Managers and the Legal Environment 7th Edition by David Madsen, Constance Bagley

Exercise 8

John and Judith Rapanos were accused of destroying wetlands, without a permit, on three central Michigan sites that they hoped to develop. Regulators sought as much as $1.4 million in fines and restoration of the site. Rapanos argued that his land is far away from the nearest river tributary-twenty miles in the case of one site. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit concluded, however, that the Clean Water Act covered the property because the land had a hydrological connection to navigable waterways because it ultimately drained into either the Tittabawassee River or Lake Huron. Rapanos argued that extending the Clean Water Act's jurisdiction to every intrastate wetland with any sort of hydrological connection to navigable waters, no matter how tenuous or remote, exceeds Congress's constitutional power to regulate commerce among the states. Is the Clean Water Act, which gives permitting authority to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, for wetlands that are not adjacent to a river or other navigable waterway, but are hydrologically connected to these waterways because they drain into a tributary of a river or navigable waterway, a constitutional exercise of Congress's power under the Commerce Clause? Explain why or why not. [ Rapanos v. United States , 547 U.S. 715 (2006).]