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Page Number: 17

14 

WEYERHAEUSER CO. v. UNITED STATES FISH AND 
WILDLIFE SERV.
 
Opinion of the Court 

which  is  that  the  Secretary’s  decision  not  to  exclude  an
area  is  wholly  discretionary  and  therefore  unreviewable. 
Brief  for  Federal  Respondents  50.  The  Service  bases  its 
understanding  on  the  second  sentence  of  Section  4(b)(2),
which  states  that  the  Secretary  “may  exclude  [an]  area
from  critical  habitat  if  he  determines  that  the  benefits  of 
such exclusion outweigh the benefits of [designation].”

The  use  of  the  word  “may”  certainly  confers  discretion 
on  the  Secretary.  That  does  not,  however,  segregate  his 
discretionary  decision  not  to  exclude  from  the  procedure
mandated  by  Section  4(b)(2),  which  directs  the  Secretary
to consider the economic and other impacts of designation 
when  making  his  exclusion  decisions.    Weyerhaeuser’s
claim  is  the  familiar  one  in  administrative  law  that  the 
agency  did  not  appropriately  consider  all  of  the  relevant 
factors  that  the  statute  sets  forth  to  guide  the  agency  in 
the  exercise  of  its  discretion.    Specifically,  Weyerhaeuser
contends that the Service ignored some costs and conflated 
the  benefits  of  designating  Unit  1  with  the  benefits  of 
designating all of the proposed critical habitat.  This is the 
sort  of  claim  that  federal  courts  routinely  assess  when 
determining whether to set aside an agency decision as an 
abuse  of  discretion  under  §706(2)(A).  See  Judulang  v. 
Holder, 565 U. S. 42, 53 (2011) (“When reviewing an agency
action, we must assess . . . whether the decision was based 
on  a  consideration  of  the  relevant  factors  and  whether 
there has been a clear error of judgment.” (internal quota-
tion marks omitted)).

Section  4(b)(2)  requires  the  Secretary  to  consider  eco-
nomic impact and relative benefits before deciding whether
to  exclude  an  area  from  critical  habitat  or  to  proceed 
with designation.  The statute is, therefore, not “drawn so 
that  a  court  would  have  no  meaningful  standard  against 
which to judge the [Secretary’s] exercise of [his] discretion”
not to exclude.  Lincoln, 508 U. S., at 191. 

Because it determined that the Service’s decisions not to