The Long Life and Sudden Demise of Federal Wetlands Protection

Here’s a timeline of events.

It’s no wonder that one EPA staffer’s reaction to the Supreme Court ruling was a single word: “Heartbroken.” In 2023, the Supreme Court ended fifty years of broad federal protection to wetlands in Sackett v. United States.  It is only when you look back at the history of federal wetland regulation that you realize just how radical and destructive this decision was.  For instance, under the Court’s reasoning, a Reagan Administration regulation would be considered a blatant environmentalist overreach.

Here’s a timeline of the major events.

1972. Congress passed the Clean Water Act, which requires a federal permit for filling or dredging in “navigable waters,” defined as the “waters of the United States.”

1977. Army Corps defines navigable waters to include “isolated lakes and wetlands, intermittent streams, prairie potholes, and other waters … the destruction of which could affect interstate commerce.” A footnote explains that this category includes “”all other waters of the United States that could be regulated under the federal government’s Constitutional powers to regulate and protect interstate commerce.”

1985. In US v. Riverside Bayview Homes, the Court upheld federal jurisdiction over wetlands that are adjacent to water bodies.

1986. Reagan Administration codifies previous policies to cover all waters “such as intrastate lakes, rivers, streams (including intermittent streams), mudflats, sandflats, wetlands, sloughs, prairie potholes, wet meadows, playa lakes, or natural ponds, the use, degradation or destruction of which could affect interstate or foreign commerce,” plus adjacent wetlands.

1988. President George H.W. Bush promises ‘no net loss of wetlands.”

2001. In SWANCC v. U.S., the Supreme Court strikes down a rule that covered any wetland or pond used by […]

Full article: legal-planet.org