Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/22pdf/21-454_4g15.pdf
Page Number: 3.0

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

3 

Syllabus 

requires  a  “significant  nexus”  between  the  wetland  and  its  adjacent
navigable waters, which exists when “the wetlands, either alone or in
combination with similarly situated lands in the region, significantly
affect the chemical, physical, and biological integrity” of those waters. 
Id.,  at  779–780.    Following  Rapanos,  field  agents  brought  nearly  all
waters and wetlands under the risk of CWA jurisdiction by engaging 
in fact-intensive “significant-nexus” determinations that turned on a 
lengthy list of hydrological and ecological factors. 

Under the agencies’ current rule, traditional navigable waters, in-
terstate  waters,  and  the  territorial  seas,  as  well  as  their  tributaries 
and adjacent wetlands, are waters of the United States.  See 88 Fed. 
Reg. 3143.  So too are any “[i]ntrastate lakes and ponds, streams, or
wetlands” that either have a continuous surface connection to categor-
ically included waters or have a significant nexus to interstate or tra-
ditional  navigable  waters.    Id.,  at  3006,  3143.    Finding  a  significant
nexus continues to require consideration of a list of open-ended factors. 
Ibid.  Finally, the current rule returns to the agencies’ longstanding 
definition of “adjacent.”  Ibid.  Pp. 6–12.

(2) Landowners  who  even  negligently  discharge  pollutants  into
navigable waters without a permit potentially face severe criminal and 
civil penalties under the Act.  As things currently stand, the agencies 
maintain that the significant-nexus test is sufficient to establish juris-
diction over “adjacent” wetlands.  By the EPA’s own admission, nearly 
all waters and wetlands are potentially susceptible to regulation under
this test, putting a staggering array of landowners at risk of criminal 
prosecution for such mundane activities as moving dirt.  Pp. 12–14.

(b) Next, the Court considers the extent of the CWA’s geographical 

reach.  Pp. 14–22.

(1) To  make  sense  of  Congress’s  choice  to  define  “navigable  wa-
ters” as “the waters of the United States,” the Court concludes that the 
CWA’s use of “waters” encompasses “only those relatively permanent,
standing  or  continuously  flowing  bodies  of  water  ‘forming  geo-
graphic[al]  features’  that  are  described  in  ordinary  parlance  as 
‘streams, oceans, rivers, and lakes.’ ”  Rapanos, 547 U. S., at 739 (plu-
rality opinion).  This reading follows from the CWA’s deliberate use of
the plural “waters,” which refers to those bodies of water listed above, 
and also helps to align the meaning of “the waters of the United States” 
with the defined term “navigable waters.”  More broadly, this reading 
accords with how Congress has employed the term “waters” elsewhere 
in the CWA—see, e.g., 33 U. S. C. §§1267(i)(2)(D), 1268(a)(3)(I)—and 
in other laws—see, e.g., 16 U. S. C. §§745, 4701(a)(7).  This Court has 
understood CWA’s use of “waters” in the same way.  See, e.g., Riverside 
Bayview, 474 U. S., at 133; SWANCC, 531 U. S., at 168–169, 172. 

The EPA’s insistence that “water” is “naturally read to encompass