Sackett v. EPA
Sackett v. EPA
Sackett v. EPA
21-454
In The
___________
MICHAEL SACKETT; CHANTELL SACKETT,
Petitioners,
v.
QUESTION PRESENTED
Whether the Ninth Circuit set forth the proper test
for determining whether wetlands are “waters of the
United States” under the Clean Water Act, 33 U. S. C.
§1362(7).
ii
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page(s)
TABLE OF AUTHORITIES
Page(s)
Cases
Adarand Constructors, Inc. v. Pena, 515 U.S.
200 (1995) ............................................................... 2
City of Arlington v. FCC, 569 U.S. 290 (2013) .......... 3
Hawkes Co. v. U.S. Army Corps of Eng’rs,
782 F.3d 994 (8th Cir. 2015) ................................ 16
Marbury v. Madison, 5 U.S. 137 (1803) .................... 5
Paul v. United States, 140 S. Ct. 342 (2019) ........... 12
Rapanos v. United States, 547 U.S. 715
(2006) ............................................................. passim
Sackett v. EPA, 566 U.S. 120 (2012)................. passim
Sackett v. EPA, 8 F. 4th 1075 (9th Cir. 2021) ......... 16
Solid Waste Agency of N. Cook Cnty. v. U.S.
Army Corps of Eng’rs, 531 U.S. 159 (2001) ..... 2, 11
U.S. Army Corps of Eng’rs v. Hawkes Co.,
578 U.S. 590 (2016) ........................................ 10, 16
United States v. Riverside Bayview Homes,
Inc., 474 U.S. 121 (1985) ........................................ 7
Util. Air Regul. Grp. v. EPA, 573 U.S. 302
(2014) ...................................................................... 4
Regulations
80 Fed. Reg. 37,053 (June 29, 2015)................. passim
85 Fed. Reg. 22,250 (Apr. 21, 2020)...........7, 8, 12, 14
86 Fed. Reg. 69,372 (Dec. 7, 2021)....................... 8, 14
iv
INTRODUCTION AND
SUMMARY OF ARGUMENT
In reviewing agency action, courts face conflicting
constitutional principles. On the one hand, the
judiciary must refrain from “arrogating to itself
policymaking properly left, under the separation of
powers, to the Executive.” City of Arlington v. FCC,
569 U.S. 290, 327 (2013) (Roberts, C.J., dissenting).
On the other, courts have an “obligation,” one that is
“no less firmly rooted in our constitutional structure,”
to ensure that the executive branch “confine[s] itself
to its proper role.” Id. Given this dichotomy between
judicial deference and Article III oversight, “[a]
congressional grant of authority over some portion of
a statute does not necessarily mean that Congress
granted the agency interpretive authority over all its
provisions.” Id.
The Clean Water Act illustrates the point. Most of
the statute consists of interlocking regulatory
programs with technical sounding names, including
Water Quality Standards, Total Maximum Daily
Loads, and the National Pollutant Discharge
Elimination System. See 33 U.S.C. §§ 1313(a),
1313(d), 1342. For these complex regulatory schemes,
agencies exercise interpretive primacy, subject to
searching reasonableness review by the courts.
The question presented here, however, reflects a
different class of statutory text. Defining “navigable
4
CONCLUSION
The statutory context, regulatory history, and
importance of the question presented all point to this
Court’s comparative “expertise” over agencies in
establishing limits on federal authority under the
Clean Water Act. Because the judiciary—and not the
agencies—appropriately exercises interpretive
primacy, this controversy does not implicate concerns
about “judicial policymaking.” To protect reliance
interests long harmed by the regulatory uncertainty
in this important area of the law, the Court should
reverse and clarify the scope of federal jurisdiction
under the Clean Water Act.
Respectfully submitted,