Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/22pdf/21-454_4g15.pdf
Page Number: 39.0

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

5 

THOMAS, J., concurring 

This understanding of the limits of Congress’ channels-
of-commerce  authority  prevailed  through  the  end  of  the 
19th  century.    The  Court’s  cases  consistently  recognized
that Congress has authority over navigable waters for only 
the  limited  “purpose  of  regulating  and  improving  naviga-
tion.”  Gibson  v.  United  States,  166  U. S.  269,  271–272 
(1897);  see  also  Port  of  Seattle  v.  Oregon  &  Washington 
R. Co.,  255  U. S.  56,  63  (1921)  (“The  right  of  the  United 
States in the navigable waters within the several States is 
limited to the control thereof for purposes of navigation”).
And, this Court was careful to reaffirm that “technical title 
to the beds of the navigable rivers of the United States is 
either in the States in which the rivers are situated, or in 
the owners of the land bordering upon such rivers” as de-
termined by “local law.”  United States v. Chandler-Dunbar 
Water Power Co., 229 U. S. 53, 60 (1913).

The River and Harbor Acts of 1890, 1894, and 1899 illus-
trate the limits of the channels-of-commerce authority.  The 
1890 Act authorizes the Secretary of War to “prohibi[t]” “the
creation of any obstruction, not affirmatively authorized by 
law, to the navigable capacity of any waters, in respect of 
which  the  United  States  has  jurisdiction.”    §10,  26  Stat.
454.  The 1894 Act made it unlawful to deposit matter into
“any harbor or river of the United States” that the Federal 
Government has appropriated money to improve and pro-
hibited  injuring  improvements  built  by  the  United  States 
in “any of its navigable waters.”  §6, 28 Stat. 363. 

Congress consolidated and expanded these authorities in 
the 1899 Act.  Section 10 of the Act prohibits “[t]he creation 
of any obstruction . . . to the navigable capacity of any of the
waters  of  the  United  States,”  requires  a  permit  to  build 
“structures  in  any  . . .  water  of  the  United  States,”  and 
makes it unlawful “to excavate or fill, or in any manner to 
alter or modify the course, location, condition, or capacity”
of any water, “within the limits of any breakwater, or of the 
channel of any navigable water of the United States.”  30