Beware: Roberts May Destroy Wetlands

There are three cases about to be heard by the Supreme Court regarding the reach of the Clean Water Act.
Rapanos v. U.S. - Involves whether the Clean Water Act's prohibition on unpermitted discharges to "navigable waters" extends to distant wetlands and whether Congress' commerce clause power to regulate those unpermitted discharges is exceeded.
Carabell v. U.S. Army Corps of Engineers - Similarly, focuses on wetlands isolated from "waters of the United States" and on Congress' commerce clasue powers.
S.D. Warren Co. v. Maine Board of Environmental Protection - Deals with the issue of whether the mere flow of water through an existing dam constitutes a "discharge" under federal statute.

"Environmentalists are worried in part because of the new chief justice. As a judge, Roberts famously dissented in the case of the 'hapless toad,' the endangered inhabitant of a dry canyon near San Diego. Rancho Viejo LLC v. Norton, 334 F.3d 1158 (D.C. Cir. 2003).
Due to the broad reach of the Endgangered Spieces Act, developers were barred from building there because of the toad. Roberts wondered how the federal jurisdiction extended so far. While the law at issue is different in [the three pending cases, they raise] a similar question on the reach of federal power."
Excerpt from "Going With the Flow" ABA Journal, Feb. 2006.