Cato Event Podcast

Four years ago, in Sackett v. EPA (2012), the Supreme Court unanimously rejected the EPA's effort to deny judicial review of its determination that a rural lot where an Idaho couple was building their home was a federal wetland. The Army Corps of Engineers makes tens of thousands of similar wetlands determinations each year under the Clean Water Act (CWA), but it claims that Sackett doesn't apply because these determinations are legally different from the EPA's orders. On March 30, the Supreme Court will hear argument in U.S. Army Corps of Engineers v. Hawkes Co. to decide whether landowners have access to court to challenge agency rulings that their property contains wetlands that are subject to federal regulation. While 30 states are now suing to overturn the newest CWA rule expanding power over "waters of the United States," invalidating that rule won't change existing federal control over individual landowners if the agencies continue to assert similarly overbroad authority. What recourse do landowners ha