Enormous setback for the fanatics at the EPA who would regulate ever puddle or ditch they could find.
A couple of hours ago the following headline went out.
Supreme Court rules against EPA in environmental case, limiting agency’s power over water
Now that the REEES are being heard the headline of the story has been changed to:
‘Significant repercussions.’ Supreme Court limits government power to curb water pollution
WASHINGTON – The Supreme Court on Thursday sided with a couple who have been battling the Environmental Protection Agency for more than a decade over a plan to develop a property in the Idaho panhandle, a decision with potentially sweeping national ramifications for water quality, agriculture and development.
The case, which was centered on the scope of the 1972 Clean Water Act, was arguably the most important environmental decision the Supreme Court has handed down since a majority last year invalidated an EPA effort to regulate power plant emissions. The plaintiffs asked the court to provide a clearer definition for what the law meant when it gave the agency power to regulate the “waters of the United States.”
In an opinion written by Justice Samuel Alito and joined by four other conservative justices, the court limited the scope of the EPA’s ability to control wetland pollution.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/other/supreme-court-rules-against-epa-in-environmental-case-limiting-agency-s-power-over-water/ar-AA1bGgxA
What is the WOTUS Rule? Here are some links and excerpts.
You can see the back and forth from Obama administration to the Trump admin rescinding and then back full speed ahead under Biden.
The agencies amended their regulations defining “waters of the United States” in 2015 in the Clean Water Rule: Definition of “Waters of the United States.”
The 2015 Clean Water Rule was repealed by the 2019 Rule, which reinstated the 1980s regulations, implemented consistent with the U.S. Supreme Court cases and applicable guidance.
The agencies replaced the 2019 Rule with the Navigable Waters Protection Rule (NWPR) in 2020. In light of the U.S. District Court for the District of Arizona’s August 30, 2021 order vacating and remanding the Navigable Waters Protection Rule in the case of Pascua Yaqui Tribe v. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the agencies halted implementation of the NWPR nationwide and interpreted “waters of the United States” consistent with the pre-2015 regulatory regime.
For additional information, see the History of the Effects of Litigation Over Recent Definitions of “Waters of the United States” (pdf) (66.74 KB)
The final “Revised Definition of ‘Waters of the United States'” rule was published in the Federal Register on January 18, 2023, and the rule took effect on March 20, 2023. The final rule was codified in the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) in place of the vacated NWPR. However, the final rule is not currently operative in certain states due to litigation. Please visit the Rule Status page for additional information about the status of the rule and litigation. More information about the final rule is available here.
Final Revised Definition of “Waters of the United States”
On December 30, 2022, the agencies announced the final “Revised Definition of ‘Waters of the United States'” rule. On January 18, 2023, the rule was published in the Federal Register and the rule took effect on March 20, 2023. However, the final rule is not currently operative in certain states and for certain parties due to litigation. Please visit the Rule Status page for additional information about the status of the rule and litigation. The agencies developed the 2023 Rule with consideration of the relevant provisions of the Clean Water Act and the statute as a whole, relevant Supreme Court case law, and the agencies’ technical expertise after more than 45 years of implementing the longstanding pre-2015 “waters of the United States” framework. This rule also considers the best available science and extensive public comment to establish a definition of “waters of the United States” that supports public health, environmental protection, agricultural activity, and economic growth. More information about the final rule is available below.
https://www.epa.gov/wotus/current-implementation-waters-united-states
https://www.epa.gov/wotus/revising-definition-waters-united-states
And everything below is shot down by this ruling, as well as much more
Announcement of the Intention to Revise the Definition of “Waters of the United States”
On June 9, 2021, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of the Army announced their intent to revise the definition of “waters of the United States.”
Executive Order 13990
Executive Order 13990 on Protecting Public Health and the Environment and Restoring Science to Tackle the Climate Crisis (Jan. 20, 2021) directed EPA and the Army “to immediately review and, as appropriate and consistent with applicable law, take action to address the promulgation of Federal regulations [including the Navigable Waters Protection Rule or “NWPR”] and other actions during the last four years that conflict with these important national objectives.”
The order also specifically revoked Executive Order 13778 of February 28, 2017 (Restoring the Rule of Law, Federalism, and Economic Growth by Reviewing the “Waters of the United States” Rule), which resulted in promulgation of the NWPR.
The order provides that “[i]t is, therefore, the policy of my Administration to listen to the science; to improve public health and protect our environment; to ensure access to clean air and water; to limit exposure to dangerous chemicals and pesticides; to hold polluters accountable, including those who disproportionately harm communities of color and low-income communities; to reduce greenhouse gas emissions; to bolster resilience to the impacts of climate change; to restore and expand our national treasures and monuments; and to prioritize both environmental justice and the creation of the well-paying union jobs necessary to deliver on these goals.”
