401 U.S. 402 (1971) (U.S. Supreme Court)
Citizens to Preserve Overton Park, Inc. v.
Is the Secretary of Transportation's decision to approve a highway route through public parkland reviewable under the APA, and if so, what is the standard and scope of review where the agency action is informal and unaccompanied by formal findings; did the agency comply with § 4(f)'s requirements that there be no feasible and prudent alternatives and that harm be minimized?
There is a strong presumption of judicial review of agency action under the APA. The exception for actions "committed to agency discretion by law," 5 U.S.C. § 701(a)(2), is very narrow and applies only where there is no law to apply. Informal agency action is reviewed under § 706(2)(A) for arbitrariness and caprice. Courts must conduct a searching and careful review to determine whether the agency considered relevant factors and made a clear error of judgment, while not substituting their own policy views. Judicial review focuses on the administrative record; post hoc litigation rationalizations are generally insufficient. Courts should not probe into the mental processes of decisionmakers absent a strong showing of bad faith or improper behavior, but may require the agency to provide the full administrative record and, if necessary, contemporaneous explanations. Under § 4(f), the Secretary may approve use of parkland only if there is no feasible and prudent alternative, and only after all possible planning to minimize harm is undertaken. Alternatives are deemed imprudent only when truly unusual factors are present or when costs or community disruption reach extraordinary magnitudes.
The Secretary's approval was reviewable under the APA; § 701(a)(2) did not bar review because § 4(f) provides law to apply. The appropriate standard is arbitrary-and-capricious review under § 706(2)(A), requiring searching and careful scrutiny of the agency's consideration of relevant factors. Because there were no formal findings or adequate administrative record to permit meaningful review, the lower courts erred in granting summary judgment based on litigation affidavits. The case was remanded for plenary review on the full administrative record to determine whether the Secretary complied with § 4(f)'s stringent requirements.
Overton Park institutionalized robust, record-based judicial review of informal agency action and laid the foundation for modern hard look review. It established the strong presumption of reviewability, limited the § 701(a)(2) exception to rare cases with no law to apply, and clarified that courts must ensure agencies have considered relevant factors without substituting their own judgment. The case also cemented the requirement that agencies compile an administrative record sufficient for review and discouraged reliance on post hoc litigation affidavits. Substantively, it construed § 4(f) to strongly favor park preservation, elevating environmental and recreational values in federal transportation decisions. For students, Overton Park is a core case connecting APA standards of review, administrative records, and statutory constraints on agency discretion.