Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/22pdf/21-454_4g15.pdf
Page Number: 55.0

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

21 

THOMAS, J., concurring 

“to exert anything more than its commerce power over nav-
igation.”    Ibid.;  see  also  id.,  at  173  (rejecting  the  Govern-
ment’s argument that the CWA invokes “Congress’ power 
to  regulate  intrastate  activities  that  ‘substantially  affect’ 
interstate commerce”). 

SWANCC thus interpreted the text of the CWA as imple-
menting  Congress’  “traditional  jurisdiction  over  waters 
that were or had been navigable in fact or which could rea-
sonably  be  so  made”—i.e.,  the  expanded  Daniel  Ball  test. 
531  U. S.,  at  172  (citing  Appalachian  Elec.,  311  U. S.,  at 
407–408).9   And,  consistent  with  the  traditional  link  be-
tween  navigability  and  the  limits  of  Congress’  regulatory 

—————— 
Boyden  Gray  Center  for  the  Study  of  the  Administrative  State  Policy 
Brief No. 4 (2022). 

9 Section  404(g),  added  by  the  1977  CWA  Amendments,  does  not 
demonstrate that the CWA departs from traditional conceptions of navi-
gability.  That provision states that States may administer permit pro-
grams  for  discharges  into  “navigable  waters  (other  than  those  waters 
which are presently used, or are susceptible to use in their natural con-
dition or by reasonable improvement as a means to transport interstate
or foreign commerce . . . , including wetlands adjacent thereto).”   91 Stat. 
1601 (codified, as amended, at 33 U. S. C. §1344(g)).  This provision thus
authorizes States to establish their own permit programs over a discrete
class of traditionally navigable waters of the United States: those that 
once were navigable waters of the United States, but are no longer nav-
igable in fact.  See Economy Light & Power Co., 256 U. S., at 123–124. 
Some have asserted that this nonjurisdictional provision—the function
of which in the statute is to expand state authority—signals that Con-
gress actually intended an unprecedented expansion of federal authority 
over the States.  Rapanos v. United States, 547 U. S. 715, 805–806 (2006) 
(Stevens, J., dissenting); see also post, at 3–5 (KAVANAUGH, J., concurring 
in judgment); post, at 1–3 (KAGAN, J., concurring in judgment).  But, as 
the Court explains, not only is §404(g) not the relevant definitional pro-
vision, its reference to “wetlands” is perfectly consistent with the com-
monsense  recognition  that  some  wetlands  are  indistinguishable  from
navigable waters with which they have continuous surface connections. 
Ante, at 18–22, 27.  To infer Congress’ intent to upend over a century of 
settled understanding and effect an unprecedented transfer of authority 
over land and water to the Federal Government, based on nothing more