In conformance with Executive Order 13990, the agencies reviewed the NWPR. See also Fact Sheet: List of Agency Actions for Review. The agencies have completed their review of the NWPR and determined that the rule must be replaced.
https://www.epa.gov/wotus/revising-definition-waters-united-states
It’s a good day for economic and regulatory sanity.
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Obama and Biden were reluctant to actually follow the law, on this and many other subjects. It was so much easier to do an executive order than the messy procedure of actually getting a law passed, or a treaty ratified.
The dishonesty by the Democrats is they want to portray this as “SCOTUS gives green light to pollute”, when in reality it is all about curbing bureaucratic overreach. There is little doubt that, given Federal supremacy, Congress could grant EPA the regulatory authority it tried to exercise here against the Sacketts. But now 0bama and Biden’s NRDC flying monkeys that have infiltrated and taken over at the EPA just got their wings clipped.
My favorite candidate right now is Vivek Ramaswamy who wants to dismantle the administrative state.
If you own waterfront property and want to build there are at least 5 different agencies you have to get approval from. They have conflicting rules and are often staffed by woke activists opposed to anything humans do. They come up with ridiculous mitigations that are completely disconnected with how natural systems function. I had a friend who had lake front property that was a hard rock cliff dropping into deep water with a rock bottom. He had to hire a fisheries biologist to do a study proving that building a house wouldn’t disturb salmon spawning. Grade school children know that salmon spawn in gravel stream beds…
Grade school children know that salmon spawn in gravel stream beds
then the biologist should have no problem
And the prize for most stupid comment goes to … Mosher!
Cost him $50,000 for what grade schoolers know.
yes. the onus is on the applicant to provide expert report just saying what is taught at school.
Then you wouldn’t mind paying the $3500+
And, you wouldn’t mind the 6 months regulatory add to the whole project.
I think it was 9 months before the obstructionist accepted the study so the project could proceed.
So you don’t care that the person will have to pay thousands of dollars in order to get a report about something even you admit grade school kids should be able to handle.
Love how socialists get a kick out of spending other people’s money.
You missed the part where he had to spend money to hire a biologist to explain to the bureaucratic cretins that they have no authority to prevent him building on his private land, a thing that should be self-evident…if you’re not a petty autocrat trying to stick your nose in everyone’s business.
I’m for the candidate that can most likely defeat anyone the Democrats can put forth by at least a 5% margin. That margin is needed to overcome the nefarious midnight ballot box stuffing that will go in MI, PA, and AZ to try to push the Dem over the finish line there.
I think that person is Ron DeSantis. Trump can’t do it, as he can’t carry enough Independents to overcome the Igloo coolers full of fraudulent ballots that will be unleashed on closed ballot counting centers by Dem operatives emboldened by 2020’s success.
Vivek is the only candidate calling out the climate cult to the degree they need to be discredited. I don’t think he has a chance of becoming the nominee but is a voice the brainwashed need to hear. If he makes the debate his ideas will gain traction.
The margin of victory is only important in a handful of contested states.
Trump won in 2016 when the democrats miscalculated so badly they didn’t bother to cheat. 2018 was a classic midterm election loss and in 2020 they pulled out all the stops. If there is the slightest chance of the democrats winning, we will see a repeat of the 2020 voting issues and shenanigans in 2024.
I don’t see Trump winning again. He’s lost independents, moderates and much of the female vote. If he does win, he starts as a lame duck. I don’t see any reason to believe Trump will manage things better than the last time around. If he’s learned anything from his first term, I don’t see much evidence of it.
I’ll take Trump, but I prefer Trumpism without Trump.
Never backed by an court review or manual recount of votes or even the higher level audits.
Its a fantasy , even when trump won he disputed the results because he claimed it was a landslide not the actual minority of the popular vote. His own blue ribbon commission found nothing as there was no there there
In deed hes the one facing a certain indictment for attempting to rig the Georgia results , caught on his famous taped phone call wanting ‘ to find enough votes’ to overturn the certified result.
Vivek Ramaswamy
@VivekGRamaswamy
Big Tech election interference has begun: @LinkedIn
locked my account & censored me this week for posting videos where I expressed fact-based views as a presidential candidate about climate policy and Biden’s relationships with China. They said it violated their policies relating to “misinformation, hate speech, and violence.” Sad but not surprising.
Thats a private companys business what they do or dont do. They arent government owned or government directed so constitutional free speech for only the government doesnt apply
Nonsense. Linkedin enjoys common carrier status under 47 U.S. Code § 230 that exempt them from ALL liability for what is posted, as do all other internet platforms operating today. To claim this exemption when sued and to editorialize content every other time is a corruption of justice.
