42 U.S.C. § 7472
Section 7472 · Initial classifications
Amended 4 times on record
Applied in 31 court decisions — leading case Citizens to Save Spencer County v. United States Environmental Protection Agency (1979)
Most recently applied in Nucor Steel-Arkansas v. Pruitt (March 2017)
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.
Upon the enactment of this part, all—
(1) international parks,
(2) national wilderness areas which exceed 5,000 acres in size,
(3) national memorial parks which exceed 5,000 acres in size, and
(4) national parks which exceed six thousand acres in size,
and which are in existence on August 7, 1977, shall be class I areas and may not be redesignated. All areas which were redesignated as class I under regulations promulgated before August 7, 1977, shall be class I areas which may be redesignated as provided in this part. The extent of the areas designated as Class I under this section shall conform to any changes in the boundaries of such areas which have occurred subsequent to August 7, 1977, or which may occur subsequent to November 15, 1990.
All areas in such State designated pursuant to section 7407(d) of this title as attainment or unclassifiable which are not established as class I under subsection (a) of this section shall be class II areas unless redesignated under section 7474 of this title.
Editorial notes U.S. Code · Office of the Law Revision Counsel
Amendments
1990—Subsec. (a). Pub. L. 101–549, §108(m), inserted at end “The extent of the areas designated as Class I under this section shall conform to any changes in the boundaries of such areas which have occurred subsequent to August 7, 1977, or which may occur subsequent to November 15, 1990.”
Subsec. (b). Pub. L. 101–549, §110(2), substituted “designated pursuant to section 7407(d) of this title as attainment or unclassifiable” for “identified pursuant to section 7407(d)(1)(D) or (E) of this title”.
1977—Subsec. (a)(4). Pub. L. 95–190 inserted a comma after “size”.