Source: http://www.kjeanrl.com/full-blog/hutchinsonblog
Timestamp: 2019-04-25 03:54:33+00:00

Document:
It is not often that a criminal appeal can change the face of American environmental law and change the jurisdiction of major environmental legislation. This is why anyone concerned with ecological diversity or clean water ought to be watching closely for the Supreme Court’s upcoming decision in United States v. Hughes.
However, since there was no majority opinion to rely on in Freeman, federal courts applied the Marks Rule. The Marks Court held that, “When a fragmented Court decides a case and no single rationale explaining the result enjoys the assent of five Justices, ‘the holding of the Court may be viewed as that position taken by those Members who concurred in the judgments on the narrowest grounds . . .’”[v] That is, when the Supreme Court reaches a majority result with only a plurality in reasoning, federal courts are to apply the reasoning of the concurring justice as the holding of the case and construe it as narrowly as possible. The rule from Marks then is likely to be implicated in any attempt to resolve the interpretative dispute in Hughes.[vi] The United States Supreme Court has recently taken up Hughes and may decide to either modify or overrule the Marks rule.
This definition of “waters of the United States” effectively narrowed the bodies of water that the EPA could enforce the standards prescribed by the CWA, especially with respect to seasonal bodies of water.
However, because of the interpretive rule from Marks, the plurality’s definition of “waters of the United States” has never been enforced. Instead, federal courts have generally enforced the definition offered by Justice Kennedy’s concurrence in Rapanos, in which “wetlands”—and other intermittent or temporary bodies of waters—are considered “waters of the United States if such bodies share a significant nexus with more “traditional” waters bodies of the Unites States.[xii] Kennedy’s definition of “waters of the United States” significantly enlarges the jurisdiction of the CWA over the plurality’s. Instead of needing to be “present, fixed bodies of water” in order to be eligible for the CWA’s regulatory protection, wetlands only need to share some significant connection with such a body.
What the Supreme Court decides to do with the rule from Marks in its upcoming Hughes decision could greatly impact the bodies of water that are eligible to receive the CWA’s regulatory protection. If the Court decides to reverse Marks and hold that plurality opinions control not only the result, but also the set the rule that lower courts must follow, then the definition of what constitutes a water of the United States would be greatly narrowed. Moreover, many wetlands that are currently protected by the CWA would no longer qualify for such protection going forward.
So, while United States v. Hughes may technically be a case revolving around criminal sentencing, it has the potential to change the face of water quality protection in the United States.
[i] United States v. Hughes, 849 F.3d 1008 (11th Cir. 2017).
[ii] 18 U.S.C. § 3582(C)(2) (LEXIS through Pub. L. No. 115-117 (excluding Pub. L. No. 115-91)).
[iii] 564 U.S. 522 (2011).
[v] Marks v. United States, 430 U.S. 188, 193 (1977) (quoting Gregg v. Georgia, 153 U.S. 169 n.15 (1976)).
[vi] See Juan Carolos Rodriguez, 4 Environmental Rulings That Flew Under the Radar in 2017 (Jan. 5, 2018, 8:05 PM, https://www.law360.com/energy/articles/999078/4-environmental-rulings-that-flew-under-the-radar-in-2017.
[vii] 33 U.S.C. § 1251 (LEXIS through Pub. L. No. 115-117 (excluding Pub. L. No. 115-91)).
[viii] Eric D. Stein, How Effective has the Clean Water Act Been at Reducing Pollutant Mass Emissions to the Southern California Bight Ove the Past 35 Years?, PubMed https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18568406 (last visited Jan. 18, 2018).
[ix] See About Wetlands, Austl. Dep’t of Energy, http://www.environment.gov.au/water/wetlands/about (last visited Jan. 18, 2018).
[x] See Rapanos v. United States, 547 U.S. 715, 719 (2006).
[xii] Id. at 780. See Rodriguez, supra note vi. (“Accordingly, wetlands possess the requisite nexus, and thus come within the statutory phrase ‘navigable waters,’ if the wetlands, either alone or in combination with similarly situated lands in the region, significantly affect the chemical, physical, and biological integrity of other covered waters more readily understood as ‘navigable.’ When, in contrast, wetlands' effects on water quality are speculative or insubstantial, they fall outside the zone fairly encompassed by the statutory term ‘navigable waters.’”).
Tagged: Enviromental, United States v. Hughes, Hughers, Federal Agencies, sentencing, federal defendant, crime, Clean Water Act, CWA, "waters of the United States"

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