In the example Neo he was ‘moderated’ by the website where he posted , but wasnt grown up enough to just get over it.
Where is he being defamed or other complaint that he might sue over?
Sec 230 covers illegal content not a blowhard who doesnt read the moderation rules and work around them.
The 1st amendment is a one way street to allowing more freedom of speech by congress which S 230 does. Its going the other way to restrict private companies moderation/editorial policies.
You are ignoring the ‘public square ‘argument’ which doonman is putting forward, IMO.
Is LinkedIn part of the big-tech oligopoply?
Probably yes.
My biggest gripe with them is still that they made unauthorised debits to my bank account but refused to pay it all back.
While he has the most rational climate views, he has to know he has no real shot of winning. I suspect the real reason for his candidacy is to draw attention to his non-woke investment funds, so he can afford to be more blunt about climate and a range of other subjects.
He is a true patriot who understands what this country was founded on.
Thomas Jefferson said we would need a revolution every 200 years to reverse the excesses of government. Vivek is the only candidate I’ve ever seen who wants to do something about that to the level it needs to be done.
This is fantastic news! I’ve expected an outcome like this for many years, but it took a very long time to work its way through the EPA enforcement process then multiple levels of the Federal courts.
The authority of the EPA to regulate wetlands was only Constitutionally permissible by linking them to “waters of the United States”, and those waters of the United States could only be regulated by the Federal government on the basis of them being navigable interstate. EPA and the enviros always claimed that wetlands, even if entirely disconnected from navigable waters, were still waters of the United States based upon a theory of groundwater movement. But that was always the longest of stretches, far beyond any explicit intentions of either the Clean Water Act or the US Constitution.
Virtually all states regulate wetlands as a matter of delegated jurisdiction from the EPA under the CWA. But now that SCOTUS has severed isolated wetlands from Federal jurisdiction, we can expect to see red states at least revising their state wetland laws and rules to reflect the new reality, since they can no longer be punished by EPA for failing to carry out their delegated regulatory authority. Blue states are of course likely to continue to regulate their isolated wetlands, regardless of the lack of any compelling Federal authority. But impacted parties in those blue states could still sue to overturn their state rules using the same basis of isolated wetlands not having any connection to navigable waters. It will take a few more years for these effects to trickle down to the states, but far better late than never!
the Federal government should not be allowed to do anything the states can do
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
Yes. But we should probably give it a catchy name, like The 10th Amendment, so not even totalitarian politicians could pass laws contrary to your proposed rule!
It’s good news. And bad news. For decades leftist in the EPA have perverted the plain meaning of the “(navigable) waters of the United States” to cover any patch of ground however swampy, damp, slightly moist or even not. The fact that it took a razor thin split decision to institute a clarified, common-sense “test” to determine what “(navigable) waters of the United States” means, is frightening.
In sum, we hold that the CWA [Clean Water Act] extends to only those “wetlands with a continuous surface connection to bodies tht are ‘waters of the United States’ in their own right,” so that they are “indistinguishable” from those waters.
It wasn’t determined by Congress, which is the only place where legislation is authorized to be decided, according to the Constitution. And it wasn’t obvious to at least one of the supposedly “conservative” justices that form a 6-member majority. Justice Kavanaugh sided with the consistent leftists. The other bad news? It took 15 years of litigation in two court cases that both went to the Supreme Court for the Sacketts to finally be allowed to build a home on their private land.
The Republicans in Congress need to overhaul the Administrative Procedure Act of 1946 to limit any rulemaking authority by federal agencies so that rules are only passed after debate and a vote by the elected representatives of the people in Congress not unelected bureaucrats in federal agencies. That will end the anti-democratic nightmare of legislation by unaccountable bureacrats by all the alphabet soup agencies of the federal government, and drastically reduce the crazy number of Supreme Court “precedents” that have become de facto law even though our elected representatives didn’t vote on them.
It is ALWAYS a “razor-thin” decision when it is substantially “for the people”. Democratic/Liberal SC Judges NEVER cast a vote “for the people”, only for their Party.
We should expect that packing the US Supreme Court with four or five new justices will be moving up on the Biden Administration’s near-term legislative priority list.
Does “the Biden Administration” actually care? Despite the contents of speeches written by ivy league political assistants, the president is an 80-yo white dude from coal state.
