Supreme Court’s opinion in Sackett v. EPA is a victory for the rule of law and federalism

The decision sought to further define the term “the waters of the United States” in the Clean Water Act of 1972 and thus roll back the Environmental Protection Agency’s regulatory powers.People can now use many bodies of water that were once unusably polluted. But determining the extent of the above phrase has been a subject of debate between and within both courts and federal agencies for 50 years.

While the particular definition of this term will not touch most of our lives, the general principle and practice will. For one, Alito’s opinion placed restraints on governmental power over America's citizens. Bureaucrats have tried to read laws such as the Clean Water Act as broadly as possible. Doing so has expanded their regulatory authority over private citizens, businesses, and groups in all kinds of ways.

For another, Alito’s opinion struck a blow for federalism. Justice Clarence Thomas’s concurring opinion focused on this issue more than Alito’s, though the two were consistent on this point. Part of the debate over the Clean Water Act is not the power of the government over individual people but the regulatory authority of the national versus the state governments.

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