Sackett v. EPA
The Supreme Court sharply narrowed the federal government's power to regulate wetlands, ruling that only wetlands with a direct, uninterrupted physical connection to a river, lake, or other covered waterway fall under federal protection under the Clean Water Act.
The decision ends a decades-long legal fight over which wetlands require federal permits — siding with landowners over the EPA — but critics say it removes federal protection from millions of acres of wetlands that filter pollution and control flooding.
How it got here: A federal district court granted summary judgment for the EPA; the Ninth Circuit affirmed; the Sacketts asked the Supreme Court to step in, and the Court agreed to hear the case.
The Case in Depth
What happened
Michael and Chantell Sackett bought a small residential lot near Priest Lake, Idaho, and began filling it with dirt and rocks to build a modest home. The EPA notified them that their lot contained protected wetlands and that the backfilling violated the Clean Water Act, threatening fines of more than $40,000 per day. The EPA classified the wetlands as federally regulated because they sat near a ditch that drained into a creek, which fed into Priest Lake. The Sacketts sued, arguing their land was not covered by the Act.
The question before the Court
Does the Clean Water Act give federal regulators power over wetlands that sit near — but are not directly, physically connected to — a river or lake?
The Court's answer
No — the Clean Water Act covers only those wetlands that have a continuous, uninterrupted surface connection to a traditional navigable body of water, making the wetland physically indistinguishable from that water itself. A wetland separated from any covered waterway by dry land, a road, or similar features falls outside the Act's reach. Applying that standard, the Sacketts' wetlands — separated from a non-navigable ditch by a 30-foot road — are not federally regulated.
The Court also rejected the EPA's "significant nexus" test, which claimed authority over any wetland with meaningful ecological ties to navigable waters even without a direct physical connection. That test has no basis in the statute's text; the Act never mentions it. The Court also found it unconstitutionally vague given the Act's severe criminal penalties, and said extending such broad federal authority over private land would require far clearer congressional direction than the Act provides.
Curious how the Court got there? See the step-by-step legal reasoning →
Why it matters
Landowners, farmers, and developers near marshy or wet land will now have greater certainty about whether their property needs a federal Clean Water Act permit — a process that can take years and cost tens of thousands of dollars. But wetlands separated from rivers and lakes by natural berms, dunes, dikes, or roads lose federal protection, which could affect downstream water quality and flood control across the country. States may still regulate such wetlands under their own laws.
What changes now
The case returns to lower courts, where the Sacketts will be free to build — the EPA has no jurisdiction over their property under the new standard. More broadly, the EPA and Army Corps of Engineers must abandon the significant-nexus test in their regulations. Wetlands separated from rivers, lakes, or other covered waters by natural barriers like berms or artificial structures like dikes will no longer qualify for federal Clean Water Act protection, though states remain free to protect them under their own laws.
What this does not decide
The ruling focuses on adjacent wetlands and does not resolve every question about which bodies of water are "waters of the United States." It also leaves open detailed questions about the new test's application — for instance, how temporary a break in surface connection may be before a wetland loses coverage, or how the test applies to wetlands connected by ditches or culverts.
Concurrences and dissents
Concurrence — Justice Thomas
Justice Thomas joins the majority in full but writes separately to argue the CWA should be interpreted in light of Congress's traditional and constitutionally limited authority over navigable waters — those that serve as highways for interstate or foreign commerce, as defined by the foundational 1871 case The Daniel Ball. Under this view, even Priest Lake's status as a 'navigable water' is questionable, and the agencies have spent decades claiming power that exceeds not just the statute's text but the outer limits of Congress's commerce authority over navigation.
Concurrence in part — Justice Kagan
Justice Kagan agrees that the Ninth Circuit should be reversed and that the significant-nexus test should be rejected, but argues the majority's 'continuous surface connection' test misreads the statute. The word 'adjacent' in the Clean Water Act plainly means neighboring — not touching — so a wetland separated from covered water by a dike, berm, or dune is still covered. She accuses the majority of abandoning normal rules of statutory interpretation to impose its policy preferences, substituting the Court's judgment for Congress's on how much environmental regulation is too much.
Concurrence in part — Justice Kavanaugh
Justice Kavanaugh agrees on reversing the Ninth Circuit and rejecting the significant-nexus test, but argues the majority's new test rewrites 'adjacent' to mean 'adjoining' — two words with distinct meanings that Congress used differently throughout the same statute. He points to 45 years of consistent agency practice across eight presidential administrations, all recognizing that adjacent wetlands include those separated from covered waters by dikes, berms, or similar barriers. He warns the decision will leave long-protected wetlands exposed to pollution and threaten flood-control systems like the Mississippi River levees.
How the Court got there
The legal reasoning, step by step
- The CWA prohibits discharging pollutants into 'navigable waters,' which it defines as 'the waters of the United States.' Starting with the ordinary meaning of 'waters' — a plural term that in everyday language refers to rivers, lakes, and oceans — the Court found that wetlands do not naturally fall within that common understanding. Calling wet land 'waters' would be as odd as calling a puddle an ocean.
- Statutory context confirmed that at least some wetlands must count as 'waters of the United States.' A 1977 provision letting states run certain permitting programs references 'wetlands adjacent thereto,' which would be pointless if wetlands were entirely outside federal jurisdiction. But this provision doesn't expand the definition; it reflects Congress's assumption that certain wetlands are already inseparably part of a covered body of water.
- Drawing on the plurality opinion in Rapanos v. United States — a 2006 case that split the Court without producing a controlling majority — the Court established a two-part test. To claim federal jurisdiction over a wetland, the government must show: first, that the neighboring body of water is itself a relatively permanent waterway connected to traditional navigable waters; and second, that the wetland has a continuous surface connection with that waterway so that no clear boundary separates the water from the wetland.
- The EPA's 'significant nexus' test, borrowed from Justice Kennedy's lone concurrence in Rapanos, was rejected on two grounds. First, regulating land and water use is at the core of traditional state authority, and the Court requires exceedingly clear congressional direction before interpreting federal law to shift that balance — direction missing here. Second, because the CWA carries severe criminal penalties for even careless violations, a vague standard like significant nexus raises due-process concerns: ordinary people cannot know in advance whether their land is covered.
- The Sacketts' wetlands fail the continuous-surface-connection test. Their lot is separated from a non-navigable roadside ditch by a 30-foot road; that ditch feeds a non-navigable creek, which eventually reaches Priest Lake. This attenuated, indirect chain of water connections does not make the Sacketts' land physically indistinguishable from a covered body of water, so federal jurisdiction does not reach it.
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 standard as the definitive test for wetland coverage.
Reaffirms Solid Waste Agency of Northern Cook Cty. v. Army Corps of Engineers (531 U.S. 159)
Reaffirmed that the Clean Water Act does not cover isolated waters or wetlands lacking a connection to navigable waters.
Reaffirms United States v. Riverside Bayview Homes, Inc. (474 U.S. 121)
Reaffirmed that wetlands physically abutting navigable waterways are covered, consistent with the new continuous-surface-connection test.