“Navigable” means navigable (Britannia says: deep and wide enough for boats and ships to travel on or through ). The EPA and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) have been increasingly corrupting the plain intent of Congress when they passed the law in 1972. By 2023, navigable means practically anything that gets wet when it rains, since a puddle might become a wetland that could drain to a swale, that might connect to a ditch or ephemeral stream, that might discharge to a creek that eventually flows into a mucky river, that merges with a larger river that is never used for interstate commerce and thence flows into the ocean.
As a result, anyone who wants to do anything with their property must delay their projects to pay a consultant to tell them that they do or do not have jurisdictional waters of the U.S. (WOTUS), except that the consultant includes a disclaimer that their professional opinion is not final, since only the USACE has the authority to decide.
Also, whatever you do, don’t create a depression or allow a puddle to sit too long so that it begins to grow wetlands vegetation, and don’t allow a broad swale to create a defined channel. Once it becomes a wetland or channel with an “ordinary high water mark,” it might become regulated, and there is no going back, even if the feature is manmade and not natural.
WHAT A CROCK!
This, by the way, characterizes the process followed by practically every government bureaucracy over any aspect of life. Power, prestige, corruption and job security totally isolated from the original intent. Everyone should think long and hard before they observe or perceive a problem and exclaim, “There ought to be a law!” Eventually, the unintended consequences will swamp any good that might seem to have been accomplished initially.
EPA, for example was already essentially DEAD by the mid-1980s. I was consulting with EPA and industry at the time and witnessed this firsthand. They as well as a number of other agencies should be abolished or greatly diminished, and nobody miss them.
If your storm water sewer drains into a stream or lake, is it a navigable waterway?
The flaw the EPA exploited was where Justice Kennedy wrote about a “significant nexus” of waterways in the 2006 Supreme Court case, Rapanos v U.S.
Just WTF does a “significant nexus” actually mean?
That mealy-mouthed language from Justice Kennedy (now retired) opened up a tiny ditch that EPA tried to drive a river barge through.
I appealed a decision about 20 years ago.
The 1930’s (excavated) irrigation canal included a diversion dam to keep the water from leaving and going into the natural drainage (downstream). Irrigation use stopped, and ditch was used only for storm drainage. Then a paper mill began pulling cooling water out of adjacent river and discharging into the canal (’cause it is too warm to put back into the river), so there is always water (industrial/pumped & storm runoff). The diverted water flows across 60 acres (excavated channel), then into a pipe (2000 feet), then into 10′ deep concrete channel (about a mile), then back natural & excavated channel (about 5 miles), then into a different (less pristine … where cooling water is acceptable) river.
A COE arbitration guy flew out from the midwest and was picked up at the airport by the regulators on the other side. They explained their desired outcome as they drove the 45 minutes to the site. We lost. (if it was my property, the wooden diversion would have disappeared).
Their (COE) standard was that if it is connected in any way to any natural drainage way, it is jurisdictional. So I sez “during what storm event?”. They say during any event. “a 5000 year event?”. Without hesitation … ‘Yes, all connected water, pipe or not, all events’.
I say “My home is served by piped water from the river, I drink it, then it goes out of my house through other pipes … is the treatment plant jurisdictional?” Refusing to be painted into a corner he sez, without hesitation “Yes, it is, until determined otherwise”.
By that “reasoning” all humans are polluting ‘navigable waters of the United States’ every time they flush a toilet.
yep, that was my exaggerated logic with the ACOE guy.
(sad, very very sad, part is that he was (is) the best one in the office. They had a guy transfer here from Florida … he lasted less than a year … he couldn’t stand the anti/stop all attitude)
As wee lads, we used to race paper boats carrying the little green plastic army men in the gutters converging on the storm drains.
I didn’t realize that the Feds were spying on us, and used our tiny boats as an excuse to designate these gutters as “navigable waterways”.
Ant Man did it.
“ Power, prestige, corruption and job security totally isolated from the original intent.”
Winner!
The only surprise here is that the ruling was only 5/4. I would have thought much closer to unanimous since the simple issue is so clear. Whatever ‘waters of the Unites States’ may be based on previous precedent, if you are not surface connected your aren’t ‘waters of the United States’. An easy opinion for Alito to write.
Separately, I would note that Congress probably does not have the constitutional power to rewrite the statute even if so inclined. The original Act sneaks by under A1§8.1 ‘and provide for the general welfare’. General welfare incorporates clean waters of the United States, but not private unconnected wetlands. That the EPA tried shows how little regard for the Constitution DC has. Same for the SCOTUS major questions doctrine that was the basis for last years power plant EPA over reach ruling.
The decision striking down the rule was 9-0. The 5-4 ruling was about how the EPA should go about defining water sources.
