Posted on 06/19/2006 10:05:00 AM PDT by NormsRevenge
WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court ruled 5-4 Monday that regulators may have misinterpreted the federal Clean Water Act when they refused to allow two Michigan property owners to build a shopping mall and condos on wetlands they own.
At the same time, justices could not reach a consensus on whether government can extend protections for wetlands miles away from waterways.
The decision is the first significant environmental ruling for the high court headed by new Chief Justice John Roberts, and justices were so fractured that the main opinion by Justice Antonin Scalia only had the votes of four justices.
Roberts, one of those four, said that the result was so confusing that "lower courts and regulated entities will now have to feel their way on a case-by-case basis."
The court voided rulings against June Carabell and John Rapanos, who wanted to fill wetlands they owned near Lake St. Clair in Macomb County, Michigan. Carabell wanted to build condos on wetlands she owns about a mile from the lake. Rapanos wanted to put a shopping mall on his property, which is about 20 miles from the lake.
Instead of ruling in the property owners' favor, as they requested, justices said lower courts must reconsider whether ditches and drains near wetlands are waterways.
The court's four most conservative members wanted a more sweeping ruling, clearing the way for development of land unless it was directly connected to waterways.
The court's four most liberal members said that such a ruling would reject three decades of practice by the Army Corps of Engineers and threaten the environment.
In the middle was Justice Anthony M. Kennedy.
In a sign of the division, justices spent nearly half an hour explaining their votes from the bench Monday. After Scalia announced the decision, Kennedy and Justice John Paul Stevens both took turns detailing their positions.
Kennedy wrote his own opinion to explain why he was not joining the main opinion. "Important public interests are served by the Clean Water Act in general and by the protection of wetlands in particular," he said. Scalia's opinion, Kennedy said, "seems unduly dismissive of the interests asserted by the United States in these cases."
Scalia had said the Corps of Engineers misinterpreted the term "waters of the United States."
"In applying the definition to `ephemeral streams,' `wet meadows,' storm sewers and culverts, ... man-made drainage ditches, and dry arroyos in the middle of the desert, the Corps has stretched the term `waters of the United States' beyond parody," he wrote.
Instead of ruling in the property owners' favor, as they requested, justices said lower courts must reconsider whether ditches and drains near wetlands are waterways.
The court's four most conservative members wanted a more sweeping ruling, clearing the way for development of land unless it was directly connected to waterways.
The court's four most liberal members said that such a ruling would reject three decades of practice by the Army Corps of Engineers and threaten the environment.
In the middle was Justice Anthony M. Kennedy.
Pretty soon my pool will count as a wetland
Hopefully Justice Kennedy gets bit by the retirement bug ...
Naw get rid of Ginzberg first....we can live with Kennedy and the rest but Ginzberg is really "out there"
Antonin Scalia is the single most important person in America standing between us and utter stupidity.
A ditch is not a waterway. Never has been, never will be.
Yeah, good point.
"...such a ruling would reject three decades of practice by the Army Corps of Engineers and threaten the environment."
Need I point out that it is not the Supreme Court's job to protect the habits of a government agency or the environment?
A law that is unconstutional could feed starving children but if it has no legal basis it is, well, null and void.
But then, I'm not a Constutional "scholar". I don't even have the legal background of, oh, I dont know, HARRIET MIERS?
So I suppose in the rarified air breathed by "brilliant legal minds" a ditch may indeed be transmogrified into a waterway.
I think we need more people on the Court like Scalia, and the screening test to find them should be show them a broom and ask them if it is a mop.
Glad to see the Court at least get the specific question of this particular case right. A clear step in the right direction.
Thank God for President Bush's new justices.
They make it sound like 5,4 votes on the supreme court are unusual.
"But what has President Bush done for conservatives? Vote third party"
Nature has never been static. Man is part of nature,
Claiming that human activity is always a "threat" to the environment is circular reasoning, and a self-fulfilling prophecy. One could just as easily assert the opposite.
I believe it is becoming apparent to the general public that many levels of government are using the principle of the greater good to control and exploit taxpayers.
AMEN. (For those of you who call me a leftist because I oppose the Iraq war, THIS is why I voted for Bush -- to get people like Alito and Roberts on the Supreme Court. He T'd me off with the Harriet Miers stupid move, but he recovered - thanks to pressure from conservatives. Alito and Robers are turning out even better than I hoped. One more like them and the rule of law can be returned to America.) Of course, that still doesn't make me an Iraq war supporter - but the only place where everybody is supposed to agree on everything is a place like .. Saddam's Iraq.
The damn AP is so screwed up they contradict themselves in the same breath.
First the AP idiots say: "The court voided rulings against June Carabell and John Rapanos, who wanted to fill wetlands they owned..."
Then the AP morons contradict themselves and say: "Instead of ruling in the property owners' favor..."
Well, which is it? Voiding a ruling is a victory.
The AP are the most useless bunch of maggots to ever hold a pencil.
Cutting down tag elders is "damaging a wetland critical area?"
I recommend you challenge this asinine assertion under the federal Data Quality Act.
DQA makes these unelected bureaucrats justify their illegal rules, using scientific data. Because a bureaucratic says something is true, that's not necessarily so.
The DQA is designed to destroy eco-fascist junk science. It also forces these Marxists out of the field and gets them behind their desks justifying their actions with reams of requests you can file.
There's some debate on whether the DQA applies to state mandates, but I believe it does.
If you need more info on DQA, freepmail me.
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