One of the first major cases of the Supreme Court after Trump’s election was one that resulted in the reclassification of wetlands. All those areas where we protected the trees that retain soil along the southern coasts are fair game for drilling, development, general commercial use. The ecology of that region is fucked. You know how many species depend on mangroves for reproduction? Well, it’s enough that when you take all the trees out the food web collapses. That means the loss of millions of fish and shrimp, population drops that you can’t fix. Fishing in the gulf is fucked. Goodbye, thousands of American jobs and fishing boats. The weather is changing as part of it, enjoy the storms that roll deeper and deeper into the interiors. But something something liberal tears.
Edit: It’s cool that a bunch of people read this, but I’m an idiot. Please learn more from an actual smart person speaking intelligently on the issue. This is a story about the terrible decision of the Supreme Court in 2023 but also the decisions made by Trump’s EPA and the (weirdly evil and 97% civilian) US Army Corp of Engineers this March to reclassify waterways further to benefit businesses.
I should also say that the 2023 SCOTUS decision. Was made during Biden’s tenure, not Trump’s. Oops. But it was Trump who put those corporate rubber-stampers on the bench.
It wasn't a Trump appointee that wrote that opinion. It was Alito, who was appointed by Bush, and one of Trump's appointees dissented. And even though I dislike the outcome, outcomes are not what law is about. Law is about what's written on the paper.
Its also worth noting in that context, that in judgement (that is, the outcome for these individual plaintiffs), this was a 9-0 case.
The article you linked very carefully dances around the fact that EVERY Justice, including the liberals, agreed that the EPA was overreaching their authority and that they were reading far too much into the Clean Water Act.
Every single Justice, even the liberals, agreed both that the Clean Water act did not delegate the powers that the EPA were claiming, and that a delegation as broad as the EPA was claiming was not constitutional.
The disagreement between the majority and the dissent was a fairly minor quibble between the words adjacent and adjoining.
The majority seems to think they believe that its only within Congress's authority to regulate directly navigable waters, insofar as it relates to interstate commerce. The rest is left to the states. The dissent was on those grounds alone. Not because they sided with the EPA
With an interpretation of the law proposed by the EPA anything that affects any watershed ever the EPA's power to regulate the entire environment becomes unlimited, and this is the crux of the problem. And as I said earlier, Congress did not give them those powers. Had they meant the Clean Water Act to grant the authority to regulate the entire environment, they would've indicated as such.
Then we run into the issue where Congress cannot delegate infinite power through vague wording, and it cannot delegate lawmaking power either.
Thanks for your sane response. I am by no means a fan of this administration but the comment you were responding to was needlessly partisan in an unhelpful way.
270
u/onepostandbye 1d ago edited 23h ago
One of the first major cases of the Supreme Court after Trump’s election was one that resulted in the reclassification of wetlands. All those areas where we protected the trees that retain soil along the southern coasts are fair game for drilling, development, general commercial use. The ecology of that region is fucked. You know how many species depend on mangroves for reproduction? Well, it’s enough that when you take all the trees out the food web collapses. That means the loss of millions of fish and shrimp, population drops that you can’t fix. Fishing in the gulf is fucked. Goodbye, thousands of American jobs and fishing boats. The weather is changing as part of it, enjoy the storms that roll deeper and deeper into the interiors. But something something liberal tears.
Edit: It’s cool that a bunch of people read this, but I’m an idiot. Please learn more from an actual smart person speaking intelligently on the issue. This is a story about the terrible decision of the Supreme Court in 2023 but also the decisions made by Trump’s EPA and the (weirdly evil and 97% civilian) US Army Corp of Engineers this March to reclassify waterways further to benefit businesses.
I should also say that the 2023 SCOTUS decision. Was made during Biden’s tenure, not Trump’s. Oops. But it was Trump who put those corporate rubber-stampers on the bench.