Opinion by Ruth Marcus: The Supreme Court's intepretation of the Clean Water Act is just more lawmaking from the bench.
More Kavanaugh: “As applied to wetlands, a marsh is adjacent to a river even if separated by a levee, just as your neighbor’s house is adjacent to your house even if separated by a fence or an alley.”No longer, according to the majority, in an opinion written by Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., Kavanaugh charitably labeled the majority’s approach “unorthodox” and “atextual.” Another word might be lawless.
And why? Not because the law compels it, but because the majority doesn’t like the law. “Congress, the majority scolds, has unleashed the EPA to regulate ‘swimming pools and puddles,’ wreaking untold havoc on ‘a staggering array of land-owners,’” Kagan observed. “Surely something has to be done; and who else to do it but this Court? It must rescue property owners from Congress’s too-ambitious program of pollution control.
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