Your view (and mine as well) on the limits of Federal powers, vis a vis the 10th Amendment actually, may get a strengthening if the 1984 Chevron Deference precedent can be overturned. SCOTUS did grant Cert on a case last month that could do exactly that in June 2024, just as the heat of elections gets to a boil.
I am fairly certain that ‘Chevron deference’ will at least have its wings severely clipped, if not fully overturned. The case on which cert was granted has all the hallmarks. Feds forcing fishing companies to pay for fed mandated fisheries inspectors on their boats isn’t just over reach, it is also taking without just compensation in violation of the last clause of 5A.
I do hope that is true. Chevron deference was about dumbest thing the Supreme Court has done in a long history of dumb decisions.
Even the original is unconstitutional. I quote Madison, in Federalist #41:
[snip]
“Some, who have not denied the necessity of the power of taxation, have grounded a very fierce attack against the Constitution, on the language in which it is defined. It has been urged and echoed, that the power “to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts, and excises, to pay the debts, and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States,” amounts to an unlimited commission to exercise every power which may be alleged to be necessary for the common defense or general welfare. No stronger proof could be given of the distress under which these writers labor for objections, than their stooping to such a misconstruction.
[snip]
“Construe either of these articles by the rules which would justify the construction put on the new Constitution, and they vest in the existing Congress a power to legislate in all cases whatsoever. But what would have been thought of that assembly, if, attaching themselves to these general expressions, and disregarding the specifications which ascertain and limit their import, they had exercised an unlimited power of providing for the common defense and general welfare? I appeal to the objectors themselves, whether they would in that case have employed the same reasoning in justification of Congress as they now make use of against the convention. How difficult it is for error to escape its own condemnation!”
I believe that the original Constitutional justification for the CWA was that navigable waters, defined as waters of the United States, were under the jurisdiction of the Federal government, using the interstate commerce clause (which functions as the all purpose clause used to justify much of Federal regulation). That in itself seemed thin, but then EPA and the USACE took that tiny thread and stretched it around the solar system, so that just about any spot on the ground that ever gets wet is “jurisdictional wetlands” (the term meaning lands subject to regulation under CWA).
Then, some states take it even further. Florida, despite its new status as a red state, is still saddled with blue state environmental regulations, and its agencies (Department of Environmental Protection, and its sub-agencies the various Water Management Districts) have recently begun defining any ground that has soil that even slightly resembles a “hydric soil” is jurisdictional, whether or not it actually gets wet and whether or not it actually supports wetland vegetation. And if one argues with the state over whether an area is actually wetlands or not, and even if one wins the argument, the state still fines the landowner for “forcing them to research the matter”. I say this as a landowner to whom this exact situation was ignominiously forced upon me. I had to pay for the state’s effort to prove me wrong when I proved, via the science and extensive historical records, that I was right!!!!!
This is little different than when the Soviets would imprison a dissenter, or someone who was thought to be a threat to Stalin or his successors, order that person shot in prison, then sent a bill for the bullet to the surviving family members!
Even better, it was a 9-0 decision.
No it wasn’t. It was 9-0 to reverse the lower (circuit) court decision which was a no-brainer but it was only 5-4 as to the clarified definition of “navigable waters” that the EPA has jurisdiction over, described by Justice Alito:
In sum, we hold that the CWA [Clean Water Act] extends to only those “wetlands with a continuous surface connection to bodies tht are ‘waters of the United States’ in their own right,” so that they are “indistinguishable” from those waters.
The next time leftists dominate the Supreme court (they only need 2), this is open to being reversed.
read the whole opinion. its a wonderful excercise in trying to define things that appear to be simple, but are not.
For a supposed Eng Lit guy, you seem to have real comprehension issues.
The EPA tried to change the rules, set up their own rules…
SCOTUS told them NO !
Get over it !
This is definitely a win, but you can see the design plan for total control with political cherry picking for enforcement against political enemies or even non-contributors. No wonder they pull out all the stops to derail court nominees and target justices at their homes even after confirmation. Democracy is hanging by a thread and it makes you wonder what the MSM news coverage will be when Dems suspend that old, outdated Constitution that gets in their way.
Most of them will be celebrating that at long last the Democrats will be able to do whatever is necessary to create heaven on earth.
This is definitely good news for farmers who have a “watering hole” in a depression on their land for livestock, with no continuous connection to a navigable river.
There is still some ambiguity that could arise, for example, with lakes that are partially natural and partially dammed, with an outlet spillway into a river that drains into a navigable river. Since such lakes (particularly in western states with dry climates) sometimes do not allow any outflow during droughts in order to conserve water level, would the lake not be considered federally regulatable because its surface connection to navigable rivers is not “continuous” in time?
