The Supreme Court sided against the federal government in another wetlands case, which could make the Environmental Protection Agency’s plan to extend its control over more bodies of water on private property even harder.
Justices granted the company Kent Recycling Services’ petition for a rehearing of its case against the federal government in light of the court’s ruling last week, which curtailed agencies’ abilities to control private property.
“Simply put, it re-affirms that property owners across the country can hold overzealous federal bureaucrats immediately accountable in court for erroneous assertions of control over wetlands,” Mark Miller, an attorney with the Pacific Legal Foundation, wrote in a blog post.
“This levels the playing field for landowners who have been at the mercy of an overreaching federal government for far too long,” Miller wrote.
A lower federal court will now have to review Kent Recycling’s case in light of the recent high court ruling.
Kent Recycling planned on buying wetlands that were exempt from federal control since they were converted into croplands before 1985. The company planned on turning the land into a waste disposal site, but the Army Corps of Engineers said it couldn’t, citing a recent policy getting rid of the old croplands exemption.
