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2 

WEYERHAEUSER CO. v. UNITED STATES FISH AND 
WILDLIFE SERV.
 
Syllabus
 

benefits of designating Unit 1 against the economic impact, had used
an  unreasonable  methodology  for  estimating  economic  impact,  and
had failed to consider several categories of costs.  The District Court 
approved the Service’s methodology and declined to consider the chal-
lenge  to  the  Service’s  decision  not  to  exclude  Unit  1.    The  Fifth  Cir-
cuit affirmed, rejecting the suggestion that the “critical habitat” defi-
nition contains any habitability requirement and concluding that the
Service’s decision not to exclude Unit 1 was committed to agency dis-
cretion by law and was therefore unreviewable. 

Held: 

1. An  area  is  eligible  for  designation  as  critical  habitat  under 
§1533(a)(3)(A)(i)  only  if  it  is  habitat  for  the  species.    That  provision,
the sole source of authority for critical-habit designations, states that
when the Secretary lists  a species as endangered he must also “des-
ignate any habitat of such species which is then considered to be crit-
ical  habitat.”    It  does  not  authorize  the  Secretary  to  designate  the
area as critical habitat unless it is also habitat for the  species.  The 
definition allows the Secretary to identify a subset of habitat that is
critical, but leaves the larger category of habitat undefined.  The Ser-
vice  does  not  now  dispute  that  critical  habitat  must  be  habitat,  but
argues that habitat can include areas that, like Unit 1, would require 
some degree of modification to support a sustainable population of a
given species.  Weyerhaeuser urges that habitat cannot include areas 
where the species could not currently survive.  The Service, in turn, 
disputes  the  premise  that  the  administrative  record  shows  that  the 
frog could not survive in Unit 1.  The Court of Appeals, which had no
occasion  to  interpret  the  term  “habitat”  in  §1533(a)(3)(A)(i)  or  to  as-
sess  the  Service’s  administrative  findings  regarding  Unit  1,  should
address these questions in the first instance.  Pp. 8–10.

2. The Secretary’s decision not to exclude an area from critical hab-
itat under §1533(b)(2) is subject to judicial review.  The Administra-
tive Procedure Act creates a “basic presumption of judicial review” of
agency  action.  Abbott  Laboratories  v.  Gardner,  387  U. S.  136,  140. 
The Service contends that the presumption is rebutted here because 
the  action  is  “committed  to  agency  discretion  by  law,”  5  U. S. C.
§701(a)(2), because §1533(b)(2) is one of those rare provisions “drawn
so that a court would have no meaningful standard against which to 
judge  the  agency’s  exercise  of  discretion,”  Lincoln  v.  Vigil,  508  U. S. 
182, 191.   

Section 1533(b)(2) describes a unified process for weighing the im-
pact  of  designating  an  area  as  critical  habitat.    The  provision’s  first 
sentence requires the Secretary to “tak[e] into consideration” econom-
ic and other impacts before designation, and the second sentence au-
thorizes the Secretary to act on his consideration by providing that he