Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Half of US wetlands lost federal protection. Their fate is up to the states

pilotonline.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–100 of 149 posts

Re: Half of US wetlands lost federal protection. Their fate is up to the states

#91

Post by prpl »

015UUZn8aEvW wrote: post #70

In my job, I’ve gotten some pretty detailed experience with this part of the Clean Water Act. Not mentioned in this article is the fact that the “substantial nexus” standard just rejected by the Supreme Court was ridiculously vague, and the process by which landowners could determine whether there existed a “substantial nexus” between wet-ish areas on their property and navigable waterways was ridiculously slow and u…

It’s easy to bash big government but a well-funded agencies (like the USGS?) should be responsible for bringing clarity to things like this through surveys and research. Unfortunately, I am not sure either party truly believes in funding well-ran professional agencies to serve the people (for different reasons)

Re: Half of US wetlands lost federal protection. Their fate is up to the states

#92

Post by vampirical »

justrealist wrote: post #18
HWR_14 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Congress did in fact change the law to specify that those areas were regulated. In the past. After the last time people complained that it should only be surface connections they changed the law to make it more explicit that was not the intent. The Supreme Court completely ignored that.

It is simply not true that congress revised this law.

The Clean Water Act was amended in in 1977 to add the phrase "adjacent wetlands" specifically because of contention on this point. This was after the Army Corps of Engineers and the EPA had fought and settled into an agreement on definitions and policy stemming the previous version and that understanding was known and referenced by congress during argument. The congressional research document which traces the history of this has already been linked on this post but I'll reiterate it here: https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/R/R44585

If you want to jump straight to the punchline, this is from the section on United States v. Riverside Bayview Homes, Inc in which the Supreme Court made clear that they were aware of this context and informed their ruling taking it into account: The Court also cited legislative history from the passage of the Clean Water Act and the amendments in 1977—in which the term “adjacent wetlands” was added to the statute107—as support for its conclusion that Congress intended for the Clean Water Act to have a broad jurisdictional reach which included the adjacent wetlands at issue.108 In concluding that adjacent wetlands could reasonably be covered, however, the Court also emphasized that it did not express any opinion on the Corps’ authority to regulate discharges of fill material into wetlands that are not adjacent to bodies of open water.109

Re: Half of US wetlands lost federal protection. Their fate is up to the states

#93

Post by renewiltord »

kneebonian wrote: post #40
renewiltord wrote: post #19

[flagged]

Do you have a script dude. You seem to have this same comment on almost every thread that has anything to do with law.

Well, it's not automated. But we must all remember that as software engineers we are not trained in the law and so, before we argue for US wetlands to receive federal protection, we should first let the experts, who have experience, training, and credentials decide.

Land use is a complex and nuanced subject and before you argue for one way or the other, perhaps you should listen to the experts. Remember, people can die in isolated wetlands so the appropriate regulatory authorities should make the decisions.

Re: Half of US wetlands lost federal protection. Their fate is up to the states

#94

Post by feoren »

ars wrote: post #15
munk-a wrote: post #7

Watersheds aren't a local resource - they're a regional resource. This decision made no sense to begin with since, for instance, Vermont acting like a bad neighbor will cause environmental devastation in Massachusetts, Connecticut and New York - water sheds very rarely stay neatly within state boundaries. This becomes an even bigger issue when you look at the Mississippi - mining in North Dakota can cause issues in L…

> This decision made no sense to begin with since Again, if Congress wanted to fix this, they have the authority. The decision simply said they have not yet actually done so.

Are we ignoring the fact that congress didn't need to fix this for the last 45 years, because the judiciary had set clear precedent on how it interpreted the law? Why would congress spend its time on bolstering the defenses of well-established laws against every potential random flip-flopping of the judiciary at any point in the future? That sounds like a tremendous waste of time, and an exercise in trying to mind-read future judges.

What's really happening here is that a wall that took years/decades to build, that everyone thought was solid, was just torn down, and everyone is saying "the masons should have just built a better wall if they cared so much. They can do so now if they choose." while the territory that the wall was protecting is being invaded. See the problem?

Re: Half of US wetlands lost federal protection. Their fate is up to the states

#95

Post by ceejayoz »

rootusrootus wrote: post #56
ceejayoz wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They also have had the authority to fix the supposed misinterpretation of their intent for decades, and have not. Meanwhile, Congress watches the Court strike down significant parts of things like the Voting Rights Act. There’s little reason to believe the Court couldn’t possibly have struck down a “fix” on some other premise.

