservation system units.” 577 U. S., at ___ (slip op., at 14).

Section 103(c)’s first sentence sets out the essential distinction, relating to what qualifies as parkland. It provides, once again, that “[o]nly” the “public lands” (essentially, the federally owned lands) within any system unit’s boundaries would be “deemed” a part of that unit. §3103(c). The non-public lands (everything else) were, by negative implication, “deemed” not a part of the unit—even though within the unit’s geographic boundaries. The key word here is “deemed.” That term is used in legal materials “[t]o treat (something) as if… it were really something else.” Black’s Law Dictionary 504 (10th ed.