Sackett v. EPA

Summary

Justice Alito, joined by Chief Justice Roberts and Justices Thomas, Gorsuch, and Barrett, held that the Clean Water Act covers relatively permanent bodies of water and wetlands with a continuous surface connection that makes them practically indistinguishable from covered 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 should be understood through Congress's traditional authority over navigable interstate commercial waterways. Justice Kagan, joined by Justices Sotomayor and Jackson, concurred only in the judgment, criticizing the majority's interpretation and clear-statement analysis as improperly narrowing Congress's environmental protections. Justice Kavanaugh, joined by Justices Sotomayor, Kagan, and Jackson, also concurred only in the judgment: he rejected the significant-nexus test but would include wetlands separated from covered waters only by specified natural or artificial barriers.