Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/22pdf/21-454_4g15.pdf
Page Number: 16

10 

SACKETT v. EPA 

Opinion of the Court 

water connected to traditional interstate navigable waters 
and, second, wetlands with such a close physical connection
to those waters that they were “as a practical matter indis-
tinguishable from waters of the United States.”  Id., at 742, 
755 (emphasis deleted).  Four Justices would have deferred 
to the Government’s determination that the wetlands at is-
sue were covered under the CWA.  Id., at 788 (Stevens, J., 
dissenting).  Finally, one Justice concluded that jurisdiction
under the CWA requires a “significant nexus” between wet-
lands  and  navigable  waters  and  that  such  a  nexus  exists
where  “the  wetlands,  either  alone  or  in  combination  with 
similarly  situated  lands  in  the  region,  significantly  affect 
the chemical, physical, and biological integrity” of those wa-
ters.  Id., at 779–780 (Kennedy, J., concurring in judgment). 
In the decade following Rapanos, the EPA and the Corps
issued guidance documents that “recognized larger grey ar-
eas and called for more fact-intensive individualized deter-
minations  in  those  grey  areas.”10   As  discussed,  they  in-
structed  agency  officials  to  assert 
jurisdiction  over 
wetlands “adjacent” to non-navigable tributaries based on 
fact-specific determinations regarding the presence of a sig-
nificant nexus.  2008 Guidance 8.  The guidance further ad-
vised officials to make this determination by considering a
lengthy  list  of  hydrological  and  ecological  factors.    Ibid. 
Echoing what they had said about the migratory bird rule,
the agencies later admitted that “almost all waters and wet-
lands across the country theoretically could be subject to a
case-specific jurisdictional determination” under this guid-
ance.  80 Fed. Reg. 37056 (2015); see, e.g., Hawkes Co., 578 
U. S., at 596 (explaining that the Corps found a significant 
nexus  between  wetlands  and  a  river  “some  120  miles 

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10 N.  Parrillo,  Federal  Agency  Guidance  and  the  Power  To  Bind:  An 
Empirical Study of Agencies and Industries, 36 Yale J. on Reg. 165, 231 
(2019); see 2007 Guidance 7–11; EPA & Corps, Clean Water Act Juris-
diction  Following  the  U. S.  Supreme  Court’s  Decision  in  Rapanos  v. 
United States & Carabell v. United States 8–12 (2008) (2008 Guidance).