Has the federal courts' successive undermining of the APA's presumption of reviewability turned the doctrine into fool's gold?

I. INTRODUCTION II. THE GENERAL MINING ACT OF 1872 A. Mining Under the General Mining Law of 1872 B. Abuses of the Mining Law III. AVAILABILITY OF JUDICIAL REVIEW FOR [...]
The Mining Law of 1872 casts open public lands to mineral prospecting. Assuming a mining claimant can establish the existence of a valuable mineral deposit and adhere to several procedural requirements, the Secretary of Interior is authorized to sell the public land for five dollars an acre. This singular focus on resource extraction has long been criticized by opponents of the Mining Law and many have characterized the Mining Law as a relic of the disposition era of natural resources law. Therefore, when a mining company sought to acquire 174 acres of Mount Emmons in Colorado's Gunnison National Forest, an area often used by locals, R was not surprising that the residents of Crested Butte opposed the application. Despite the mining company's concession that a molybdenum mine at Mount Emmons would not be economically feasible, the Secretary of Interior granted the mining company's application. Unhappy with the administrative outcome, the residents sought to challenge the agency's determination in the federal courts under the Administrative Procedure Act's (APA) grant of judicial review to individuals 'suffering a legal wrong because of agency action.' However, in High Country Citizens Alliance v. Clarke, the Tenth Circuit held that the plaintiffs did not have a right to judicial review because the Mining Law of 1872 clearly precluded the citizens from challenging the Secretary's determination and therefore fell within the APA's limiting exception for statutes that preclude judicial review. This Comment traces Supreme Court cases establishing when statutes preclude judicial review to understand how the Court's treatment of statutory preclusion has changed over time. The Comment asserts that the Supreme Court has progressively weakened the APA's presumption in favor of judicial review by decreasing the showing necessary to establish that a particular statute precludes judicial review. The Comment then considers how the Tenth Circuit applied this doctrine to the unique circumstances of the Mining Law of 1872. Specifically, consideration is given to the Tenth Circuit's reasoning in order to understand how the continued weakening of the APA's presumption in favor of judicial review operates to the disadvantage of plaintiffs harmed by agency actions. In the end, the Comment concludes that federal courts should reassert the APA s presumption in favor of judicial review in order to give that statute its intended effect.