## Facts

- Dove Springs Canyon is a roughly 5,500-acre area within the California Desert Conservation Area (CDCA), a multi-use conservation area created under the Federal Land Policy and Management Act (FLPMA).
- BLM designated about 3,000 acres of Dove Springs as “open” to unrestricted off-road vehicle (ORV) use and treated it as an ORV “freeplay” area in the CDCA plan.
- ORV use increased substantially over time, reaching hundreds of vehicles on weekends and holidays.
- Documented impacts in Dove Springs included severe erosion, soil compaction, vegetation loss, and diminished visual quality, affecting habitat for multiple desert species.
- Sierra Club and allied organizations petitioned the Secretary of the Interior to close Dove Springs to ORV use, asserting that Executive Orders 11644 and 11989 and 43 C.F.R. § 8341.2(a) required closure when ORVs cause “considerable adverse effects.”
- The Secretary declined to close the area, treating the closure standard as requiring evaluation in the context of CDCA-wide planning and multiple-use management.

## Issues

1. Whether the Secretary unlawfully failed to perform a mandatory duty to close Dove Springs under Executive Orders 11644/11989, 43 C.F.R. § 8341.2(a), and FLPMA based on localized environmental damage.
2. Whether the agency permissibly interpreted “considerable adverse effects” to allow assessment at the broader CDCA scale rather than at the sub-area level.
3. Whether Sierra Club’s APA claim was an improper collateral attack on the CDCA plan’s original ORV designation, rather than a reviewable failure to act.

## Decision

- The Ninth Circuit affirmed judgment for the Secretary.
- The court held that the Secretary’s refusal to close Dove Springs was not arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion, or otherwise contrary to law under APA review.
- The court accepted the agency’s interpretation that “considerable adverse effects” is contextual and may be evaluated at the CDCA-wide planning level.
- The court rejected reliance on an advisory CEQ memorandum as controlling over BLM’s reasonable interpretation of its governing regulation and management scheme.
- The court agreed with the district court that the suit largely functioned as a challenge to the original ORV designation embedded in long-term land-use planning, and it declined to second-guess the agency’s balancing of uses absent a clear legal violation.

## Legal Principles

- Under the APA, courts review land-management decisions deferentially and may not substitute judicial judgment for an agency’s policy and technical determinations within delegated authority.
- A regulation requiring closure upon a finding that ORVs “are causing or will cause considerable adverse effects” permits agency interpretation of the scope and context for determining whether effects are “considerable,” particularly within a comprehensive statutory planning framework.
- FLPMA’s “unnecessary or undue degradation” standard does not bar all degradation; it allows agency discretion to balance conservation with recreation and other uses consistent with multiple-use management.
- Advisory guidance from other executive-branch entities does not displace an agency’s reasonable construction of its own regulations and the governing statutory scheme.
- Courts may treat claims framed as failures to act as impermissible challenges to underlying programmatic planning choices when the alleged duty is not a clear, discrete mandate.

## Conclusion

The Ninth Circuit upheld the Secretary’s decision to keep Dove Springs Canyon open to ORV use, concluding that the agency permissibly evaluated “considerable adverse effects” in the context of CDCA-wide multiple-use planning and that the refusal to impose closure did not violate the executive orders, implementing regulations, FLPMA, or the APA.


Sierra Club v. Clark, 756 F.2d 686 (9th Cir. 1985)