This could apply to some lakes that include state boundaries, such as Lake Powell (Utah/Arizona) from which the outflow is sometimes blocked during droughts.
Steve,
IIRC they have never stopped flow of the Colorado River at the Lake Powell or Lake Mead dams, but have lowered the outflow.
Although the recent rains have raised the lakes a few feet, it will take multiple wet years to refill – an unlikely event.
DuckDuckGo the term “dam dead-pool”
Here in Arizona our 2023 Central Arizona Project [water] allocatiion has been cut ~34% from its average amount due to the diminishing water levels. This will mostly affect farmers.
see http://www.cap-az.com
All damned rivers and streams are still navigable, if in their natural undammed state were navigable. M
this should mean that the EPA’s attempts to regulate ICE cars out of existence will meet the same end
I don’t see a connection to cars. The words I read seem focused on how to define water for regulation.
Correct. This is about WOTUS in CWA. The EPA car thing is under CCA, where Mass. v EPA gave EPA the right to declare CO2 a pollutant if it so chose. The problem is in the CCA definition of a pollutant as ‘that which pollutes’ without saying what pollutes means.
That is not the point that William made.
He is not making a Constitutional judgment, he is making a comment about what this present SCOTUS is liable to decide on the basis of their ideology and jurisprudence.
No surprise that a regime that calls males “women” would call mud puddles “navigable waters of the United States”.
If the mud puddle is big enough it could interfere with interstate commerce.
What is WOTUS?
Waters of the Unites States.
which is a regulation recently adopted by the Federal Environmental Protection Agency that attempts to define the the term “waters of the United States” The regulation embodies the postion the EPA took in today’s Supreme Court case.
The Supreme Court without saying it was doing so rejected the ideas behind the WOTUS regulation.
Ordinarily, we would expect the EPA to withdraw the rule and rewrite it within the parameters of the Courts opinion. Do not expect the EPA to be deterred by the mere triviality of losing a Supreme Court case. They believe they are responsible to a higher power — Gaia: goddess mother of the Earth.
Waters of the United States is a term used in the original Clean Water Act of 1972. How that term is applied to regulating water is the subject of the rule making by EPA that SCOTUS just overturned.
The hysterics in the leftist “mainstream” media of course reacted as if the Court had ordered the building of petrochemical plant on the D.C. mall next to the Potomac. https://www.cnn.com/2023/05/25/politics/supreme-court-wetlands-authority-epa/index.html CNN said the ruling had rolled back federal safeguards.
That is not true. What the Supreme Court did was clarifying its previous muddy rulings on the scope of the EPA’s jurisdiction. The EPA had adopted extremely aggressive interpretations of its powers and used them to harass owners of land near a ditch that feed into a drainage channel. The EPA had lost previous cases at the Supreme Court but had not given up its quest for jurisdiction over land that is not directly connected to streams, oceans, rivers, and lakes.
The ruling was actually unanimous but Alito’s majority opinion was only joined by four other justices. The other justices concurred in the ruling but were not ready to write a bright line test.
This is important. There were no dissents. The EPA lost unanimously. The reasoning differed among the Justices, not the result.
A major impact of this ruling is that it will put paid to the EPA’s current attempt to rewrite the CWA by administrative rule making.
One of the most important things you should remember when reading legacy liberal media on this subject is that just because something is not subject to Federal jurisdiction does not mean it is unregulated. The use of land (other than Federally owned land) is always subject to the jurisdiction of the State in which the land lies. Most states have regulations on the use of wetlands. If you do not think your states regulations are fit for their purpose, you should discuss this issue with your state representatives.
Correct. My one acre stock pond (via a dam and overflow safety system) on my Wisconsin dairy farm was at construction and still is in operation subject to Wisconsin state rules on such, including annual inspections.
Wisconsin Dairy Farm? I thought you lived in Miami. Or is there more than one Rud Istvan?
The more Ruds, the merrier!
Or maybe Rud is a “snow bird” that flies south in the summer and north in the winter?
Only one me. But four locations. Permanent resident of Fort Lauderdale on the beach. But we also have a 3br/3bath cabin in the North Georgia mountains on a Chattahoochie National forest inholding, a 3br condo on a golf course in Chicagoland, and a largish dairy farm in the Wisconsin uplands that makes for great hunting.
So without federal regulation, you will be able to put plutonium-239, arsenic, VX nerve gas, and those little plastic bags from the grocery store in your pond UNLESS the state of Wisconsin intervenes?
/Stokes panic simulator AI mode off
We have state laws. Some of them are against criminal acts. Spreading poison around would be the crime of attempted murder. Further we have common law civil remedies against people who create public nuances.
