The Environmental Protection Agency, under President Obama’s appointee Lisa Jackson, has stretched the limits of its power to carry out an ideological mission. But finally, a couple of surprising court decisions will hopefully temper the agency’s zeal.
The first of note was a stunning unanimous decision by the U.S. Supreme Court in favor of Mike and Chantell Sackett. The EPA found the Idaho couple in violation of the Clean Water Act because they filled in a small wetland on their property where they planned to build a house.
The EPA threatened to fine the Idaho couple up to $75,000 a day until they restored the wetland. Remarkably, when the Sacketts were hit with the order from the EPA, they were told there was no right to appeal.
Chantell Sackett told the Washington Times, “Bullying—that’s what the EPA does. They came into our lives, took our property, put us in limbo, told us we can’t do anything with it, and then threatened us with fines.”
The Sacketts took their case all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, where the justices ruled 9-0 in their favor.
“There is no reason to think that the Clean Water Act was uniquely designed to enable the strong-arming of regulated parties into ‘voluntary compliance’ without the opportunity for judicial review,” wrote Justice Antonin Scalia.
Meanwhile, last Friday, U.S. District Court Judge Amy Berman Jackson ruled against the EPA in the agency’s attempts to stop the expansion of Arch Coal’s Spruce #1 mountaintop removal mine in Logan County.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers issued a permit for the mine in 2007. The approval came after several years of study; the Corps, EPA and state agencies worked with Arch Coal to reduce the environmental impact of the mine.
But later, after the permit was issued, the EPA reversed course, withdrawing its approval of the rock and dirt disposal sites, thus blocking the mine. Arch appealed, and that led to Judge Jackson’s court.
The decision by Judge Jackson, an Obama appointee, is filled with candid rebukes of the EPA’s attempt to contort the law and revoke a permit that has already been issued.
“The Court finds nothing in the legislative history… that would show an intent by Congress to confer permit revocation authority on the Administrator of the EPA,” Jackson wrote.
In short, the EPA exceeded its authority in revoking the permit and then resorted to what the judge called “magical thinking” to justify its actions.
The judge reasonably concluded it would be economically unfeasible for any coal company to make a substantial investment in a mine when it was possible that the EPA could pull the permit whenever it wanted.
Judge Jackson said the EPA’s interpretation of the Clean Water Act in this case is “illogical and impractical.”
We’ve known for some time that this EPA has an extreme agenda. What’s most frightening is that the zealots do not feel constrained by the rule of law. Hopefully, a unanimous decision by the high court, and a stern rebuff by an Obama-appointed federal judge, will temper the arrogance of this public agency.