Obama read that headline and wanted to know what they cut the blow with.
Turns out, though, that all eight Supreme Court Justices told the Army Corps of Engineers (and by extension, the EPA) that no, they don't get to "regulate" puddles on private property and yes, the decisions of these agencies can be challenged in the courts.
Following the Supreme Court’s decision in U.S. Army Corps of Engineers v. Hawkes, in which justices unanimously determined that wetlands decisions can be challenged by property owners in court, FreedomWorks Director of Legal Affairs Curt Levey commented:
“We applaud the Supreme Court’s unanimous decision today affirming the right of property owners to challenge federal bureaucrats’ assertion of regulatory authority over their land.”
“In particular, the decision is a rebuke of the Army Corps of Engineers and the Environmental Protection Agency, which have run amok by claiming authority under the Clean Water Act over any property that is sometimes wet by classifying it as one of the ‘waters of the United States.’ Even more outrageously, these bureaucrats claim, as they did in this case, that their assertion of regulatory jurisdiction cannot be challenged in court. Today’s decision ends their attempt to escape accountability.”
In case after case that I've read, EPA and/or ACE have attempted to find landowners as much as $37,000 a day for such things as building small, state-permitted stock-ponds on their privately-held lands while claiming that the landowners are not entitled to legal remedy in the judicial system: the bureaucrats' word was final and binding.
The unanimous SCOTUS pretty well puts a stop to that, and it's long overdue.
