Supreme Court To Resolve Split Over CWA Jurisdiction?
Supreme Court To Resolve Split Over CWA Jurisdiction?
The U.S. Supreme Court is being asked by several of the original plaintiffs in a Clean Water Act Case, to grant the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ request to clear up a circuit split on whether the agency’s jurisdictional determinations over which water bodies are subject to its authority can be reviewed by courts. The Pacific Legal Foundation, who represents Hawkes Co. Inc., LPF Properties LLC and Pierce Investment Co., also represent different clients in a similar Clean Water Act dispute over Corps jurisdiction, say that the cases should be consolidated so that the question can be settled without piecemealing judgments in several appellate circuits.
The Corps is currently appealing the Eighth Circuit’s April ruling that approved jurisdictional determinations are final agency actions that can be reviewed by courts under the Administrative Procedure Act. The Corps maintains that a jurisdictional determine is not a “final action,” and that the decision is contrary to a 2014 ruling from the Fifth Circuit that concluded that a jurisdictional determination is nothing more than a notification of a property’s “classification.” The Supreme Court has not yet decided whether to reconsider.