Congress basically has all the power. They could just tell SCOTUS to piss off. Maybe that's why so many people are happy to see the gridlock and dysfunction. Heaven help us if too many congresspeople really agree on something.

> Congress basically has all the power. They could just tell SCOTUS to piss off.

No? If SCOTUS says a law is unconstitutional, you’re either in amendment territory, or the complete collapse of the American system if Congress and the Executive ignore them.

Re: Half of US wetlands lost federal protection. Their fate is up to the states

#96

Post by vampirical »

ars wrote: post #14
HWR_14 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Congress did in fact change the law to specify that those areas were regulated. In the past. After the last time people complained that it should only be surface connections they changed the law to make it more explicit that was not the intent. The Supreme Court completely ignored that.

> The Supreme Court completely ignored that. Yah, sorry, but I don't believe you. The Supreme Court just doesn't do that. Let me see some sources to support what you are saying.

See my reply to justrealist's sibling comment to yours.

Re: Half of US wetlands lost federal protection. Their fate is up to the states

#97

Post by ksherlock »

cmh89 wrote: post #47
zdragnar wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Congress shouldn't have to constantly pass laws just to tell the executive branch that they are abusing their powers. That's what the judiciary is for. My uncle has a small stream running through his back yard, counted as "navigable water" despite the fact that I could jump across it as a child and it wasn't deep enough to support anything but a paper boat. I'm also not saying we shouldn't have protections for the en…

> That's what the judiciary is for. Right, and the judiciary has 45 years of precedent that the wetlands are included. This radicalized illegitmate SCOTUS just threw out the protections because their corporate owners benefit from it.

You don't you just hate those radicalized 9-0 SCOTUS rulings?

Chantell and Michael Sackett went to the Supreme Court twice. Twice! Unanimous rulings in their favor both times. Sacketts: 18, EPA: 0.

Due to court turnover they had 13 unique SCOTUS justices find in their favor.

Re: Half of US wetlands lost federal protection. Their fate is up to the states

#98

Post by [deleted] »

scythe wrote: post #43
TaylorAlexander wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suppose it’s open to interpretation whether that is deceptive. It seems like it’s accurate even if there is other context. Personally I’m in favor of pretty broad federal land protections.

>Personally I’m in favor of pretty broad federal land protections. I'm generally in favor of broader protections than the Court permitted with this decision. However, determining what policies are appropriate is simply not in the remit of the Court. SCOTUS determines what the law says, not what it should say.

[deleted]

Re: Half of US wetlands lost federal protection. Their fate is up to the states

#99

Post by thomasahle »

ars wrote: post #61
thomasahle wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm trying to understand if the people saying "congress can just fix this" every time the supreme court makes a ruling, a) Don't agree that congress is blocked and is never going to pass anything. b) Care more about the legalities than the issues themselves, and so don't really care about whether there is a plausible way through congress. c) Are making a cry for help for everyone to come together to fix congress. Hop…

None of the above. e) stop complaining about the Supreme Court rulings going against their desire, and complain to Congress instead. You have a subtext in all your options that gates all your options on what (a person thinks) should happen. For example "whether there is a plausible way through congress". None of your options simply leave that concept entirely out. The reality of a law simply does not care on what you…

Sounds like (b) to me.

Re: Half of US wetlands lost federal protection. Their fate is up to the states

#100

Post by Retric »

ralusek wrote: post #88
Retric wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, but that’s not an inherent issue. If things are arbitrary and you decide based on a coin flip then the coin flip needs to be binding or you just keep flipping coins. There’s many other systems we could use, but existing case law has the benefit of being extremely detailed. If navigable waterways in your state is public land, what happens after a dam is installed and they’re no longer navigable? That’s the kind…

An issue down to coin flips should be seen as a signal of a bug. However, I would argue that more often than not, it's not actually down to a coin flip. There is a default position in a liberal society, and that is that of minimal authority. Every legal question is fundamentally one of "does the state have the authority to do this, and if so, at what level?" If the answer is unclear, this should always resolve to no,…

I edited the above comment for clarity so I don’t know if you saw it, but the benefit is allowing people to make decisions without court cases.

Most legal questions aren’t about state power but what exactly the rule is. Contracts are a huge area that has little to do with the state. Even when stuff involves the state people want to know the legal/liability/tax implications of doing X vs Y before doing something.

Ie: Do I need a permit to build an outdoor pizza oven? It doesn’t matter how arbitrarily the rule was created, you just want to know the rule and often the penalty for breaking it. Laws often use vague terms like “reasonable.” So, WTF is does “reasonable speed under the circumstances” actually mean in say light rain, well chances are someone found out …

Post reply on HN