Supreme Court rules against EPA in dispute over regulating wetlands
Last edited Thu May 25, 2023, 12:03 PM - Edit history (1)
Source: CBS News
Washington -- The Supreme Court on Thursday curtailed the Environmental Protection Agency's authority to regulate certain wetlands that qualify as "waters of the United States" under the Clean Water Act, curbing what has long been seen as a key tool to protect waterways from pollution.
The high court ruled against the agency in a long-running dispute with Idaho landowners known as Sackett v. EPA. In an opinion authored by Justice Samuel Alito, the court found that the agency's interpretation of the wetlands covered by the Clean Water Act is "inconsistent" with the law's text and structure, and the law extends only to "wetlands with a continuous surface connection to bodies of water that are 'waters of the United States' in their own right."
While the majority acknowledged that weather and climate events like low tides and dry spells can cause "temporary interruptions" between bodies of waters covered by the law, the court said that wetlands protected under the Clean Water Act should be otherwise "indistinguishable" from other regulated waters.
The Supreme Court's ruling reverses a decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit, which sided with the EPA. The court ruled unanimously in favor of the Idaho couple, Michael and Chantell Sackett, that brought the case, but split 5-4 in its reasoning. Joining Alito's majority opinion were Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett. Justices Brett Kavanaugh, Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson concurred in the judgment.
Read more: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/supreme-court-epa-clean-water-act/
Link to opinion - https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/22pdf/21-454_4g15.pdf
Article updated.
Original article -
In an opinion authored by Justice Samuel Alito in the case known as Sackett v. EPA, the high court found that the agency's interpretation of the wetlands covered under the Clean Water Act is "inconsistent" with the law's text and structure, and the law extends only to "wetlands with a continuous surface connection to bodies of water that are 'waters of the United States' in their own right."
Five justices joined the majority opinion by Alito, while the remaining four -- Justices Brett Kavanaugh, Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson -- concurred in the judgment.
The decision from the conservative court is the latest to target the authority of the EPA to police pollution. On the final day of its term last year, the high court limited the agency's power to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from power plants, dealing a blow to efforts to combat climate change.
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How would that get through the Senate, which has a 60-vote threshold to pass a bill? 
BUT the House doesn't have the kind of draconian "cloture" (filibuster) Rule that the Senate has. So should Democrats re-take the House, something like that could be passed there, but still die in the Senate. 
It's 82 pages and the "concurring in judgement" starts on pg 62 by Kagan (on behalf of herself, Sotomayor, and Jackson-Brown), and an additional "concurring in judgement" starts at page 68 by Kavanaugh (for himself and also signed off on by Sotomayor, Jackson-Brown and Kagan). Thomas did his own verbose mess before those, that was a concur to Alito.
(I added the link in the OP (PDF) - https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/22pdf/21-454_4g15.pdf)
But first, let me add that I'm not "surprised" by anything the SCOTUS does at this point...
However you have this in the (main) ruling -
The majority thus alters—more pre-
cisely, narrows the scope of—the statute Congress drafted. And make no mistake: Congress wrote the statute it
meant to. The Clean Water Act was a landmark piece of
environmental legislation, designed to address a problem of
“crisis proportions.
(snip)
Today’s majority, though, believes Congress went too far.
In the majority’s view, the Act imposes unjustifiably “crush-
ing consequences” for violations of its terms. Ante, at 3.
And many of those violations, it thinks, are of no real con-
cern, arising from “mundane” land-use conduct “like mov-
ing dirt.” Ante, at 13. Congress, the majority scolds, has
unleashed the EPA to regulate “swimming pools[ ] and pud-
dles,” wreaking untold havoc on “a staggering array of land-
owners.” Ante, at 1, 13. Surely something has to be done;
and who else to do it but this Court? It must rescue prop-
erty owners from Congress’s too-ambitious program of pol-
lution control.
So the majority shelves the usual rules of interpreta-
tion—reading the text, determining what the words used
there mean, and applying that ordinary understanding
4 SACKETT v. EPA
K AGAN, J., concurring in judgment
even if it conflicts with judges’ policy preferences.
The "political" part was hyperbole nonsense about "swimming pools", but the part about "interpretation" is why there needs to be some revisions to the Act.
I.e., they (the conservatives) are swatting aside the "Regulations" (which are put in place by those agencies that are covered under the Act and that "interpret" what the law is so they can develop statutory guidelines), and are going back to the "literal" Act itself.
So on one hand, they are saying that they want that type of stuff spelled out in the actual law and not "interpreted" by an agency, but on the other hand, they are also attributing the "interpretations" to what they believe are eco-fanatics going overboard.
And people wonder why legislation is thousands of pages long.
