The Supreme Court will hear its first major environment case of the term today over a Maui reef — and the case could have big implications for the Clean Water Act. Here’s why.
The Supreme Court will hear its first major environment case of the term on Wednesday, with lawyers set to clash over the power of the Clean Water Act to police polluters.A decision could have broad ramifications on the reach of federal water rules that were put in place in the early 1970s in response to growing public outcry over the nation's dirty waterways.
A collection of environmentalist groups sued Maui over the matter in 2012, arguing that waste from the plant was damaging a nearby reef and hurting marine life. In response, Maui argued that it was not liable for the damage because it is not required to get federal permits for pollution that travels through groundwater.
The federal appeals court that reviewed the matter sided with the environmentalists. Circuit Judge Dorothy Wright Nelson, writing for a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, reasoned that because the pollution was "fairly traceable" to the plant, "the discharge was the functional equivalent of a discharge into the navigable water."The case has generated significant buzz and forceful arguments from businesses and organizations on both sides.
The EPA has appeared to flip sides in the matter. The agency, which sided with the environmentalists in a brief filed with the 9th Circuit, released a new interpretation of the Clean Water Act in April that wasThree former EPA administrators who served under both Democratic and Republican presidents said the EPA's announcement in April marked a reversal of decades of precedent that "would open an enormous loophole" in the law.
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