A consortium of suburban Chicago municipalities (Cook County) selected as a solid waste disposal site an abandoned sand and gravel pit. They asked the Army Corps of Engineers (Corps) to determine if a landfill permit was required under the Clean Water Act (CWA). The Corps cited the “Migratory Bird Rule,” which extended its jurisdiction to intrastate waters that provide habitat for migratory birds, and refused to issue a permit.
Held:
(Rehnquist, joined by O’Connor, Scalia, Kennedy, & Thomas) Applying the Migratory Bird Rule exceeds the authority granted to the Corps under the CWA. The Corps would have jurisdiction over wetlands adjacent to a navigable waterway, but these wetlands are not adjacent to open water.
Dissent:
(Stevens, joined by Souter, Ginsburg, & Breyer) In 1969, the Cuyahoga River in Cleveland, Ohio, coated with a slick of industrial waste,
caught fire. Congress responded to that dramatic event by enacting the Clean Water Act. The Act proclaimed the ambitious goal of ending water pollution by 1985. The Court’s past interpretations of the CWA have been fully consistent with that goal. Today, however, the Court takes an unfortunate step that needlessly weakens our principal safeguard against toxic water.
In its decision today, the Court draws a new jurisdictional line, one that invalidates the 1986 migratory bird regulation as well as the Corps’ assertion of jurisdiction over all waters except for actually navigable waters, their tributaries, and wetlands adjacent to each.
Congress does support the Corps’ present interpretation of its mission as extending to so-called “isolated” waters. I respectfully dissent.
