Oral arguments took place last week in Sackett v. EPA, a Supreme Court case that could have a major impact on the Environmental Protection Agency’s authority. If the EPA loses the case, in which an Idaho couple is challenging an EPA order identifying their land as “protected wetlands” and were halted from building a house on the property, it could potentially lose its ability to issue enforcement orders under the Clean Water Act without those orders being subject to judicial review. What remains to be seen—besides the ruling, of course—is if a decision against the EPA would be limited only to the Clean Water Act, or if it’s order authority under other statutes would be affected as well.
To discuss this case, what it means and its impact going forward, we bring in Seth Jaffe, Coordinator of the Environmental Practice Group at Foley Hoag and author on the firm’s Law & The Environment—one of the LexBlog Network’s best and most established environmental law publications.
