In 1972, the Clean Water Act was passed and put into law. In invoking Richard Nixon, who signed the bill, I fully understand that there was some serious politics involved, some of it dirty, which was Nixon’s method of operation. However, I invoke Nixon here in order to show that, as extreme as Nixon was on many issues at the time, even he would be kicked out of today’s Republican Party by the MAGA extremists and corporate interests who now own the party, as well as the court.
A wetland, as it has always been defined by the EPA, The Clean Water Act, and by science, is the following:
Wetlands are areas where water covers the soil, or is present either at or near the surface of the soil all year or for varying periods of time during the year, including during the growing season. Water saturation (hydrology) largely determines how the soil develops and the types of plant and animal communities living in and on the soil. Wetlands may support both aquatic and terrestrial species. The prolonged presence of water creates conditions that favor the growth of specially adapted plants (hydrophytes) and promote the development of characteristic wetland (hydric) soils.
The Supreme Court did not look at the science, or the Clean Water Act itself, which has been in place for more than 50 years, but at corporate interests, when it ruled that, if a wetland is not directly connected to a waterway (lake, river, stream, etc), it is no longer a wetland, and is open for exploitation. What surprised me is that Kavanaugh voted with the Liberals on this issue, stating in his own opinion that the majority was ignoring precedent and jeopardizing water quality in the US. I guess even a broken clock is right twice a day.
The Supreme Court is not a court. It is an out of control auction house, and the only cure is to expand the court from it’s current 9 justices to 13. I look forward to that happening early in 2025.
NOTE: Read The Pelican Brief by John Grisham, or watch the movie. Plot is different, but the corporate ideology involved is exactly the same.
