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Opinion of the Court
of no precedent for applying such a provision against those who administer (as opposed to those who are regulated by) a substantive law. Nor do we think it likely that the statute meant to subject the Secretary and his officers and employees to criminal liability under § 1540(b), which makes it a crime for "[a]ny person [to] knowingly violat[e] any provision of [the ESA]," or that § 1540(e)(3), which authorizes law enforcement personnel to "make arrests without a warrant for any violation of [the ESA]," was intended to authorize warrantless arrest of the Secretary or his delegates for "knowingly" failing to use the best scientific data available.
Finally, interpreting the term "violation" to include any errors on the part of the Secretary in administering the ESA would effect a wholesale abrogation of the APA's "final agency action" requirement. Any procedural default, even one that had not yet resulted in a final disposition of the matter at issue, would form the basis for a lawsuit. We are loathe to produce such an extraordinary regime without the clearest of statutory direction, which is hardly present here.
Viewed in the context of the entire statute, § 1540(g) (1)(A)'s reference to any "violation" of the ESA cannot be interpreted to include the Secretary's maladministration of the ESA. Petitioners' claims are not subject to judicial review under § 1540(g)(1)(A).
IV
The foregoing analysis establishes that the principal statute invoked by petitioners, the ESA, does authorize review of their § 1533 claim, but does not support their claims based upon the Secretary's alleged failure to comply with § 1536. To complete our task, we must therefore inquire whether these § 1536 claims may nonetheless be brought under the Administrative Procedure Act, which authorizes a court to "set aside agency action, findings, and conclusions found to be . . . arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion, or otherwise not in accordance with law," 5 U. S. C. § 706.
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