Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/22pdf/21-454_4g15.pdf
Page Number: 23.0

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

17 

Opinion of the Court 

that “the waters of the United States” principally refers to 
traditional  navigable  waters.  531  U. S.,  at  168–169,  172. 
That our CWA decisions operated under this assumption is 
unsurprising.  Ever  since  Gibbons  v.  Ogden,  9  Wheat.  1 
(1824), this Court has used “waters of the United States” to
refer to similar bodies of water, almost always in relation to 
ships.  Id., at 218 (discussing a vessel’s “conduct in the wa-
ters of the United States”).14 

The  EPA  argues  that  “waters”  is  “naturally  read  to  en-
compass wetlands” because the “presence of water is ‘uni-
versally regarded as the most basic feature of wetlands.’ ”  
Brief  for  Respondents  19.  But  that  reading  proves  too 
much.  Consider puddles, which are also defined by the or-
dinary  presence  of  water  even  though  few  would  describe
them as “waters.”  This argument is also tough to square 
with SWANCC, which held that the Act does not cover iso-
lated  ponds,  see  531  U. S.,  at  171,  or  Riverside  Bayview, 
which would have had no need to focus so extensively on the 
adjacency of wetlands to covered waters if the EPA’s read-
ing  were  correct,  see  474  U. S.,  at  131–135,  and  n. 8.    Fi-
nally,  it  is  also  instructive  that  the  CWA  expressly  “pro-
tect[s] the primary responsibilities and rights of States to
prevent, reduce, and eliminate pollution” and “to plan the
development  and  use  . . .  of  land  and  water  resources.” 

—————— 

14 See, e.g., United States v. Alvarez-Machain, 504 U. S. 655, 661, n. 7 
(1992) (discussing a treaty “to allow British passenger ships to carry liq-
uor while in the waters of the United States”); Kent v. Dulles, 357 U. S. 
116, 123 (1958) (discussing a prohibition on boarding “vessels of the en-
emy on waters of the United States”); New Jersey v. New York City, 290 
U. S. 237, 240 (1933) (enjoining employees of New York City from dump-
ing garbage “into the ocean, or waters of the United States, off the coast 
of New Jersey”); Cunard S. S. Co. v. Mellon, 262 U. S. 100, 127 (1923)
(holding  that  the  National  Prohibition  Act  did  not  apply  to  “merchant
ships  when  outside  the  waters  of  the  United  States”);  Keck  v.  United 
States, 172 U. S. 434, 444–445 (1899) (holding that concealing imported
goods on vessels “at the time of entering the waters of the United States,”
without more, did not constitute smuggling).