Download or read book Protecting and Restoring Our Nation s Waters The Effects of Science Law and Policy on Clean Water Act Jurisdiction with a Focus on the Arid West written by Forrest Vanderbilt and published by . This book was released on 2013 with total page 945 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Since its initial passage in 1972, the Clean Water Act has attempted to restore and protect our Nation's waters. The definition of `our Nation's waters' has undergone periodic debate and scrutiny as the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and the Supreme Court have defined and redefined the standards for determining CWA jurisdiction. The Supreme Court's most recent set of standards, including the "significant nexus" test, appear to both increase the uncertainty in what is regulated and increase the burden of proof for determining CWA jurisdiction. The Arid West was singled out in the most recent EPA and Corps joint jurisdictional guidance as a problematic area. Focusing on the Arid West, my dissertation evaluates the CWA jurisdiction process from three perspectives: law, policy, and science, and explores an understanding of the past, present, and potential future path of CWA jurisdiction. I analyzed Corps jurisdictional determinations from their national database. The data showed that the Corps has reversed their trend of issuing the complex and often time intensive Approved Determination to the expeditious Preliminary Determination that affords the same protection to an aquatic resource with reduced effort, and showed that the number of determinations disclaiming jurisdiction have returned historical levels. Also, the data showed that some local Corps offices do not mirror the national trends. In exploring the current state of stream research, the data showed a parallel in the timing of the Supreme Court Cases and subsequent guidance to increases in the number of articles published. In addition, the data showed that research on Arid West streams have focused on a smaller set of functions and services as compared to all potential stream functions. Using readily available tools and peer reviewed methods, I have proposed a delineation process that would bring transparency and consistency to the Approved JD process. Data showed that these tools and methods produce meaningful results in an Arid West watershed. The current CWA jurisdictional guidance can still meet the primary objective of the Act within the current policy framework and through the incorporation of existing tools into the determination process.
Download or read book The Clean Water Act Jurisdictional Handbook written by Roxanne Thomas and published by . This book was released on 2007-01-01 with total page 77 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In June 2006 the Supreme Court, in a decision that split 4-1-4, produced a result in Rapanos v. United States that makes federal Clean Water Act jurisdiction over the wetlands, streams, and other waters of the United States confusing and uncertain for citizens, landowners, and regulators alike. Members of Congress have introduced new legislation to restore jurisdiction over many of the waters cast into doubt by the decision; and the Environmental Protection Agency and Army Corps of Engineers (the federal regulatory agencies) issued a joint guidance document in June 2007 attempting to guide their respective staffs. Numerous federal courts have attempted to apply the uncertain teachings of Rapanos as well. With the support of the Turner Foundation, and the assistance of numerous experts in wetlands science and law, the Environmental Law Institute has prepared a handbook that analyzes the case law, compiles the relevant scientific studies, and provides a set of jurisdictional checklists. The Handbook will assist anyone faced with a jurisdictional question involving a wetland or stream to understand what factors will allow them to find Clean Water Act jurisdiction.
Download or read book From Protecting Water Quality to Protecting States Rights written by Stephen M. Johnson and published by . This book was released on 2020 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1972, a bi-partisan Congress enacted the Clean Water Act “to restore and maintain the chemical, physical, and biological integrity of the Nation's waters.” Almost fifty years have passed since Congress enacted the law and, during that time, the Supreme Court has played a significant role in the administration and evolution of the law. Since the dawn of the environmental era in the 1970's, the Supreme Court has heard more cases involving the Clean Water Act than any other environmental law. However, the manner in which the Court has analyzed the law has changed substantially over the last half century. This article reviews the shift in the Court's interpretation of the Act ver time. A review of the thirty cases that the Court has heard that involve statutory interpretation of the Clean Water Act show that the Court, during the early years of the law, focused heavily on legislative history and the purpose of the law in Section 101(a) and interpreted the law to carry out that purpose. Over time, though, the Court adopted a more textualist approach to interpreting the Clean Water Act and, beginning with the Rehnquist Court, the Court began to focus on protecting States' rights. In contrast to the Court's early opinions, opinions from the past few decades do not generally discuss the water quality protection purposes of Section 101(a) of the Clean Water Act. Instead, to the limited extent that the Court focuses on purposes of the law, it cites language in Section 101(b) of the law that discusses a Congressional policy to preserve and protect States' rights. A review of the Court's Clean Water Act cases also shows that, as the Court has moved to a more textualist approach to statutory