Supreme Court Poised to Scrap US Waters Test, Attorneys Say

The test that the federal government has used to determine what waters and wetlands are protected under the Clean Water Act seems poised to be scrapped by the US Supreme Court, natural resources lawyers said.

The justices mainly wrestled with the definition of the word “adjacent” as they heard oral arguments on Monday in Sackett v. EPA, which focuses on what streams and wetlands qualify as federally protected waters of the US—or WOTUS—under the Clean Water Act. Congress didn’t define “adjacent,” which appears in a parenthetical in US code, when it updated the law in 1977.

Then-Justice Anthony ...