You obviously have far more experience with Federal agencies and their interpretation of the law than I do. And I agree that original intent and later interpretation are slippery partners (why, hello, "well-regulated militia").BigBear wrote: ↑November 27th, 2021, 11:21 amI wasn't mentioning cell towers as a "scare tactic." If your goal is enhanced broadband services in the backcountry, it seems a no-brainer that the structures that send this connection must be prominently placed on remote mountaintops. One of the cell phone companies loves to show off their pink coverage bit the mountainous regions of the west are lacking this coverage. So how do they fill-in the rugged areas with service (a) build a 2nd tower in the metropolitan area or (b) build it somewhere it can reach the remote canyons and campsites currently free of such structures?
Looking at the wording of a legislative act may seem like it would supply all of the answers...but federal agencies love to spin the wording to their advantage. "May" becomes "must" and "up to" becomes "a minimum of."
But the idea that the Forest Service would interpret this law as a direction to install cellphone towers in Wilderness areas is outlandish.
I have a longstanding beef with the FS's interpretation of the Wilderness Act... but in all the cases I can think of, they are far too strict and exclusionary with that regulation. The current experience of Central Oregon hikers is that the FS is reading the law in an extremely conservative way. So, for example, I'd guess there's a high chance that this bill would lead the FS to over-regulate climbing in Wilderness areas.
On the other hand, you're suggesting that, at the same time they are intentionally excluding hikers from Wilderness areas, they'd see fit to read this law extremely liberally, in order to permit cellphone towers on mountaintops.
That just sounds so unlikely as to be absurd!
You've suggested similar examples of poor legal interpretation: one concerns excluding groups from the CRGNSA (for unstated, but presumably preservationist reasons), and the other concerns putting financial barriers in front of hikers and other trailhead users (to raise funds, yes, but again we're talking about reducing use, not increasing it).
Do you have examples of the FS wildly re-interpreting interpreting the Wilderness Act in a liberal direction, as you suggest they'd do in the case of cellphone towers?