Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/22pdf/21-454_4g15.pdf
Page Number: 62

Cite as:  598 U. S. ____ (2023) 

1 

KAGAN, J., concurring in judgment 

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES 

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No. 21–454 
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MICHAEL SACKETT, ET UX., PETITIONERS v. 
ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION 
AGENCY, ET AL. 

ON WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF 
APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT 

[May 25, 2023] 

JUSTICE  KAGAN,  with  whom  JUSTICE  SOTOMAYOR  and 

JUSTICE JACKSON join, concurring in the judgment. 
  Like  JUSTICE  KAVANAUGH,  “I  would  stick  to  the  text.” 
Post, at 14 (opinion concurring in judgment).  As he explains
in the principal concurrence, our normal method of constru-
ing statutes identifies which wetlands the Clean Water Act 
covers—and  the  answer  provided  exceeds  what  the  Court 
says  today.   Because  the  Act  covers  “the  waters  of  the 
United  States,”  and  those  waters  “includ[e]”  all  wetlands
“adjacent” to other covered waters, the Act extends to those 
“adjacent” wetlands.  33 U. S. C. §§1362(7), 1344(g)(1).  And 
in ordinary language, one thing is adjacent to another not 
only when it is touching, but also when it is nearby.  See 
post, at 4–5 (quoting multiple dictionaries).  So, for exam-
ple, one house is adjacent to another even when a stretch of 
grass and a picket fence separate the two.  As applied here, 
that means—as the EPA and Army Corps have recognized 
for almost half a century—that a wetland comes within the
Act if (i) it is “contiguous to or bordering a covered water, or 
(ii) if [it] is separated from a covered water only by a man-
made dike or barrier, natural river berm, beach dune, or the 
like.”  Post, at 14 (emphasis in original).  In excluding all
the  wetlands  in  category  (ii),  the  majority’s  “ ‘continuous
surface connection’ test disregards the ordinary meaning of