Attorney General Paxton joined a West Virginia-led cert-stage amicus brief before the U.S. Supreme Court to stop the Biden Administration’s attempts to encroach upon states’ rights and make it more difficult for Americans to hunt. 

The amicus brief opposes the Biden Department of the Interior’s misinterpretation of the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act (“ANILCA”) and its attempt to require Alaska to adopt the federal government’s restrictive hunting policies.  

While ANILCA does grant the federal government a limited power to manage animals on federal land, the Interior Department has exceeded that authority in preempting Alaskan hunting laws. This was done knowingly, given Congress’s prior disapproval of similar Interior overreaching regarding Alaskan hunting law. 

The brief states: “Interior has read its ANILCA authority too broadly. As Alaska’s Petition explains, five years ago Congress was forced to step in . . . . It disapproved [of] a Fish and Wildlife regulation that banned bear-baiting. . . . The National Park Service got the message, pulling back on a bear-baiting regulation. . . . Fish and Wildlife, on the other hand, has continued to cling to a separate regulation governing bear-baiting. . . . The Amici States . . . recognize that federal regulations sometimes prevail over contrary state law. But that result should only follow when Congress clearly intends it, and the circumstances here show nothing of the sort.” 

To read the full amicus brief, click here.