Supreme Court Sides With Private Property Owner in Landmark EPA Case

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Today, the Supreme Court has sided with an Idaho couple in Sackett v. EPA, a private property rights case, ruling they have the right to go to court to challenge an Environmental Protection Agency policy that blocked construction of their new home and threatened fines of more than $30,000 a day.

In 2007 the EPA halted private property owners Mike and Chantell Sackett from building a new home on their property adjacent to a scenic lake in Idaho. The reasoning? The agency said part of the property was a wetlands that could not disturbed.
Supreme Court Rules Against EPA in Landmark Case |

The first phase of construction had already been completed on the private residence when federal officials showed up and ordered a halt in the work. A fine of $30,000 a day would be levied against the Sackett’s were they to continue building. The couple was then disallowed by the agency to obtain the permits needed to continue construction in local courts.
Supreme Court Rules Against EPA in Landmark Case |

In this case, the couple objected to the determination that their small lot contained wetlands that would be harmed by construction and argued there was no reasonable way to challenge the order without risking steep fines. The Sacketts were confounded at the EPA’s findings because their property was a completely landlocked lot within an existing subdivision. As Blaze writer Becket Adams recently reported, “When Chantelle Sackett asked for evidence, EPA pointed her to the National Fish and Wildlife Wetlands Inventory, which showed them that their lot… was not on an existing wetland.”

Yep, according to the Wetlands Inventory, the Sackett’s property wasn’t on existing wetlands. So how did the EPA respond to this?

“The EPA responded [by issuing] what’s known as a compliance order, which said that the Sacketts were in violation of the Clean Water Act and subject to fines of up to $37,500 a day.”

The EPA’s argument in court today stated that allowing property owners quick access to courts to contest federal orders would compromise the agency’s ability to deal with water pollution via the Clean Water Act.

The majority opinion written by Justice Antonin Scalia flatly rejects that notion.

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It is a good ruling.
The facts of the case are clear. Just because rain leaves a puddle which lasts for a day or so does not make a wetland. It takes time for things which grow in the wet to germinate, after all.
This was just an exercise in Bureaucratic Authority.
How did the liberals let this slide by?

Supreme Court sides with private property owners? Wow. It gets my hopes up (against my will) for the Obamacare oral arguments next week.