Opinion ID: 1210694
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: Whether the Forest Service's Interpretation is Entitled to Deference

Text: Agencies are entitled to deference to their interpretation of their own regulations, including Forest Plans. Native Ecosystems Council, 418 F.3d at 960 (citation and internal quotations omitted); see also Hells Canyon Alliance v. United States Forest Serv., 227 F.3d 1170, 1180 (9th Cir.2000). Indeed, although forest plans are adopted under 16 U.S.C. § 1604(a), we have effectively treated forest plan directives as equivalent to federal regulations adopted under the APA, deferring to the Forest Service's interpretation of plan directives that are susceptible to more than one meaning unless the interpretation is plainly erroneous or inconsistent with the directive. See Forest Guardians v. United States Forest Serv., 329 F.3d 1089, 1099 (9th Cir.2003) (citing Thomas Jefferson Univ. v. Shalala, 512 U.S. 504, 512, 114 S.Ct. 2381, 129 L.Ed.2d 405 (1994)); Hells Canyon Alliance, 227 F.3d at 1180 (citing Auer v. Robbins, 519 U.S. 452, 461, 117 S.Ct. 905, 137 L.Ed.2d 79 (1997)). [9] In contrast, where neither the scope nor the effect of the regulation in question is ambiguous, [t]here is no call for deference to the agency's legal interpretation. Lands Council v. Powell, 395 F.3d 1019, 1034 (9th Cir.2005) (The Forest Service asserts that we owe its interpretation deference as a reasonable interpretation of an ambiguity in a Forest Plan.... There is no call for deference to the agency's legal interpretation of these two standards, however, because neither the scope nor the effect of the two standards is ambiguous. (citation omitted)); see also Christensen v. Harris County, 529 U.S. 576, 588, 120 S.Ct. 1655, 146 L.Ed.2d 621 (2000) ( Auer deference is warranted only when the language of the regulation is ambiguous.). Thus, an agency may not, under the guise of interpreting a regulation,... create de facto a new regulation. Christensen, 529 U.S. at 588, 120 S.Ct. 1655. The fact that an agency's interpretation has fluctuated over time, however, does not make it unworthy of deference. Kennedy v. Plan Adm'r for DuPont Sav. & Inv. Plan, ___ U.S. ____, 129 S.Ct. 865, 872 n. 7, 172 L.Ed.2d 662 (2009) (citing Long Island Care at Home, Ltd. v. Coke, 551 U.S. 158, 171, 127 S.Ct. 2339, 168 L.Ed.2d 54 (2007)).