Sackett v. EPA
The Supreme Court significantly narrowed the federal government's authority to regulate wetlands, ruling that only wetlands with a continuous surface water connection to traditional rivers or lakes come under the Clean Water Act.
The decision sets aside the EPA's longtime 'significant nexus' test, resolves decades of uncertainty about where federal water pollution law ends and state land-use authority begins, and will likely remove millions of acres of wetlands from federal oversight.
How it got here: The Sacketts sued the EPA under the Administrative Procedure Act; a federal district court ruled for the EPA; the Ninth Circuit affirmed; the Supreme Court agreed to hear the case.
The Case in Depth
What happened
Michael and Chantell Sackett bought a small lot near Priest Lake in northern Idaho and began filling it with dirt to prepare for building a home. The EPA told them their property contained protected wetlands and that filling it violated the Clean Water Act, threatening fines exceeding $40,000 per day. The agency said the wetlands were connected through a roadside ditch and a creek to Priest Lake, which it classified as a federally covered water.
The question before the Court
Can the EPA use the Clean Water Act to regulate wetlands on private land that are near — but not directly connected by surface water to — traditional navigable rivers or lakes?
The Court's answer
No — the Clean Water Act does not authorize the EPA to regulate wetlands that lack a continuous surface water connection to traditional navigable rivers or lakes. The Court adopted the test that four justices had proposed in the fragmented 2006 Rapanos decision: a wetland is covered only if (1) it sits next to a relatively permanent water body connected to traditional navigable waters, and (2) it shares a continuous surface connection with that water, making it impossible to tell where the water ends and the wetland begins.
The Court rejected the EPA's alternative "significant nexus" test, under which wetlands could be regulated whenever they had meaningful ecological ties to navigable waters. That test appeared nowhere in the Act's text, the Court said, and its open-ended, factor-by-factor nature threatened ordinary landowners — including people simply moving dirt — with criminal penalties for conduct Congress never clearly authorized the EPA to reach.
Curious how the Court got there? See the step-by-step legal reasoning →
Why it matters
Landowners, farmers, developers, and mining companies with wetlands not directly connected to navigable waters may no longer need costly federal permits before filling or building on their land. But those wetlands also lose automatic federal protection from pollution, shifting responsibility for safeguarding them to state governments — which vary widely in how aggressively they regulate.
What changes now
The Ninth Circuit's ruling is reversed and the case returns to lower courts. Under the new test, the Sacketts' wetlands fall outside federal jurisdiction, freeing them to build their home. The EPA and Army Corps of Engineers must now revise their definition of "waters of the United States" — their 2023 rule relied on the rejected significant nexus test — and wetlands across the country that lack a direct surface water connection to navigable waters will likely no longer require federal permits.
What this does not decide
The ruling does not address how the "relatively permanent" water body standard applies to intermittent streams. It does not resolve the constitutional limits of Congress's power over waterways, which Justice Thomas's concurrence raised but the majority declined to address. The decision also does not determine what state-level protections may replace federal oversight of newly unregulated wetlands.
Concurrences and dissents
Concurrence — Justice Thomas
Justice Thomas joined the majority in full but wrote separately to argue the analysis should go further. In his view, the CWA's jurisdictional terms must be read against centuries of precedent limiting federal authority to waters used as highways of interstate commerce — the Daniel Ball test from 1871. Under this stricter reading, the ditch and creek near the Sacketts' property, and possibly even Priest Lake itself, may not qualify as federal waters at all. He criticized the EPA for decades of ignoring this traditional limit despite clear guidance from SWANCC.
Concurrence — Justice Kagan
Justice Kagan agreed the Ninth Circuit should be reversed but rejected the majority's reasoning entirely. 'Adjacent' has always meant neighboring — not just touching — and Congress chose that word deliberately in 1977. The majority's 'continuous surface connection' test rewrites plain statutory text to rein in Congress's ambitious anti-pollution program rather than to interpret it faithfully. She compared the move to last Term's West Virginia v. EPA, characterizing both as the Court appointing itself as national environmental policymaker.
Concurrence — Justice Kavanaugh
Justice Kavanaugh agreed the significant nexus test should be rejected and that the Sacketts' property is not covered, but argued the majority's 'continuous surface connection' test goes too far. The ordinary meaning of 'adjacent' has always been broader than 'adjoining': things can be adjacent without touching. Every presidential administration for 45 years — across eight administrations — included wetlands separated from covered waters by dikes, berms, and dunes within the definition of 'adjacent.' By substituting 'adjoining' for 'adjacent,' the Court leaves long-regulated wetlands suddenly unprotected, with real consequences for water quality and flood control.
How the Court got there
The legal reasoning, step by step
- The Clean Water Act prohibits pollution discharges into 'navigable waters,' defined as 'the waters of the United States.' The plural 'waters' in ordinary language refers to bodies of open water — streams, rivers, lakes, oceans — not wet or soggy land. The word 'navigable' in the defined term also signals the statute principally covers traditional commercial waterways, not any area where water is present.
- Context shows some wetlands are nonetheless covered: a 1977 amendment (§ 1344(g)(1)) allocated permitting authority over 'waters of the United States, including wetlands adjacent thereto,' making clear Congress assumed certain adjacent wetlands qualify as 'waters of the United States.' But that provision doesn't independently define which wetlands are covered — it must be read with § 1362(7), the operative definitional provision.
- To determine which wetlands qualify, the Court adopted the test proposed by four justices in the fragmented 2006 Rapanos decision: a wetland is covered only if it is 'indistinguishable' from adjacent covered waters — meaning it must have a continuous surface connection to a relatively permanent water body that is itself connected to traditional navigable waters. A wetland merely 'neighboring' a covered water, without that surface link, does not qualify.
- The Court rejected the EPA's 'significant nexus' test — which covered any wetland with meaningful ecological or chemical connections to navigable waters — for two independent reasons: (a) the phrase 'significant nexus' appears nowhere in the statute's text, so the EPA had no legal basis to impose it; and (b) the test's open-ended, factor-by-factor analysis created serious vagueness problems given that the Act imposes criminal penalties for even negligent violations.
- Two background interpretive rules reinforced this result: Congress must use especially clear language when it wishes to shift the balance between federal and state authority over private property (land use being a core state function), and vague definitions in statutes carrying criminal penalties must be read narrowly so ordinary people can understand what conduct is prohibited. The EPA's sweeping test satisfied neither requirement.
- Applying the continuous surface connection test to the Sacketts' property, the wetlands plainly fell outside federal jurisdiction: they sit across a 30-foot road from a ditch that feeds into a non-navigable creek, which eventually reaches Priest Lake — a chain of indirect, interrupted connections that does not constitute a continuous surface connection to a traditionally navigable water.
Doctrinal impact
Cases affected by this decision
Reaffirms Rapanos v. United States (547 U. S. 715)
The Court adopts the Rapanos plurality's 'continuous surface connection' test as the controlling rule, resolving the split that case left open.
Reaffirms Solid Waste Agency of Northern Cook Cty. v. Army Corps of Engineers (531 U. S. 159)
SWANCC's rejection of broad federal jurisdiction over isolated, non-navigable waters is reaffirmed as foundational to the Court's analysis.
Reaffirms United States v. Riverside Bayview Homes, Inc. (474 U. S. 121)
Upheld as good law for wetlands actually abutting navigable waterways, but read narrowly to require physical contiguity, not just ecological connection.