National Park Hospitality Assn. v. Department of Interior, 538 U.S. 803, 18 (2003)

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820 NATIONAL PARK HOSPITALITY ASSN. v.

DEPARTMENT OF INTERIOR Breyer, J., dissenting

formal delegation to the National Park Service of its own statutorily granted rulemaking authority, § 5965; ante, at 806-807. (Unlike the majority, I would apply to the regulation the legal label "interpretive rule," not "general statement of policy," ante, at 809 (internal quotation marks and alteration omitted), though I agree with the majority that, because the Park Service does not administer the CDA, see ibid., we owe its conclusion less deference.) The Park Service's interpretation is definite and conclusive, not tentative or likely to change; as the majority concedes, the Park Service's determination constitutes "final agency action" within the meaning of the Administrative Procedure Act. Ante, at 812 (internal quotation marks omitted).

The only open question concerns the nature of the harm that refusing judicial review at this time will cause petition-er's members. See Abbott Laboratories, supra, at 149. The fact that concessioners can raise the legal question at a later time, after a specific contractual dispute arises, see ante, at 812, militates against finding this case ripe. So too does a precedential concern: Will present review set a precedent that leads to premature challenges in other cases where agency interpretations may be less formal, less final, or less well suited to immediate judicial determination? See ante, at 811-812.

But the fact of immediate and particularized (and not totally reparable) injury during the bidding process offsets the first of these considerations. And the second is more than offset by a related congressional statute that specifies that prospective bidders for Government contracts can obtain immediate judicial relief from agency determinations that unlawfully threaten precisely this kind of harm. See 28 U. S. C. § 1491(b)(1) (allowing prospective bidder to object, for instance, to "solicitation by a Federal agency for bids . . . for a proposed contract" and permitting review of related allegation of "any . . . violation of statute or regulation in connection with a procurement or a proposed procurement").

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