Opinion ID: 423927
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Constitutional Challenges to the Corps' Definition.

Text: 82 The landowners also contend that if the CWA authorizes regulation to the extent proposed by the federal defendants, then the Act is unconstitutionally vague and an unlawful delegation of legislative power. 33 We find no merit in either claim. 83 The federal Constitution provides that [A]ll legislative powers herein granted shall be vested in Congress. U.S.Const. art. 1, § 1. While Congress is not permitted to abdicate or transfer to others the essential legislative functions with which it is vested, it may authorize other bodies to determine specific facts and may also establish general standards and delegate to others the responsibility for effectuating the legislative policy. Schechter Corp. v. United States, 295 U.S. 495, 529-30, 55 S.Ct. 837, 842-43, 79 L.Ed. 1570 (1935); accord Panama Refining Co. v. Ryan, 293 U.S. 388, 421, 55 S.Ct. 241, 248-49, 79 L.Ed. 446 (1935); United States v. Gordon, 580 F.2d 827, 839 (5th Cir.), cert. denied, 439 U.S. 1051, 99 S.Ct. 731, 58 L.Ed.2d 711 (1978). In considering an attack on a congressional delegation, our task is to determine whether the standards set forth by Congress are sufficiently definite in light of the complexity of the area at which the legislation is directed. Gordon, supra (citing Carlson v. Landon, 342 U.S. 524, 542, 544, 72 S.Ct. 525, 535, 536, 96 L.Ed. 547 (1952)). 84 The CWA's delegation of authority to the EPA and the Corps clearly meets this test. Congress' goal--the restoration of the integrity of the nation's waters and the elimination of discharges of pollutants into those waters--is succinctly set forth in 33 U.S.C. § 1251(a). The agencies' jurisdiction under the CWA extends to all waters of the United States, and the 1977 regulation provides specific criteria further defining the statutory term. In reviewing an application for a dredge-and-fill permit, the agencies are to consider any unacceptable adverse effect on municipal water supplies, shellfish beds and fishery areas (including spawning and breeding wells), wildlife, or recreational areas, 33 U.S.C. § 1344(c), and the effect of the disposal of pollutants on human health or welfare, ... marine life, ... esthetic, recreation and economic values ... [and] the persistence and permanence of [these] effects.... 33 U.S.C. § 1343(c)(1)(A)-(D). This is not the kind of standardless discretion condemned in Schecter, supra. 85 The landowners' vagueness challenge is really just the other side of their delegation challenge. We cannot agree that the application of the Corps' wetlands definition in this case is so vague as to deprive the landowners of notice that they may be subject to civil and criminal penalties. Indeed, at this point the vagueness claim is based on pure speculation, since the landowners have not been subjected to either civil or criminal penalties. At the commencement of these proceedings, the landowners were well aware that at least a significant portion of their land was a wetland; if they wished to protect themselves from liability they could have applied for a permit and thus obtained a precise delineation of the extent of the wetland, as well as the activities permissible on the land. See United States v. Byrd, 609 F.2d 1204, 1209 (7th Cir.1979) (upholding grant of summary judgment and permanent injunction to the government and noting that landowner could protect himself from civil and criminal liability by seeking a permit that would set forth the extent of the wetlands on his property). In United States v. Phelps Dodge Corp., 391 F.Supp. 1181 (D.Ariz.1975), the district court rejected a vagueness challenge to the application of the CWA to normally dry arroyos in a criminal proceeding, a circumstance counseling far greater concern for vagueness than this. We are unpersuaded that the Corps' wetlands definition failed to give the landowners notice of their potential liability in this case. 86