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Happy 50th Anniversary, Federal Clean Water Act

Legal Planet

The Clean Water Act (CWA), one of the nation’s most important environmental laws, is 50 years old today. The nation’s rivers, streams, lakes and ocean waters are dramatically cleaner and healthier than they were a half-century ago. (credit: Amazon).

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Will the Supreme Court Gut the Clean Water Act?

Legal Planet

What wetlands and waterbodies does the Clean Water Act protect? The Biden Administration is in the process of issuing a new regulation on the subject. A little quick background: The term “navigable waters” traditionally meant water bodies that could be used for transportation. Not a good sign.

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More on the Clean Water Act at 50

Environment, Law, and History

Legal Planet's Richard Frank posted today on the US Clean Water Act's 50th birthday. Nevertheless, and with the possible exception of the Clean Air Act, no law enacted as part of the outpouring of federal environmental legislation in the 1970’s has proven more successful and transformational than the CWA.

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Supreme Court Issues Decision Sharply Limiting Clean Water Act Jurisdiction over Wetlands

E2 Law Blog

The wetlands at issue are separated by a 30-foot road from an unnamed tributary that feeds into a non-navigable creek that feeds into Priest Lake, a navigable but wholly intrastate water body. Thus began nearly two decades of litigation, culminating in the Supreme Court’s May 25, 2023 decision in Sackett v. EPA , 598 U.S. at __ (slip op.

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What’s a Major Question? Opinions differ.

Legal Planet

EPA , the Supreme Court used the “major question doctrine” to overturn Obama’s signature climate change regulation. The cases are split 3 to 3, with some courts applying the major question to regulations that were so minor I’d never heard of them. In West Virginia v. No, not a major question. Biden , 67 F.4

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Bridge to Troubled Waters: US Supreme Court Guts Wetlands Protections

Union of Concerned Scientists

Only 23 percent of the world’s large rivers (more than 620 miles in length) flow uninterrupted into the ocean. Invisible from above, groundwater is a critical source of drinking water, providing the base flow for rivers and, as the study said, “directly sustain[ing] wetlands and terrestrial vegetation.”

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Supreme Court Adopts Major New “Functional Equivalent Test” for Discharges under Clean Water Act

Ohio Environmental Law

Supreme Court issued a major ruling interpreting the breadth and scope of the Clean Water Act in County of Maui v. A source of ongoing debate over the scope of the Clean Water Act has been to what extent does the statute regulate discharges when they come into contact with groundwater?