Green groups back suit by SUWA

WASHINGTON — A virtual Who's Who of environmental groups — plus 14 state governments — are arguing in briefs that federal environmental law would be completely undermined if the U.S. Supreme Court overturns a Utah case now before it.

For example, 14 state attorneys general wrote that would mean the Interior Department's "stewardship responsibility over federal lands, including wilderness study areas, are largely immune from federal (court) scrutiny" — no matter how bad a job it might be doing.

At issue is a lawsuit by the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance against Interior Secretary Gale Norton contending the Bureau of Land Management is not doing as much as required by law to protect wildernesslike areas in Utah from damage by off-road vehicles. It also says the BLM is not following its own land-use plans.

The Supreme Court is reviewing a 10th Circuit Court of Appeals decision allowing that suit to be brought under a section of the Administrative Procedure Act that permits suing "to compel any agency action unlawfully withheld or unreasonably delayed."

U.S. Solicitor General Theodore B. Olson has argued in briefs that the lower court improperly expanded the law to allow reviewing the adequacy of an agency's ongoing management — not just whether it is acting at all. He argues that if the decision stands, courts instead of the BLM will soon become the day-to-day managers of public lands.

In a series of briefs filed as the court prepares for the March 29 oral arguments on the case, a parade of environmental groups urged the court to uphold the 10th Circuit.

Among them are every living former chairman of the White House Council on Environmental Quality.

Also, 14 states joined a similar brief to support SUWA: California, Colorado, Connecticut, Illinois, Massachusetts, Missouri, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, New York, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Dakota and Wisconsin. (Utah and several of its rural counties have sided with the Bush administration in the case.)

Also, virtually every major environmental group, from the National Resources Defense Council to the National Wildlife Federation, joined briefs supporting SUWA.

And 38 professors nationwide of administrative and environmental law joined in a similar brief (including University of Utah professors Robert Keiter and Robert Adler).