interpretation, it has become more ideologically divided and the outcomes of the cases are more frequently those that could be characterized as anti-environmental. In addition, while early Supreme Court Clean Water Act decisions often adopted a rhetorical tone sympathizing with the government's efforts to advance public rights with limited resources, more recent decisions tend to adopt a tone of skepticism or even hostility toward government regulation.The shift in the Supreme Court's interpretation of the Clean Water Act is troubling because it coincides with Congressional disengagement in oversight of the law. In the first few decades after the Clean Water Act was enacted, Congress was vigilant in responding to Supreme Court and lower court interpretations of the law, and frequently legislated to affirm or overturn those interpretations. That is no longer the case, either for the Clean Water Act or most other environmental laws. If the Supreme Court adopts an interpretation of the law that conflicts with the water quality protection goals and purposes of the law, Congress is no longer likely to step in to correct the Court's mistake. The lack of concern demonstrated by the Supreme Court and Congress toward interpreting and applying the Clean Water Act to meet the Section 101(a) goals to protect water quality could be counterbalanced to some degree by aggressive implementation of the law by EPA and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to carry out those goals. Chevron deference to the agencies' interpretations of the law could provide a minor bulwark against the erosion of the law. However, courts are increasingly finding ways to avoid applying Chevron to agency decisions. Even if courts continued to aggressively apply Chevron to agency actions, though, deferring to the actions that the EPA and the Corps have taken over the past few years would not advance the water quality protection goals of the Clean Water Act because the agencies have increasingly emphasized the protection of States' rights policy of the law in Section 101(b) in their decision-making at the expense of the water quality protection goals of Section 101(a). The agencies' recent navigable waters protection rule and EPA's policy reversal regarding discharges to groundwater in the County of Maui, Hawaii v. Hawaii Wildlife Fund case are just a few examples of the agencies' policy shift.
Download or read book Clean Water Act written by Joel M. Gross and published by American Bar Association. This book was released on 2012 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A quick reference to the Federal Water Pollution Control Act, commonly known as the Clean Water Act, this book explains the statute and the 1972 Amendments that created a system of permits and regulations to govern the discharge of pollutants into the nation's waters and publicly owned treatment works.
Download or read book Restoration of Aquatic Ecosystems written by National Research Council and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 1992-01-01 with total page 580 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Aldo Leopold, father of the "land ethic," once said, "The time has come for science to busy itself with the earth itself. The first step is to reconstruct a sample of what we had to begin with." The concept he expressedâ€"restorationâ€"is defined in this comprehensive new volume that examines the prospects for repairing the damage society has done to the nation's aquatic resources: lakes, rivers and streams, and wetlands. Restoration of Aquatic Ecosystems outlines a national strategy for aquatic restoration, with practical recommendations, and features case studies of aquatic restoration activities around the country. The committee examines: Key concepts and techniques used in restoration. Common factors in successful restoration efforts. Threats to the health of the nation's aquatic ecosystems. Approaches to evaluation before, during, and after a restoration project. The emerging specialties of restoration and landscape ecology.
Download or read book The Clean Water Act Jurisdictional Handbook written by Environmental Law Institute and published by . This book was released on 2012 with total page 126 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Clean Water Act and the Constitution written by Robin Kundis Craig and published by Environmental Law Institute. This book was released on 2004 with total page 1 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A comprehensive, clearly organized, and insightful exploration of the Clean Water Act’s intended and actual experience with federalism concerns.
Download or read book Riparian Areas written by National Research Council and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 2002-10-10 with total page 449 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Clean Water Act (CWA) requires that wetlands be protected from degradation because of their important ecological functions including maintenance of high water quality and provision of fish and wildlife habitat. However, this protection generally does not encompass riparian areasâ€"the lands bordering rivers and lakesâ€"even though they often provide the same functions as wetlands. Growing recognition of the similarities in wetland and riparian area functioning and the differences in their legal protection led the NRC in 1999 to undertake a study of riparian areas, which has culminated in Riparian Areas: Functioning and Strategies for Management. The report is intended to heighten awareness of riparian areas commensurate with their ecological and societal values. The primary conclusion is that, because riparian areas perform a disproportionate number of biological and physical functions on a unit area basis, restoration of riparian functions along America's waterbodies should be a national goal.
