Solid Waste Agency of Northern Cook County v. United States Army Corps of Engineers, et al. (531 U.S. 159)
U.S. Supreme Court · decided January 9, 2001 · Supreme Court Database (Spaeth)
- Citation
- 531 U.S. 159 · 121 S. Ct. 675
- Decided
- January 9, 2001
- Term
- October Term 2000
- Vote
- 5–4
- Majority author
- Justice Rehnquist
- Issue area
- Economic Activity
- Disposition
- Reversed
- Outcome
- Petitioning party won
- Ideological direction
- Conservative
Opinion excerpt
CHIEF Justice Rehnquist delivered the opinion of the Court. Section 404(a) of the Clean Water Act (CWA or Act), 86 Stat. 884, as amended, 33 U. S. C. § 1344(a), regulates the discharge of dredged or fill material into “navigable waters.” The United States Army Corps of Engineers (Corps) has interpreted § 404(a) to confer federal authority over an abandoned sand and gravel pit in northern Illinois which provides habitat for migratory birds. We are asked to decide whether the provisions of § 404(a) may be fairly extended to these waters, and, if so, whether Congress could exercise such authority consistent with the Commerce Clause, U. S. Const., Art. I, § 8, cl. 3. We answer the first question in the negative and therefore do not reach the second. Petitioner, the Solid Waste Agency of Northern Cook County (SWANCC), is a consortium of 23 suburban Chicago cities and villages that united in an effort to locate and develop a disposal site for baled nonhazardous solid waste. The Chicago Gravel Company informed the municipalities of the availability of a 533-aere parcel, bestriding the Illinois counties Cook and Kane, which had been the site of a sand and gravel pit mining operation for three decades up until about 1960. Long since abandoned, the old mining site eventually gave way to a successional stage forest, with its remnant excavation trenches evolving into a scattering of…
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