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Comment by amanaplanacanal | Hacker News Reader

It’s supposed to be Congress’ job to do something, but unfortunately they appear to be useless.

Except in this instance, the conservative justices completely abandoned their "textualism" argument given the law in question was written by Congress to do precisely what they disallowed. And no, I don't want to hear that "well clearly not since they ruled against it."

To be clear: I'm talking about their redefinition of the word "adjacent". Forgive me if I'm not following the thread correctly here. Justice Alito seems to think adjacent means "navigable waters" instead of "these waters are literally connected to each other even if not above ground".

Almost all waters are “literally connected to each other” in a manner that’s clearly beyond anything Congress intended to regulate when they revised the CWA.

It’s just a matter of how intimately connected.

I think it should be clear by now that the textualists are only interested in text that suits their interests (e.g. the first clause of the second amendment is just flavor text since 2013).

Open your eyes to the possibility that maybe, just maybe, SCOTUS kicked it back to Congress purely because Congress is useless and won't do anything.

We have considered that possibility, assessed it, and determined that was not the case. Onto the next thing.

Congress has been doing climate and environmental regulation since Nixon. However in 1998 the Senate killed the Kyoto protocol (even though it was signed by the Clinton administration) and in 2001 the Bush administration became increasingly hostile towards any climate regulation. This supreme court case is simply yet another governing body standing in the way of congress to write and maintain climate and environmental regulation.

Don't blame this on the congress. Doing so is an ahistorical timeline.

>unfortunately they appear to be useless

Being nice aren't we :)

They are useless unless the regulation lines their pockets along with it seems the Court System. The US will bring down the world with it based upon how the Supreme Court Legalized bribing.

I say this as a US citizen.

Funny how this claim can be made when they pull shit like this but not when they legislate from the bench for the right.

If we pretend the Supreme Court is partisan, which it is not but let's entertain that thought here, then the decision was bipartisan. Both the Left and the Right judged that the EPA was overstepping its authority.[1]

>The court voted unanimously to reverse the Ninth Circuit, but split 5–4 on the rationale. The majority opinion, by Alito, introduced a new test to define wetlands, which reversed five decades of EPA rule-making and limited the scope of the Clean Water Act's authority to regulate waters of the United States. Justice Brett Kavanaugh joined the three liberal justices in agreeing that the CWA did not apply to the Sacketts' property, but argued that the majority's new definition was incorrect and will have significant effects on regulated waters.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sackett_v._Environmental_Prote...

> If we pretend the Supreme Court is partisan, which it is not but let's entertain that thought here.. I mean, that’s laughable, I don’t know how anyone can call the current Court non-partisan with a straight face. That doesn’t mean every decision is necessarily partisan, but multiple decisions over the past few years have been blatantly partisan, with Thomas and Alito especially making very little effort, if any, to hide it. I used to feel that the Supreme Court was the one of the few non-partisan institutions in our government, but the way this Court has run roughshod over stare decisis to effect change in the interests of its majority was more than enough to disabuse me of that notion. Everyone loves when decisions are going their way, consequences be damned, but the way those decisions get made matters, and nobody should be happy with the way the current court is choosing to act. It has set a really bad precedent for future courts, and has already done immense damage to its reputation in the eyes of many.

Well, half are.

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