Staff Reports
The Supreme Court has finally gone after the all-powerful Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) by curtailing the sweeping powers of the agency that it had claimed under the Clean Water Act. Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. has written a majority opinion limiting the EPA’s alleged authority to oversee water pollution, stating that the Clean Water Act does not grant the agency the power to regulate discharges into certain wetlands located near bodies of water. Conservatives, led by the honorable Judge Alito, have welcomed this ruling and hope that it will discourage the Biden administration’s climate agenda while supporting property rights.
Justice Alito has warned that the reach of the Clean Water Act is notoriously unclear and any piece of wetland will run the risk of being classified by EPA employees as wetlands covered by the act. Moreover, if property owners began to construct a house on the same lot that the agency thinks is a wetland, they would be at the agency’s mercy. Thankfully, the majority believes that this is unacceptable and that the EPA should not be the one deciding on the extent of the act’s coverage, as it was a massive overreach of the agency’s power.
Regrettably, Justice Kavanaugh has joined three liberal justices who believe that the decision would harm the EPA’s ability to fight pollution. This loss is not a surprise since liberals have always seen the EPA as a useful tool to impose their government overreach while undermining property rights. They believe that the EPA needed to have an all-encompassing power to combat pollution without any regard for property owners’ rights. In their view, the property rights should take a back seat to the government’s directives.
BREAKING: The Supreme Court has struck a MASSIVE blow against the EPA and Biden’s climate agenda by restricting the sweeping powers the agency claimed it had under the ‘Clean Water Act’.https://t.co/bInQAApTnH
— Proud Elephant 🇺🇸🦅 (@ProudElephantUS) May 25, 2023
The State of Texas in March had blocked the Biden administration’s Clean Water Act rule in federal court. Rightly so, since the Biden administration is imposing a leftist environmental agenda on Texas which is going to crush new regulations and significantly increase economic costs. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has always fought against Biden’s boots on the necks of Texans. Paxton had filed a complaint in January against the Environmental Protection Agency, as well as the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Paxton’s legal complaint cites the Supreme Court decision that rejected the US Army Corps of Engineers’ “assertion of expanded authority over non-navigable, intrastate waters that are not significantly connected to navigable, interstate waters.”
The EPA and Army Corps of Engineers had announced the final “Revised Definition of ‘Waters of the United States’” rule recently. The rule was set to be effective on March 20, 2023. Attorney General Paxton opposed this rule and had urged the court to issue a preliminary injunction against it. He argued that the Clean Waters Act was being exploited to exert “federal control over states like Texas.”
In conclusion, the Supreme Court has rendered the EPA’s rule moot, striking a blow against the agency’s powers and the climate change agenda of the Biden administration. Conservatives are happy to see the EPA’s power being curtailed, as it was yet another unnecessary government agency that always overreached while destroying property rights. The Biden administration should take a cue from this ruling and leave property owners alone in our great country.
Source: Trending Politics
