Supreme Court Hears Clean Water Act Arguments

"All water flows downhill to the sea. But at what point does it enter the federal government's jurisdiction?

That was the question at the Supreme Court yesterday, as the justices heard arguments in the first major environmental case of the Roberts Court era -- a test of the Clean Water Act that could determine the scope of federal authority over the development of wetlands nationwide...

On the theory that what gets dumped upstream eventually winds up downstream, the government has interpreted that phrase to include not only large lakes and rivers, but also their smaller tributaries and wetlands near those tributaries...

But property owners, backed by homebuilders, developers, farmers, ranchers and some water districts from the arid West, say that view would federalize every drop of water in the country, effectively putting Washington in control of development miles away from any recognizably navigable waters."