Source: https://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/04-1527.ZS.html
Timestamp: 2019-04-26 05:50:21+00:00

Document:
(a) The Clean Water Act does not define “discharge,” but provides that the term “when used without qualification includes a discharge of a pollutant, and a discharge of pollutants,” 33 U. S. C. §1362(16). But “discharge” is presumably broader, else superfluous, and since it is neither defined nor a term of art, it should be construed “in accordance with its ordinary or natural meaning,” FDIC v. Meyer, 510 U. S. 471 . When applied to water, discharge commonly means “flowing or issuing out,” Webster’s New International Dictionary 742. This Court has consistently intended that meaning in prior water cases, including the only case focused on §401, PUD No. 1 of Jefferson Cty. v. Washington Dept. of Ecology, 511 U. S. 700 , in which no one questioned that the discharge of water from a dam fell within §401’s ambit. The Environmental Protection Agency and FERC have also regularly read “discharge” to cover releases from hydroelectric dams. Pp. 3–6.
(b) Warren’s three arguments for avoiding this common reading are unavailing. The canon noscitur a sociis—“a word is known by the company it keeps,” Gustafson v. Alloyd Co., 513 U. S. 561 —does not apply here. Warren claims that since “discharge” is keeping company with “discharge” defined as adding one or more pollutants, see §1362(12), discharge standing alone must also require the addition of something foreign to the water. This argument seems to assume that pairing a broad statutory term with a narrow one shrinks the broad one, but there is no such general usage of language this way. Warren also relies on South Fla. Water Management Dist. v. Miccosukee Tribe, 541 U. S. 95 , but that case is not on point. It addressed §402, not §401, and the two sections are not interchangeable, as they serve different purposes and use different language to reach them. Thus, that something must be added in order to implicate §402 does not explain what suffices for a discharge under §401. Finally, the Clean Water Act’s legislative history, if it means anything, goes against Warren’s reading of “discharge.” Pp. 6–12.

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