...In 1972, building on previous laws regarding discharges of waste materials into waterways, Congress passed the Clean Water Act to set strict guidance as to pollutants released into “navigable” waterways. Rivers were literally catching on fire, the Cuyahoga in Ohio being the most famous example. “Navigable” was understood to mean rivers, lakes, bays, and larger bodies of water. But over the course of the next two decades, that definition of “navigable” became ever more marginal as the environmental movement pushed to bring more and more land under federal regulatory control.
...A battle has commenced over just what “navigable” means, and just what the EPA and ACE could regulate under the Clean Water Act. The stakes were high, especially for farmers and ranchers, who rely so heavily on water and often find their most productive lands coming under the scrutiny of regulators.
The question this raises is straightforward: Did Congress intend, in passing the CWA in 1972, that the federal government regulate every potential waterway — navigable, adjacent to a navigable waterway, isolated from other bodies of water, etc.? The environmental movement and the federal government said yes, it did, and created a tortured series of justifications for the regulation of marginal wetlands: the “glancing goose” theory, for instance, according to which the possibility that migratory birds might land in an isolated wetland could trigger regulation; or, in interstate commerce, the “fur and meat” theory that federal authorities could claim that animals living in “navigable waters” triggered that the area fell under their jurisdiction. (In the criminal prosecution of James Wilson for Clean Water Act violations, the federal government produced an expert to testify on the interstate trade in “muskrat meat” and beaver fur, in order to establish that an interstate-commerce nexus existed.)
These bizarre assertions of authority have meant that farmers and ranchers — already facing a competitive disadvantage on the world market owing to a massive regulatory burden– have had to face an illogical maze of rules and permitting in order to engage in the important work of bringing food to the marketplace. The reality is that no farmer has been safe. You could be in the High Desert of Nevada, requiring gallons upon gallons of water in order to make dry land arable, and still face the onerous requirements of section 404 of the Clean Water Act. You could be miles from a navigable waterway, farming in an isolated area, and the EPA and ACE could force you to spend time and money on a baffling series of permits, with no guarantee of approval, no timeline as to an answer, and the potential of having to engage in “wetland mitigation” or “banking,” whereby you are required to create wetlands on your own land or buy land elsewhere to create them.
In a series of challenges to the federal government’s interpretation, the Supreme Court said that the Clean Water Act did not give the federal government the power to regulate isolated wetlands. It ruled that there had to be a “substantial nexus” to interstate waterways or interstate commerce. That, one would think, would settle the argument, at least vis-à-vis the issue of requirement of “navigability.”
Undeterred, however, the Left immediately set about the audacious effort to remove the concept of “navigability” from the Clean Water Act — if “navigability” is a confusing term, simply remove it from the statute, and the EPA and ACE can move forward in their effort to regulate ever more marginal wetlands. It didn’t work legislatively, however, as its congressional champions were never able to muster enough support against the voices of America’s farmers, ranchers, and small-business owners who saw just what this plan might add to their already hefty regulatory burden.
Enter the Obama administration, eager to step in where, in their view, Congress has failed to act.
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