Weyerhaeuser Co. v. United States Fish and Wildlife Service

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service designated private land in Louisiana as critical habitat for the endangered dusky gopher frog, even though the frog had not lived there for decades and the land would require significant modification to sustain it. Weyerhaeuser Company and other landowners sued, arguing that land cannot be critical habitat if it is not currently habitable, and that the Service's refusal to exclude their land based on economic impact was arbitrary. The district court and the Fifth Circuit upheld the designation, deferring to the agency. The Supreme Court granted certiorari to address the definition of habitat and the reviewability of exclusion decisions. On November 27, 2018, the Court delivered its ruling, marking a significant limitation on agency discretion under the Endangered Species Act.

The Supreme Court unanimously vacated the Fifth Circuit's judgment and remanded the case. Chief Justice Roberts wrote that critical habitat designation requires an area to be habitat first, and remanded for the lower court to interpret the statute. The Court also held 8-0 that the Service's decision not to exclude an area from critical habitat is a final agency action subject to judicial review.

Whether an area must qualify as "habitat" for a listed species before it can be designated as critical habitat under the Endangered Species Act, and whether an agency's decision not to exclude an area from such designation is subject to judicial review under the Administrative Procedure Act.

The ruling was celebrated by property rights advocates as a check on federal overreach, clarifying that agencies cannot designate land as critical habitat if it does not currently support the species. It reinforced the principle that administrative decisions affecting private property remain subject to judicial scrutiny, influencing future Endangered Species Act implementation and critical habitat designations.