The conservative-dominated court’s ruling narrows the scope of the landmark law to U. S. waterways. U. S.
The Scope of a Landmark Law for U. S. WaterwaysUU. se reduced through the U. S. Supreme Court. The U. S. Navy has sided with an Idaho couple who fought a long legal war to build a space in wetlands near one of the state’s largest lakes.
In a ruling Thursday, the conservative-dominated court ruled that the federal government must use the Clean Water Act, a key 50-year-old law to prevent pollutants from seeping into rivers, streams and lakes, to save the built couple. on the wetland next to Priest Lake in Idaho.
The judge’s ruling revises the definition of whether wetlands are considered “navigable waters” under the law and therefore are through the federal government.
President Joe Biden said in one that the resolution upended the legal framework used for decades to combat water pollutants and that his administration would “use all the legal governance we have to protect our country’s waters. “
“This exposes our country’s wetlands, and the rivers, streams, lakes and ponds connected to them, to a threat of pollutants and destruction, jeopardizing the drinking water resources on which millions of American families, farmers and businesses depend,” Biden said. of the decision
Earthjustice, an environmental organization that opposed the case going to the Supreme Court, said part of all contiguous U. S. wetlands are in the U. S. Water Law.
Justice Samuel Alito, writing for himself, Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett, argued that the Clean Water Act can only “wetlands that have a continued surface connection to the waters of the United States in their own right. “
The ruling is the latest blow to environmental regulation through the Supreme Court, which last year limited the government’s ability to restrict greenhouse fuel pollutants from forced plants. Coverage in the United States.
This complaint resonated through Elena Kagan, one of the Supreme Court’s top liberal justices, who disagreed with the ruling wrote that the majority of the court had appointed itself as the “national adjudicator on environmental policy. “
Brett Kavanaugh, one of the conservative justices, sided with the three liberals and warned that the court “will leave for a long time regulated some adjacent wetlands that will no longer be covered by the Clean Water Act, with significant effects on water quality and flooding in the United States. “States. “”.
Conservation teams expressed dismay at the decision.
“Federal protections that don’t count on local politics or the influence of regional polluters are critical for vulnerable and disadvantaged communities across the country,” said Jim Murphy, director of legal advocacy for the National Wildlife Federation.
“The court’s ruling removes those critical ions from critical waterways and wetlands in each and every state. We call on Congress and state governments to step in, close the gap, and our threatened waters and the others who count on them.
The Idaho case centered on a 15-year legal saga involving a married couple, Michael and Chantell Sackett, who challenged what they see as a blatant government attack on their rights to assets.
In 2004, the Sacketts purchased a half-acre parcel of land on the shores of Priest Lake, a clear, crystal clear water frame popular with boaters nestled in the picturesque wilderness of the Idaho enclave.
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The couple set out to build a three-room space on the land, but when they filled the site with gravel, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) told them they were cleaning up a federal wetland and needed a permit. The company imposed fines for thisnon-compliance.
Since 2007, there have been 3 presidential administrations, the floor has remained unoccupied while the Sacketts or the libertarian Pacific Legal Foundation, an organization that specializes in challenging environmental regulations and took war on their behalf, fought the EPA’s conclusion in court.
The Sacketts are no strangers to the country’s supreme court. In 2012, the Supreme Court accepted the couple’s argument that they could challenge the tens of thousands of dollars in fines imposed through the EPA. Three years later, in an unrelated case, Michael Sackett was sentenced to a year in prison following an undercover operation in which he agreed to pay for having sex with a 12-year-old girl.
“EPA bureaucrats have used a made-up definition of ‘navigable waters’ to deny us the right to use our own assets, a constitutional right,” the Sacketts have argued in the past in a joint statement.
The Supreme Court now agrees with this view, most likely restricting the definition of what is considered navigable water, and therefore through the federal government, to bodies of water that can obviously be crossed by boat, rather than nearby wetlands that would. cause pollutants in waterways.
In his reaction to Thursday’s decision, EPA Administrator Michael Regan said it was “eroding long-standing shields by blank water,” adding that the company would take the next steps to protect U. S. waterways. U. S.
“Over the past 50 years, we have made transformative progress: once-burning rivers have been restored and now colorful communities in each and every corner of the country.
“A common-sense, science-based definition of ‘U. S. waters. ‘The U. S. citizen’s mission is to build on this progress and fulfill our duty to maintain our nation’s waters, now and for generations for the long term.