Big Meadows Grazing Ass'n v. United States

No less than half of the wetlands 1 in the continental United States have been destroyed since 1600. 2 To counter this trend, the Natural Resource Conservation Service of the Department of Agriculture established the Wetlands Reserve Program (the “WRP”) to provide landowners an opportunity to protect, restore, and enhance wetlands on their property.” 3 Big Meadows Grazing Association (“Big Meadows”) sold the United States a conservation easement so that part of Big Meadows’ property could be enrolled in the WRP. When Big Meadows and the United States subsequently disagreed on what conservation activities would occur on the property, the government began unilaterally implementing its proposed conservation plan. Big Meadows sued, seeking in pertinent part a declaratory judgment that implementation of the conservation plan without its approval would violate 16 U.S.C. § 3837a. The district court granted summary judgment for the government, ruling that the government need not obtain Big Meadows’ approval before implementing the conservation plan. Big Mead *942 ows timely appealed. Because § 3837a neither requires Big Meadows’ assent to the conservation plan nor requires that the…