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Monday, December 01, 2008
Courts - Still more on: U.S. seeks clarity on muddy Rapanos ruling
Apparently it isn't going to get it. Updating this earllier entry, Lyle Denniston of SCOTUSBlog writes today:
The Supreme Court refused on Monday to reopen the issue of the kinds of wetlands that are protected from pollution discharges under the federal Clean Water Act. Without comment, the Court denied review of a Justice Department appeal and a cross-appeal on the issue; the cases were sequels to the Court’s splintered 2006 ruling in Rapanos v. U.S. (04-1034). * * *The Court’s refusal to consider anew the scope of wetlands protection leaves lower federal courts to continue to struggle over the meaning of the Rapanos decision. The Court in that decision provided three separate approaches to the Clean Water Act’s scope –one embraced by four Justices, one by a different group of four, and one by Justice Anthony M. Kennedy. The Justice Department asked the Court to clear up the matter, appealing in U.S. v. McWane (08-233); the other side filed a conditional cross-appeal on a Double Jeopardy issue in McWane v. U.S. (08-364). The case now returns to lower courts for a new trial on criminal charges of dumping industrial waste water into a creek next to a pipe-making plant in Birmingham, Ala.
Posted by Marcia Oddi on December 1, 2008 01:23 PM
Posted to Courts in general | Environment