Don’t panic. We have lots of laws. The states have the plenary police power to enforce them.Civilization is not at stake here. The ability of Federal Bureaucrats to harass ordinary citizens is the issue.
The Declaration of Independence lays out, as one of the grounds on which the act of independence is based:
“HE has erected a Multitude of new Offices, and sent hither Swarms of Officers to harrass our People, and eat out their Substance.”
Love what you said.
The Declaration of Independence lays out, as one of the grounds on which the act of independence is based:
“HE has erected a Multitude of new Offices, and sent hither Swarms of Officers to harrass our People, and eat out their Substance.”
The Declaration of Independence was the “conception” of what became The United States of America.
The Articles of Confederation was a false start. (Not enough power to protect the rights of the individual.)
The Constitution WITH The Bill of Rights was a good start.
But now, with Big Government Bureaucracies, we’re right back to,
““HE has erected a Multitude of new Offices, and sent hither Swarms of Officers to harrass our People, and eat out their Substance.”
Time for a change, hopefully via the (honest) ballot box.
Forget the polls. The “Bud-Light” thing is a better indication of what people think of what they’ve been shoving down our throats.
(Sorry. Entering into a “rant”. I’ll restrain myself.)
Anheuser-Busch is most likely going to get nailed over the Dylan Mulvaney deal by violating the Beer Institute rules against marketing to minors and adults under the Federal drinking age of 21. Most of Mulvaney’s social media followers are under 21 years old.
The Beer Institute is the brewing industry’s self-regulating body, I assume formed to fend off excessive Federal regulation by ensuring that beer brewing companies don’t do stupid things like sending personalized cans of beer to a person with a large underage social media following, knowing full well that person will be posting about it on Facebook, Twitter etc.
If the Beer Institute elects to NOT punish Anheuser-Busch and insist they cease all further work with Mulvaney, and that Anheuser-Busch must demand Mulvaney remove all images and mentions of those personalized cans of beer from his social media – then the Beer Institute will show itself to be a paper tiger and Congress could feel obligated to enact more laws the beer business will not like.
The Beer Institute is going to have to take on additional watchdogging of breweries to ensure situations like this don’t happen again.
😎 Just because the Fed’s EPA no longer has jurisdiction doesn’t mean the States version of the EPA doesn’t.
Most State EPA’s (the may go by a different name) have regs on their books to satisfy the USEPA regs.
This ruling just means the USEPA doesn’t the authority to reach into that persistent wet spot in your backyard anymore.
The States are now free to trim, scrap and/or focus regs to fit local conditions.
Who knows? Maybe common sense may enter in!
40 years ago my job, along with the water and wastewater, involved managing 9 ponds on the property. That included algae control and input on stocking fish.
White Amurs (grass carp) were a good fish for algae control (It only took a couple for an average farm pond). But, in Ohio, they couldn’t be stocked unless they were confirmed to be triploid, that is sterile, in case they reproduced and escaped into the receiving waters. That meant they had to raised until until they were large enough to confirm they were triploid. More expensive than a bucket full of minnows.
I don’t remember for sure, but I don’t think that was an USEPA or a OEPA reg. I think it was an Ohio Department of Natural Resources reg.
As long as they haven’t gone the way of “California Dreaming” regulations and drunk the Green Kool-Aid (California has probably banned that food dye), the States will do fine.
My Mother who has been dead for 20 years talked about the “Waters of the United States”, so this nonsense goes way back.
The 9-0 judgement ought to put a seal on it for a while.
A big win for private property rights.
This is 100% OT but I hope someone reading this knows the answer.
Why has biomass burning been essentially absent from the UK power grid all week? It seems clear that Drax is offline.
Thanks.
The Sun’s shining (sarc)….
I don’t know but, don’t they have lots of coal nearby?
Maybe they should go back to burning long dead biomass instead recently killed biomass?
Maybe some zealots have interrupted the wood pellet supply chain somewhere?
Or maybe Biden’s pellet-hauling 18-wheeler has a flat? Or ran out of gas? Or its EV battery is dead? Or…
(Sorry, joel. I know you were looking for a serious answer. I hope you get it.)
The EPA should be put on hold and all of their rulings and regulations and judgements should be revisited. If any ruling can’t be thoroughly justified by sound science it should be withdrawn.
Thank Gia for small favors. We can’t depend on SCOTUS to keep bailing us out. You never know Chief Justice Roberts is going to pull an Obamacare on us and the composition of the court will change.
We need a president and a legislature that will rein in the bureaucracy and drain the swamp. We need people of principle in elected office who understand and voluntarily follow the checks and balances and other limits imposed by the US Constitution.
