to regulate the nation’s wetlands and waterways. The Supreme Court had ruled in 2006 that wetlands are covered by the federal Clean Water Act if they have a “significant nexus” to regulated waters. Property rights groups and business organizations tried to limit regulation to wetlands and other areas directly connected to “navigable waters” — i.e. a stream, river or lake that someone could travel through on a boat. Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr.
May 25, said the act “extends to only those 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.”Four presidential administrations have been mired in the fight over what constitutes a wetland, dating back to George W. Bush’s presidency.
, marked another limit on the EPA’s authority to combat pollution. The Biden administration and environmental groups have argued for preserving broader federal authority over the reach of the law.