Sackett v. Environmental Protection Agency on the Jurisdictional Limits of the Clean Water Act

Since the original passage of the Clean Water Act, the Environmental Protection Agency interpreted the Act’s jurisdiction over “waters of the United States” to include certain wetlands. While EPA’s interpretation was broad, Supreme Court decisions had over the years concluded that only wetlands “adjacent” to a covered water were protected under the Act. In Sackett v. EPA, the Court unanimously rejected EPA’s interpretation of “adjacent.” Instead, five justices held that only “wetlands with a continuous surface connection to bodies that are ‘waters of the United States’ in their own right,’ so that they are ‘indistinguishable’ from those waters” could be “waters of the United States.” Four justices would have allowed wetlands directly adjacent to a covered water to be protected even if they were separated by a dike, berm, dune, or similar barrier. The effect of the decision was to eliminate protection for the vast majority of the nation’s wetlands.