Opinion ID: 615194
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Montana Wilderness Study Act

Text: The Study Act requires the Service to administer wilderness study areas so as to maintain their presently existing wilderness character and potential for inclusion in the National Wilderness Preservation System. Study Act § 3(a). This provision imposes two requirements. First, the Service must administer study areas so as to maintain their wilderness character as it existed in 1977. Second, the Service must administer the areas so as to maintain their potential for designation as wilderness areasi.e., as part of the National Wilderness Preservation System. The dispute here concerns the first of these requirements. The recreational groups urge, and the district court concluded, that the obligation to administer study areas so as to maintain their presently existing wilderness character prohibits the Service not only from degrading the wilderness character of a study area, but also from enhancing it. They argue that the Service improperly attempted to enhance the study area's wilderness character by reducing overall motorized use miles in the study area beyond 1977 levels. The Service disputes that interpretation, arguing that the Study Act creates a floor, not a ceiling, for environmental protection. The Service is correct. The Study Act plainly mandates preservation of a base level, but does not prohibit enhancing the area's wilderness character above that level. Webster's defines maintain as to keep in a state of repair, efficiency, or validity and as to preserve from failure or decline. Webster's Third New International Dictionary 1362 (2002). Other dictionaries confirm this meaning. See Owasso Indep. Sch. Dist. No. I-011 v. Falvo, 534 U.S. 426, 433, 122 S.Ct. 934, 151 L.Ed.2d 896 (2002) (The ordinary meaning of the word `maintain' is `to keep in existence or continuance; preserve; retain.' (quoting Random House Dictionary of the English Language 1160 (2d ed.1987))); American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language 1055 (4th ed.2000) (defining maintain as To keep up or carry on; continue, and as To keep in an existing state; preserve or retain); Oxford English Dictionary (online version June 2011) (defining maintain to include To keep up, preserve, cause to continue in being (a state of things, a condition, an activity, etc.); to keep vigorous, effective, or unimpaired; to guard from loss or deterioration.). In sum, the Study Act simply requires the Service to preserve a study area's wilderness character against decline. Enhancement of wilderness character is fully consistent with the Study Act's mandate, although the Study Act does not require it. [6] This meaning is confirmed by the purposes of the Study Act. One of the Act's express aims is to preserve a study area's wilderness character throughout the study period. The Study Act does not define the term wilderness character, but the parties agree that it borrows a definition of wilderness from the Wilderness Act, Pub.L. No. 88-577, 78 Stat. 890 (1964) (codified at 16 U.S.C. § 1131(c)). [7] The Wilderness Act defines wilderness as an area that has, among other things, `outstanding opportunities for solitude or a primitive and unconfined type of recreation.' Greater Yellowstone Coal. v. Timchak, No. CV-06-04-E-BLW, 2006 WL 3386731, at  (D.Idaho Nov. 21, 2006) (applying the Wyoming Wilderness Act of 1984, which contains language identical to the Study Act) (quoting 16 U.S.C. § 1131(c)). [8] The Study Act accordingly requires the Forest Service to administer [wilderness study areas] to maintain overall wilderness character, including opportunities for solitude or primitive and confined recreation[,] that existed there in [1977], until the area is either designated as a wilderness area or removed from the Study Act. Id. at ; see also id. at - (overturning the Service's decision permitting increased heli-skiing in the Palisades Wilderness Study Area where the Service failed to show that increased helicopter use would not diminish current users' available opportunities for solitude compared to 1984 levels). The Service can accomplish this purposeproviding current users with opportunities for solitude comparable to those that existed in 1977when the Service either preserves against decline or enhances wilderness character. The Study Act's other express aim is to maintain a study area's potential for inclusion in the National Wilderness Preservation System. Study Act § 3(a). Once again, the Service acts consistently with this objective when it either preserves against decline or enhances the wilderness protection of the area. Preserving motorized recreational uses, by contrast, does nothing to maintain the area's potential for wilderness designation. The Study Act's legislative history also shows that enhancement is permitted. The Senate report explains that the Study Act directs the Secretary to administer the proposed study areas so as not to diminish their presently existing wilderness character and potential. S.Rep. No. 95-163, at 1 (1977) (emphasis added); see also id. at 2 (stating that the study areas are to be managed by the Secretary so as not to diminish their presently existing wilderness character and potential (emphasis added)). The choice of the word diminish reveals that Congress intended to protect wilderness character from decline rather than to prevent enhancement. The recreational groups point out, correctly, that Congress appears to have contemplated that existing recreational activities, including motorized uses, could continue during the study period, so long as those activities did not diminish wilderness character, undermine a study area's potential for wilderness designation or conflict with the Service's overall forest management objectives. See S.Rep. No. 95-163, at 2 (1977) (explaining that the language regarding wilderness character and potential was added by the committee... to assure continued enjoyment of the areas by those recreationists whose pursuits will not, in the judgment of the Secretary, preclude potential wilderness designation for the areas); H.R.Rep. No. 95-620 (1977), at 4 (The use of off-road vehicles, while generally prohibited in designated wilderness areas, is entirely appropriate in wilderness study areas....). Congress did not, however, mandate that motorized recreational levels be maintained. [9] And Congress made clear that the Service was free to reduce motorized use levels when carrying out its general obligations to manage national forestsas it has done here. See id. (Nothing in [the Study Act] will prohibit the use of off-road vehicles, unless the normal Forest Service planning process and travel planning process, which applies to all national forest lands, determines off-road vehicle use to be inappropriate in a given area.). [10] We therefore hold that nothing in the Study Act prohibits the Service from enhancing the wilderness character of a wilderness study area. The district court's decision that the travel plan violates the Study Act is accordingly reversed. [11]