John A. Rapanos, et Ux., et al. v. United States (547 U.S. 715)
U.S. Supreme Court · decided June 19, 2006 · Supreme Court Database (Spaeth)
- Citation
- 547 U.S. 715 · 126 S. Ct. 2208
- Decided
- June 19, 2006
- Term
- October Term 2005
- Vote
- 5–4
- Majority author
- Justice Scalia
- Issue area
- Economic Activity
- Disposition
- Vacated and remanded
- Outcome
- Petitioning party won
- Ideological direction
- Conservative
Opinion excerpt
Justice Scalia announced the judgment of the Court and delivered an opinion, in which The Chief Justice, Justice Thomas, and Justice Alito join. In April 1989, petitioner John A. Rapanos backfilled wetlands on a parcel of land in Michigan that he owned and sought to develop. This parcel included 54 acres of land with sometimes-saturated soil conditions. The nearest body of navigable water was 11 to 20 miles away. 339 F. 3d 447, 449 (CA6 2003) (Rapanos I). Regulators had informed Mr. Rapanos that his saturated fields were “waters of the United States,” 33 U. S. C. § 1362(7), that could not be filled without a permit. Twelve years of criminal and civil litigation ensued. The burden of federal regulation on those who would deposit fill material in locations denominated “waters of the United States” is not trivial. In deciding whether to grant or deny a permit, the U. S. Army Corps of Engineers (Corps) exercises the discretion of an enlightened despot, relying on such factors as “economics,” “aesthetics,” “recreation,” and “in general, the needs and welfare of the people,” 33 CFR § 320.4(a) (2004). The average applicant for an individual permit spends 788 days and $271,596 in completing the process, and the average applicant for a nationwide permit spends 313 days and $28,915 — not counting costs of mitigation or design changes. Sunding & Zilberman, The Economies of Environmental…
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