John v. Alaska Fish and Wildlife Conservation Fund, No. 09-36122 (9th Cir. 2013)
Annotate this CaseThese consolidated appeals concerned the 1999 Final Rules, identifying which navigable waters within Alaska constituted "public lands," promulgated by the Secretaries to implement part of the Alaska National Interstate Lands Conservation Act (ANILCA), 16 U.S.C. 3101-3233. The court concluded that Katie John I was a problematic solution to a complex problem, in that it sanctioned the use of a doctrine ill-fitted to determining which Alaskan waters were "public lands" to be managed for rural subsistence priority under ANILCA; but Katie John I remains the law of this circuit and the court, like the Secretaries, must apply it the best it can; in the 1999 Rules, the Secretaries have applied Katie John I and the federal reserved water rights doctrine in a principled manner; it was reasonable for the Secretaries to decide that the "public lands" subject to ANILCA's rural subsistence priority included the waters within and adjacent to federal reservations; and reserved water rights for Alaska Native Settlement allotments were best determined on a case-by-case basis.
Court Description: Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act. The panel affirmed the district court’s decisions upholding the 1999 Final Rules promulgated by the Secretary of the Interior and the Secretary of Agriculture to implement part of the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act concerning subsistence fishing and hunting rights. In Alaska v. Babbitt, 72 F.3d 698 (9th Cir. 1995) (“Katie John I”), the court held that, because Congress included subsistence fishing in Title VIII, the Act applied to some of Alaska’s navigable waters. The 1999 Rules identified which navigable waters within Alaska constituted “public lands” under Title VIII of the Act, which provides a priority to rural Alaska residents for subsistence hunting and fishing on such lands. As threshold issues, the panel held that the Secretaries appropriately used notice-and-comment rulemaking, rather than adjudication, to identify whose waters are “public lands” for the purpose of determining the scope of the Act’s rural subsistence policy; and that in construing the term “public lands,” the Secretaries were entitled to “some deference.” The panel concluded that, in the 1999 Rules, the Secretaries applied Katie John I and the federal reserved water rights doctrine in a principled manner. The panel held that it was reasonable for the Secretaries to decide that: the “public lands” subject to the Act’s rural subsistence priority included the waters within and adjacent to federal reservations; and reserved water rights for Alaska Native Settlement allotments were best determined on a case-by-case basis.
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