Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/boundvolumes/529bv.pdf
Page Number: 817

529US3

Unit: $U57

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PUBLIC LANDS COUNCIL v. BABBITT

Opinion of the Court

and that the Secretary is free reasonably to determine just
how, and the extent to which, “grazing privileges” shall be
safeguarded, in light of the Act’s basic purposes. Of course,
those purposes include “stabiliz[ing] the livestock industry,”
but they also include “stop[ping] injury to the public grazing
lands by preventing overgrazing and soil deterioration,” and
“provid[ing] for th[e] orderly use, improvement, and develop-
ment” of the public range. 48 Stat. 1269; see supra, at 733.
Moreover, Congress itself has directed development of
land use plans, and their use in the allocation process, in
order to preserve, improve, and develop the public range-
lands. See 43 U. S. C. §§ 1701(a)(2), 1712. That being so, it
is difﬁcult to see how a deﬁnitional change that simply refers
to the use of such plans could violate the Taylor Act by itself,
without more. Given the broad discretionary powers that
the Taylor Act grants the Secretary, we must read that Act
as here granting the Secretary at least ordinary administra-
tive leeway to assess “safeguard[ing]” in terms of the Act’s
other purposes and provisions. Cf. §§ 315, 315a (authorizing
Secretary to establish grazing districts “in his discretion”
(emphasis added), and to “make provision for protection, ad-
ministration, regulation, and improvement of such grazing
districts”).

Second, the pre-1995 AUM system that the ranchers seek
to “safeguard” did not offer them anything like absolute se-
curity—not even in respect to the proportionate shares of
grazing land privileges that the “active/suspended” system
suggested. As discussed above, the Secretary has long had
the power to reduce an individual permit’s AUMs or cancel
the permit if the permit holder did not use the grazing privi-
leges, did not use the base property, or violated the Range
Code. See supra, at 735 (collecting CFR citations 1938–
1998). And the Secretary has always had the statutory au-
thority under the Taylor Act and later FLPMA to reclassify
and withdraw rangeland from grazing use, see 43 U. S. C.