W3 Seminar: Unnavigable waters: SCOTUS scuttles WOTUS

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Unnavigable waters: SCOTUS scuttles WOTUS

Royal Gardner, Professor of Law and Director of the Institute for Biodiversity Law and Policy, Stetson University College of Law

Abstract: In May 2023, the U.S. Supreme Court once again waded into the wetland wars. In Sackett v. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, in a decision written by Justice Samuel Alito, the Court very narrowly interpreted the statutory term “waters of the United States,” also known as WOTUS. If a wetland is a WOTUS, then it is protected by the Clean Water Act. If it is not a WOTUS, then the Clean Water Act does not apply. Brenda Mallory, the Chair of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, called Sackett “one of the largest judicial rollbacks of environmental protections in U.S. history.” The first thing that must be done, she said, is “to be honest, clear, vocal, and visual about the impact of the Supreme Court’s ruling.” This presentation provides such an assessment.