Page:John Sturgeon v. Bert Frost, in his official capacity as Alaska Regional Director of the National Park Service.pdf/28

24 supra, at 19, and n. 5. And the word serves to distinguish between the Park Service’s rules and other regulations, both federal and state. Consider if Congress had exempted non-public lands in a system unit from regulations “applicable to public lands” there (without the “solely”). That language would apparently exempt those lands not just from park regulations but from a raft of others—e. g., pollution regulations of the Environmental Protection Agency, water safety regulations of the Coast Guard, even employment regulations of Alaska itself. For those rules, too, apply to public lands inside national parks. By adding “solely,” Congress made clear that the exemption granted was not from such generally applicable regulations. Instead, it was from rules applying only in national parks—i. e., the newly looming Park Service rules. Congress thus ensured that inholdings would emerge from ANILCA not worse off—but also not better off—than before.