Page:John Sturgeon v. Bert Frost, in his official capacity as Alaska Regional Director of the National Park Service.pdf/40

6 This principle is all that is required to resolve Sturgeon’s case. The hovercraft rule applies only inside park boundaries. 36 CFR §1.2(a) (“regulations contained in this chapter apply to all persons entering, using, visiting, or otherwise within… [w]aters subject to the jurisdiction of the United States located within the boundaries of the National Park System”). The Nation River is, for legal purposes, outside of park boundaries. The hovercraft rule therefore does not apply on the Nation River.

Critically, although the Court decides today that the Service may not regulate the Nation River “as part of the park,” ante, at 16, the Court does not hold that ANILCA §103(c) strips the Service of all authority to protect navigable waters in Alaska. For good reason. It would be absurd to think that Congress intended for the Service to preserve Alaska’s rivers, but left it without any tools to do so.

Imagine if all Service regulations could apply in Alaska’s parklands only up to the banks of navigable rivers, and the Service lacked any authority whatsoever over the rivers themselves. If Jane Smith were to stand on the public bank of the Nation River, bag of trash in hand, Service rules could prohibit her from discarding the trash on the riverbank. See 36 CFR §2.14(a)(1). The rules also could bar her from intentionally disturbing wildlife breeding activities, §2.2(a)(2), making unreasonably loud noises, §2.12(a)(1)(ii), and introducing wildlife into the park ecosystem, §2.1(a)(2). But reading ANILCA §103(c) to bar any Park Service regulation of navigable waters would