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Page Number: 58.0

24 

SACKETT v. EPA 

THOMAS, J., concurring 

SWANCC, 531 U. S., at 174 (reaffirming “the States’ tradi-
tional and primary power over land and water use”); Leovy, 
177 U. S., at 633 (repudiating an interpretation of the 1899 
Act that would render practically every “creek or stream in 
the entire country” a “navigable water of the United States”
and  “subject  the  officers  and  agents  of  a  State  . . .  to  fine 
and  imprisonment”  for  draining  a  swamp  “unless  permis-
sion [was] first obtained from the Secretary of War”).  By
contrast, the agencies’ interpretation amounts to a federal 
police power, exercised in the most aggressive possible way. 
Thankfully, applying well-established navigability rules
makes this a straightforward case.  The “wetlands” on the 
Sacketts’ property are not “waters of the United States” for 
several independently sufficient reasons.  First, for the rea-
sons  set  out  by  the  Court,  the  Sacketts’  wetlands  are  not 
“waters” because they lack a continuous surface connection
with a traditional navigable water.  See ante, at 27.  Second, 
the  nonnavigable  so-called  “tributary”  (really,  a  roadside 
ditch) across the street from the Sacketts’ property is not a 
water of the United States because it is not, has never been, 
and cannot reasonably be made a highway of interstate or 
foreign commerce.  See SWANCC, 531 U. S., at 172.  Third, 
the  agencies  have  not  attempted  to  establish  that  Priest
Lake is a navigable water under the expanded Daniel Ball 
test.  The lake is purely intrastate, and the agencies have
not shown that it is a highway of interstate or foreign com-
merce.  Instead, the agencies rely primarily upon interstate
tourism and the lake’s attenuated connection to navigable 
waters.  See  U. S.  Army  Corps  of  Engineers,  G.  Rayner, 
Priest  Lake  Jurisdictional  Determination  (Feb.  27,  2007);
see also Brief for National Association of Home Builders of 
the  United  States  as  Amicus  Curiae  21–24.   But,  this  is 
likely insufficient under the traditional navigability tests to
which the CWA pegs jurisdiction.  See supra, at 10–13; ac-
cord, Tr. of Oral Arg. 119 (EPA counsel conceding that Con-
gress “hasn’t used its full Commerce Clause authority” in