Scotuscast

On March 26, 2019, the Supreme Court decided Sturgeon v. Frost, a case considering whether the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act (ANILCA) prohibits the National Park Service from exercising regulatory control over state, native corporation, and private land physically located within the boundaries of the National Park System in Alaska.Congress, through ANILCA, created ten new national parks, monuments, and preserves with 104 million acres of federally owned land. When selecting the boundary lines, Congress chose to use the natural features of the land rather than strictly the federally owned land. The state, private, and Native lands within the boundary lines became in-holdings totaling 18 million acres. To protect the landowners, Congress included Section 103(c) which, in part, states that only federally owned lands within a conservation reserve unit were to be considered a part of the unit and that no state or private land is subject to regulations pertaining to federal land within the unit. P