Court Opinion

ID: 9478549
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 06:51:54.837741+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:46:29.429830
License: Public Domain

BREYER, Circuit Judge
(concurring).
I agree with the panel that, given the statute’s proviso, one cannot reasonably read it as imposing an absolute ban on ORVs, particularly since many fishermen and campers like to use them. I also agree with the panel’s opinion; we cannot now say that the Interior Department’s regulations are “arbitrary, capricious” or an “abuse of discretion.” 5 U.S.C. § 706(2)(A). I add only that this latter question is quite a close one. The Conservation Law Foundation, in its brief, notes that recreational “vehicles are used by less than 2.5 percent of the summertime visitors to the Seashore The government, in its brief, says that it has set aside 8 miles, of 48 Cape Cod National Seashore beachfront miles, or 16 percent of the beach, for ORV use. Although it seems fairly obvious that those who use ORVs need a length of coastline in which to use them, it is also fairly obvious that their use is often incompatible with the quiet enjoyment of the seashore that the Cape Cod National Seashore Act contemplated the vast majority of visitors would seek. At some geographical point, reserving miles of coastline for ORVs would amount to taking too much from too many for the enjoyment of too few. We here hold only that, giving full and appropriate weight to the judgment of the administrators, we cannot say, on the basis of the record before us, that 16 percent actually crosses the line marked by the statutory word “arbitrary.”