Download or read book The United Nations world water development report 2018 written by WWAP and published by UNESCO Publishing. This book was released on 2018-03-26 with total page 154 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Anchoring the Clean Water Act written by and published by . This book was released on 2007 with total page 17 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Recent Supreme Court rulings have called into question federal Clean Water Act coverage for certain wetlands and streams. Legislation recently introduced in the House of Representatives would amend the Act to restate and clarify Congress intent to regulate the waters of the United States to the fullest extent of its legislative power. The Environmental Law Institute has issued a new white paper that identifies which constitutional powers Congress can rely on to protect the Nations waters, and explains in straightforward language what the Supreme Court has said about these powers. The Supreme Court rulings in question (Solid Waste Agency of Northern Cook County v. U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, 2001, and Rapanos v. United States, 2006) were limited to interpreting Congressional intent in 1972, when Congress used the terms "navigable waters" and "waters of the United States" to assert federal jurisdiction under the Act. The Court has never decided the underlying constitutional question: what is the scope of Congresss constitutional authority to protect the Nations waters? ELIs legal analysis is intended to inform this debate.
Download or read book There Is More to the Clean Water Act Than Waters of the United States written by Robin Kundis Craig and published by . This book was released on 2022 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When Congress enacted the contemporary form of the Federal Water Pollution Control Act in 1972, it used the same statutory formula to trigger both of the Act's two permit programs. That decision was never completely comfortable, and over time it has become clear that, although the two permit programs serve the same regulatory goal of improving water quality, they otherwise resonate in two very different complexes of legal values. The U.S. Supreme Court repeatedly has found the Section 404 complex particularly troublesome, holding that a broad definition of “waters of the United States” in this program threatens to infringe both states' Tenth Amendment prerogatives and landowners' private property rights. Moreover, this narrowing of jurisdictional “waters of the United States” is likely to continue into the 2022-2023 Supreme Court term through the case of Sackett v. EPA.The intense legal and political focus on “waters of the United States” since at least the Court's 2006 decision in Rapanos v. United States has obscured the fact that Clean Water Act jurisdiction depends on five elements, not just that one, that must be evaluated together. Moreover, the Supreme Court's approach to Section 402 jurisdiction in its 2020 decision in County of Maui v. Hawaii Wildlife Fund counsels the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to take a more holistic approach to their next round of Clean Water Act jurisdictional regulations. This more holistic approach offers two immediate benefits: a highlighting of the many existing exemptions from Section 404 and a simplification of jurisdictional analyses. However, in the wake of the anticipated outcome of Sackett v. EPA, the holistic approach can also keep Section 402 jurisdiction relatively broad.
Download or read book Effects of urban development on stream ecosystems in nine metropolitan study areas across the United States written by James F. Coles and published by . This book was released on 2012 with total page 138 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book State Water Law in the Development of the West written by United States. National Resources Planning Board. Water Resources Committee and published by . This book was released on 1943 with total page 164 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Once More With Feeling written by Jonathan H. Adler and published by . This book was released on 2013 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Supreme Court's decision reaffirming limits on federal regulatory jurisdiction in Rapanos v. United States was significant, but hardly revolutionary. The Court's holding that the Clean Water Act only reaches those wetlands with a significant nexus to navigable-in-fact waters followed directly from its prior decision in Solid Waste Agency of Northern Cook County v. U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, in which the Court held the CWA did not extend to isolated, intrastate waters because they lack a significant nexus to navigable waters. Rapanos and SWANCC suggest the Court is reluctant to conclude Congress has authorized far-reaching federal regulatory controls over private land use, absent explicit statutory language to the contrary. Such a federalism clear statement rule may be in tension with some environmental concerns, but it need not hamper environmental conservation. Environmental progress is wholly consistent with meaningful limits on federal power. If the federal government is to play an optimal role in the protection of wetlands, and match its efforts to those aspects of wetland conservation that require action of a federal scope, it would concentrate its efforts in those areas where non-federal efforts are most likely to be insufficient. The challenge to policy makers is to adapt conservation measures to the broader legal landscape and recognize that environmental protection can live within legal limits.
Download or read book Western Water Law and Policy written by and published by . This book was released on 1993 with total page 156 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Managing California s Water written by Ellen Hanak and published by Public Policy Instit. of CA. This book was released on 2011 with total page 500 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Western Water Laws and Irrigation Return Flow written by George Radosevich and published by . This book was released on 1978 with total page 276 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
