16 U.S.C. § 473
Section 473 · Revocation, modification, or vacation of orders or proclamations establishing national forests
Amended 1 time on record
Applied in 24 court decisions — leading case United States v. City & County of Denver Ex Rel. Board of Water Commissioners (1982)
Most recently applied in Center for Biological Diversity v. Usfs (September 2023)
How often courts cite this section
Court decisions citing this, by year.Markers show enactment, consequential amendments, and circuit splits over this section — watch for a citation surge after a change or a disagreement. The dip in the last several years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so recent citations are undercounted.
The President of the United States is authorized and empowered to revoke, modify, or suspend any and all Executive orders and proclamations or any part thereof issued under section 471 1 of this title, from time to time as he shall deem best for the public interests. By such modification he may reduce the area or change the boundary lines or may vacate altogether any order creating a national forest.
Editorial notes U.S. Code · Office of the Law Revision Counsel
References in Text
Section 471 of this title, referred to in text, was repealed by Pub. L. 94–579, title VII, §704(a), Oct. 21, 1976, 90 Stat. 2792.
Codification
The two sentences of this section are from provisions in section 1 of the Sundry Civil Appropriation Act for the fiscal year 1898, act June 4, 1897.
The first sentence is a portion of the third paragraph and was prefaced by the words “To remove any doubt which may exist pertaining to the authority of the President thereunto.” Other provisions of the same paragraph have been omitted as temporary.
The second sentence is a portion of the seventh paragraph the whole of which reads as follows: “The President is hereby authorized at any time to modify any Executive order that has been or may hereafter be made establishing any forest reserve, and by such modification may reduce the area or change the boundary lines of such reserve, or may vacate altogether any order creating such reserve.”
Cross References
Prohibition on return to public domain of land reserved or withdrawn from the public domain as national forests except by act of Congress, see section 1609 of this title.