## Facts

- The U.S. Forest Service managed the Black Hills National Forest under a revised 1997 forest plan that contemplated opening the Beaver Park Roadless Area to timber sales.
- Environmental groups, including Biodiversity Conservation Alliance, challenged a proposed timber sale and resolved the dispute through a settlement limiting tree cutting in Beaver Park until approval of a new forest management plan.
- A mountain pine beetle outbreak intensified, and Forest Service officials sought to remove beetle-infested trees in Beaver Park; the environmental groups refused to modify the settlement.
- Congress enacted an appropriations rider directing specific beetle-control management actions in the Black Hills, overriding otherwise applicable environmental and administrative-review requirements.
- The rider expressly superseded the settlement agreement and barred judicial review of actions mandated by the rider.
- Biodiversity Conservation Alliance moved in federal district court to enforce the settlement and argued the rider violated separation of powers; the district court denied relief, and the Alliance appealed.

## Issues

1. Whether Congress violated separation of powers by enacting a highly specific appropriations rider that superseded a court-enforceable settlement agreement and directed agency actions in a discrete controversy.
2. Whether the rider’s restriction or preclusion of judicial review unconstitutionally intruded on the federal judiciary’s Article III role.
3. Whether the rider impermissibly interfered with executive branch functions by prescribing detailed forest-management directives to the Forest Service.

## Decision

- The Tenth Circuit affirmed the district court’s denial of the Alliance’s motion.
- The court held Congress acted within its constitutional authority in enacting the rider and that the rider did not violate separation of powers.
- The court concluded the rider validly superseded the prior settlement by changing the governing law applicable to the forest-management dispute.
- The court upheld the rider’s limitation on judicial review as an exercise of Congress’s power to define the jurisdiction of lower federal courts.
- Certiorari was denied.

## Legal Principles

- Under the Property Clause, Congress has broad authority to regulate federal lands and may alter the legal regime governing national forest management.
- A statute may affect pending disputes and existing court-enforceable settlements if Congress changes the applicable law rather than directing a result under unchanged law.
- Legislative specificity does not, by itself, convert legislation into an unconstitutional adjudication; targeted public-lands measures may be enacted through ordinary lawmaking.
- Congress may prescribe substantive directives for executive agencies within statutory limits without violating separation of powers.
- Congress generally may limit the jurisdiction of lower federal courts, including by withdrawing judicial review over specified categories of claims, subject to constitutional constraints.

## Conclusion

The Tenth Circuit held that Congress constitutionally enacted a targeted appropriations rider governing Black Hills forest management that superseded a prior settlement and limited judicial review, because it changed the applicable law under Congress’s federal-lands and jurisdictional powers rather than directing a case outcome under existing law.


Biodiversity Assocs. v. Cables, 357 F.3d 1152 (10th Cir. 2004), cert. denied, 543 U.S. 817 (2004)