598 U.S. ___ (2023), No. 21-454 (U.S. May 25, 2023)
Sackett v. EPA is a landmark decision redefining the scope of federal authority under the Clean Water Act (CWA).
Does the Clean Water Act regulate wetlands that are merely near or functionally connected to covered waters under a "significant nexus" test, or does it extend only to wetlands with a continuous surface connection to waters of the United States such that the wetlands are indistinguishable from those waters?
A wetland is covered by the Clean Water Act only if: (1) the adjacent body of water constitutes "waters of the United States" in its own right (e.g., relatively permanent bodies such as streams, rivers, lakes, or seas), and (2) the wetland has a continuous surface connection with that water, making it difficult to determine where the water ends and the wetland begins. The Court expressly rejects the "significant nexus" test as inconsistent with the statute's text.
The wetlands on the Sacketts' property are not covered by the Clean Water Act because they lack a continuous surface connection to waters of the United States. The Ninth Circuit's judgment is reversed.
Sackett redefines the scope of federal wetland regulation by discarding the "significant nexus" framework and embracing a bright-line "continuous surface connection" test. Practically, many wetlands previously regulated under federal law—particularly those separated from covered waters by roads, berms, levees, or dunes, or those connected only by ephemeral or subsurface flows—will fall outside federal jurisdiction unless states step in. For law students, the decision illustrates the power of statutory text in environmental law, the problem of fractured precedents (Rapanos) and their aftermath, the Court's skepticism of agency-driven boundary-expanding interpretations, and the federalism dynamics that shape environmental regulation.