Perhaps the relevant agency should adopt the definition of navigable waters; “any stream that under normal flow conditions is capable of floating a 4 foot(1.22m) diameter log”. This was the rule when the state of Michigan entered the Union in 1837
I never knew that. I assumed it had to with loaded canoes being able to freely pass in the West (back then “the West” was Kentucky and Ohio) but was never defined back then.
I guess they thought “navigable” was enough of a defining term.
(Sort like “sex” in Title IX has been warped by the warped.)
The standard (for property rights/surveying) morphed into the ability to be used for commercial purposes. Floating logs was a big thing back then … so, apparently that became the standard.
There are still (political) decisions being made, further tweaking/morphing the original intent that assume commercial purpose include the right (as a commercial guide) to portage around obstacles (waterfalls, etc.) in small streams, and that the upstream reach is still public water, available for use/access by the general public.
Was the Length of that 4 foot diameter log, just about the size of a Canoe?
I don’t know but it would be the depth of a loaded canoe or a 4 foot log that would matter then.
The canoe thing was just my assumption. This was Michigan’s definition via Gilbert K. Arnold
“The definition of navigable waters; “any stream that under normal flow conditions is capable of floating a 4 foot(1.22m) diameter log”. This was the rule when the state of Michigan entered the Union in 1837″
Sadly, the SCOTUS judgement starts with a “common wisdom” fallacy that the EPA has done good, turned dirty waters into clean.
What happened, as any study of history and economics shows, is that those alleged to be responsible for pollution were ordinary folk who did not like pollution. There was always an intention to reduce pollution when the was money to afford the cleanups.
All that EPA contributed was a system of punishment for those who they judged to be too slow to make the money to pay for the cleanup.
Then the EPA went into full bully mode, by demanding more and more extreme cleanups. We saw stupidities like open pit mines having to be filled in after mining. People love natural lakes, but EPA punishes you if you make a natural one. Also, the excessive rehab monies might be spent on better targets, of more value to society than a filled in hole. There are economic studies of the futility of government policies about digging holes then filling them in. Geoff S
There are a lot of laws and regulations that shouldn’t apply to man made water features. One example is Lake Lowell near Nampa, Idaho. Created by the Deer Flat Upper Embankment earthen dam constructed in 1908, Lake Lowell’s primary purposes were recreation and irrigation. (Deer Flat Reservoir was renamed Lake Lowell in 1948.)
As wildlife is wont to do, animals were attracted to the new lake and got on just fine with all the human activity and use of the lake and its shoreline.
Roosevelt established the Deer Flat Wildlife Refuge there in 1909, as he did Wildlife Refuges in several other places during his term. You may have heard of the problems in Malhuer County, Oregon. People homesteaded the area, farming and irrigating, which attracted wildlife. Roosevelt made a big wildlife refuge there, then decades later the feds decided to drive out the private landowners, with the Bundy family being the last, and determined to not have the government drive them off their land.
But for the most part those refuges didn’t hinder human uses of the areas. there was even a dump (AKA Sanitary Landfill) operated at Deer Flat 1957-1971.
But circa 2006 the push was on to radically restrict human recreational uses of the lake surface and shore areas. Nevermind that for almost a century people had been boating and picnicking, hiking etc on and around the lake with no detriment to wildlife.
If humans dig a hole and fill it with water, should wildlife move in, the animals should never get precedence because if the humans hadn’t dug the hole and filled it with water, the animals wouldn’t be there.
It’s like the government saying that squatters who moved into your house get to stay and you have to leave, or can only utilize one closet while the squatters get all the rest of the house and pay for nothing.
Bundy land was in California. They had (grazing) conflicts with (fed) BLM there. They came to Malhuer to ‘help’ when they heard what BLM was doing.
Here is..
the accepted definition since 1853 (in Michigan) …”Since 1853 Michigan has defined a navigable body of water with a simple test–can you float a log down it? Despite some attempts to replace this antiquated test, that standard (specifically stated “capacity for valuable floatage”) continues to apply. Lakes with navigable inlets and outlets are considered public access waters
“Most rivers and streams, certainly larger ones, categorize as navigable under this standard. For lakes, case law has determined that a lake is only navigable if it has both a navigable inlet watercourse and a navigable outlet watercourse (a “dead end” lake, with only an outlet, is not navigable). Of course, access to a nonnavigable lake could also be obtained if there is public access over land with a littoral right, ie a public boat launch.
If a body of water is navigable, the public has a right to use it.
“Different activities have different rights:
Remember too, at the time a four root diameter log was a typical size
That was when they were cutting down old growth timber
People interested in these issues might enjoy my previous post on this question, The Potus And The Wotus. It’s on my personal blog, which you also might enjoy exploring.
Best to all,
w.