Courting Disaster: How the Supreme Court Has
Broken the Clean Water Act and Why Congress Must Fix It
APRIL 2009
Courting Disaster: How the Supreme Court Has Broken the Clean Water Act and Why Congress Must Fix It
Courting Disaster is a publication of Earthjustice, Environment America, Clean Water Action, National Wildlife Federation,
Natural Resources Defense Council, Sierra Club, and Southern Environmental Law Center.
These organizations recognize the following individuals for their valuable work in researching, drafting, editing and/or compiling
information and photographs for this report and thank them for making its publication possible: Dalal Aboulhosn, Tanja Bos,
Josh Davis , Jon Devine, Jessica Ennis , Ed Hopkins, Joan Mulhern, Jim Murphy, Bill Sapp.
© 2009 Earthjustice, Environment America, Clean Water Action, National Wildlife Federation, Natural Resources Defense Council,
Sierra Club, and Southern Environmental Law Center. All rights reserved.
Cover Photos: (top) Cypress swamp, Bill Lea; (bottom) Pollution discharge, Earthjustice
This report is printed on 100% postconsumer waste recycled paper with soy inks by union labor .
1
In 1972, Congress passed an expansive Clean Water Act
to protect all “waters of the United States.” For almost 30
years, both the courts and the agencies responsible for
administering the Act interpreted it to broadly protect
our Nation’s waters. However, in two recent decisions,
Solid Waste Agency of Northern Cook County v. U.S. Army
Corps of Engineers (SWANCC) in 2001 and Rapanos v.
United States in 2006, the Supreme Court misinterpreted
the law and placed pollution limitations for many vital
water bodies in doubt. After the decisions, the Bush
administration’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)
and Army Corps of Engineers (Corps) excluded numerous
waters from protection and placed unnecessarily high
hurdles to protecting others.
Executive Summary
For decades, the Clean Water Act protected the Nation’s surface water bodies from
unregulated pollution and