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Page Number: 50.0

16 

SACKETT v. EPA 

THOMAS, J., concurring 

II 
This history demonstrates that Congress was not writing
on a blank slate in the CWA, which defines federal jurisdic-
tion  using  the  same  terms  used  in  the  River  and  Harbor 
Acts:  “navigable  waters”  and  “the  waters  of  the  United 
States,” 33 U. S. C. §§1311(a), 1362(7), (12).  As explained
above, courts and Congress had long used the terms “navi-
gable water,” “navigable water of the United States,” and 
“the waters of the United States” interchangeably to signify 
those waters to which the traditional channels-of-commerce 
authority extended.  See supra, at 6.  The terms “navigable 
waters” and “waters of the United States” shared a core re-
quirement  that  the  water  be  a  “highway  over  which  com-
merce is or may be carried,” with the term “of the United
States” doing the independent work of requiring that such
commerce “be carried on with other States or foreign coun-
tries.”  The Daniel Ball, 10 Wall., at 563.  The text of the 
CWA thus reflects the traditional balance between federal 
and state authority over navigable waters, as set out by The 
Daniel Ball.  It would be strange indeed if Congress sought 
to effect a fundamental transformation of federal jurisdic-
tion over water through phrases that had been in use to de-
scribe the traditional scope of that jurisdiction for well over 
a century and that carried a well-understood meaning.5 

—————— 

5 In  fact,  when  Congress  has  wished  to  depart  from  this  traditional 
meaning, it has done so expressly, as in parts of the Federal Power Act,
§23,  41  Stat.  1075  (requiring  approval  for  dam  construction  “across, 
along, over, or in any stream or part thereof, other than those defined 
herein this chapter as navigable waters”); the Federal Water Pollution
Control Act, ch. 758, §2(a), 62 Stat. 1155 (as amended, 86 Stat. 816) (au-
thorizing federal-state cooperation to abate water pollution in “interstate
waters”  and  their  tributaries);  and  the  Water  Quality  Act  of  1965,  79
Stat.  905–906  (authorizing  grants  to  research  abatement  of  pollution
into “any waters”); see Hardy Salt Co. v. Southern Pacific Transp. Co., 
501  F.  2d  1156,  1168  (CA10  1974)  (noting  that  Congress  only  departs
from  the  expanded  Daniel  Ball  test  by  using  “clear  and  explicit  lan-
guage,” as it did in parts of the Federal Power Act).