![]() ![]() In 2013, Roberts authored a ruling that gutted a separate, important provision of the Voting Rights Act and has long argued that various government efforts to address historic racial discrimination are problematic and may exacerbate the situation. In the ruling, Roberts, writing for the majority, said a lower court had correctly concluded that the congressional map violated the voting rights law. Voters exit a polling station a National Guard base during the presidential primary in Camden, Ala., in March 2020. The environmental advocacy group Earthjustice, which filed an amicus brief in the Sackett case, said the court's decision "undoes a half-century of progress generated by the Clean Water Act," eliminating protections from almost 90 million acres (36.4 million hectares) of wetlands.In doing so, the court - which has a 6-3 conservative majority - turned away the state’s effort to make it harder to remedy concerns raised by civil rights advocates that the power of Black voters in states like Alabama is being diluted by dividing voters into districts where white voters dominate. Biden in April vetoed legislation that sought to overturn the rule but the Supreme Court's decision could cast doubt on the lawfulness of some parts of the new regulation. Lower court challenges led to the enforcement of the new rule being halted in at least 27 states. Noting that the Clean Water Act was adopted in the 1970s to address a widespread crisis over water quality nationwide, Kagan said the majority's decision undermines the clear intent of Congress to address pollution, with the majority having improperly appointed itself "as the national decision-maker on environmental policy."ĭamien Schiff, a senior attorney at Pacific Legal Foundation who argued the case for the Sacketts, hailed the decision as a victory for property rights, saying it "returns the scope of the Clean Water Act to its original and proper limits."īiden's administration in December finalized a rule expanding the definition of waterways that are protected under the Clean Water Act, in a reversal from former President Donald Trump's era. Justice Elena Kagan, joined by fellow liberals Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson, accused the conservative majority of imposing its own policy preferences to curb the EPA's reach. The Clean Water Act bars discharging pollutants, including rocks and sand, into the "waters of the United States," which regulators for decades have said covers not just navigable waters but adjacent wetlands like swamps, marshes and berms.Ĭourts and regulators have been grappling for decades over how much of a connection with a waterway a property must have in order to require a permit, with the Supreme Court issuing a ruling in 2006 that led to further uncertainty. "In sum, we hold that the (Clean Water Act) extends to only those wetlands that are 'as a practical matter indistinguishable from waters of the United States,'" Alito wrote, adding: "The wetlands on the Sacketts' property are distinguishable from any possibly covered waters." Alito, writing for the five-member majority, embraced what is called the "continuous surface connection" test for determining if adjacent wetlands are covered by the Clean Water Act.
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