Sackett v. EPA

Summary

Justice Alito, joined by Chief Justice Roberts and Justices Thomas, Gorsuch, and Barrett, held that the Clean Water Act covers only relatively permanent bodies of water and wetlands having a continuous surface connection to covered waters that makes them practically indistinguishable from those waters. The Court rejected the EPA’s significant-nexus approach and reversed and remanded because the Sacketts’ wetlands were distinguishable from any possibly covered waters. Justice Thomas, joined by Justice Gorsuch, concurred and argued that the statute’s additional jurisdictional terms impose limits rooted in Congress’s traditional authority over navigable channels of interstate commerce. Justice Kagan, joined by Justices Sotomayor and Jackson, concurred in the judgment but criticized the majority for narrowing the statutory term “adjacent” and using clear-statement principles to override Congress’s environmental policy choices. Justice Kavanaugh, joined by Justices Sotomayor, Kagan, and Jackson, also concurred in the judgment: he rejected the significant-nexus test but would include wetlands separated from covered waters only by specified natural or artificial barriers.