Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/19pdf/18-260_jifl.pdf
Page Number: 15

Cite as:  590 U. S. ____ (2020) 

11 

Opinion of the Court 

reading.  That language requires a permit for a “discharge.”
A “discharge” is “any addition” of a pollutant to navigable 
waters “from any point source.”  And a “point source” is “any
discernible,  confined  and  discrete  conveyance”  (such  as  a 
pipe, ditch, well, etc.).  Reading “from” and “conveyance” to-
gether,  Maui  argues  that  the  statutory  meaning  of  “from
any  point  source”  is  not  about  where  the  pollution  origi-
nated, but about how it got there.  Under what Maui calls 
the  means-of-delivery  test,  a  permit  is  required  only  if  a 
point source itself ultimately delivers the pollutant to nav-
igable waters.  Under this view, if the pollutant must travel 
through groundwater to reach navigable waters, then it is
the groundwater, not the pipe, that is the conveyance.

Congress  sometimes  adopts  less  common  meanings  of 
common words, but this esoteric definition of “from,” as con-
noting a means, does not remotely fit in this context.  The 
statute couples the word “from” with the word “to”—strong
evidence that Congress was referring to a destination (“nav-
igable waters”) and an origin (“any point source”).  Further 
underscoring that Congress intended this every day mean-
ing is that the object of “from” is a “point source”—a source, 
again, connoting an origin.  That Maui’s proffered interpre-
tation would also create a serious loophole in the permitting
regime also indicates it is an unreasonable one. 

C 
The  Solicitor  General  agrees  that,  as  a  general  matter,
the permitting requirement applies to at least some addi-
tions of pollutants to navigable waters that come indirectly
from point sources.  See Brief for United States as Amicus 
Curiae  33–35.    But  the  Solicitor  General  argues  that  the 
proper interpretation of the statute is the one reflected in
EPA’s recent Interpretive Statement.  After receiving more
than 50,000 comments from the public, and after the Ninth
Circuit  released  its  opinion  in  this  case,  EPA  wrote  that