Supreme Court allows Clean Water Act rules to be challenged

[Geee]

Washington Examiner:

The Supreme Court unanimously said Tuesday that federal decisions on whether a piece of land is a wetland under the Clean Water Act can be challenged in court.

 

All eight judges on the nation's highest court voted in favor of upholding judicial review of U.S. Army Corps of Engineers decisions in the case Army Corps of Engineers v. Hawkes.

 

In the opinion, Chief Justice John Roberts wrote that the Administrative Procedure Act allows three peat-mining companies to ask a court to immediately review a Corps decision to not allow them to mine a piece of land in northern Minnesota that the Corps determined was a wetland. Three other justices wrote concurring opinions.

 

The decision could have a major impact, given that Army Corps rulings on what constitutes a wetland cover a huge amount of land. Roberts wrote that the Corps has determined there are 270 million-300 million acres of wetlands in the United States, including half of Alaska.