In his June 1 op-ed, “SCOTUS votes for clarity from Congress,” George F. Will wrote that the Supreme Court curtailed the Environmental Protection Agency’s illegitimate exercise of a major power that Congress never explicitly conferred. He further stated that the legislature must write laws with exceedingly clear language. The problem with the court’s ruling and Mr. Will’s thinking is that Congress could not have been clearer in expressing its intent and the purpose of the Clean Water Act, the first sentence of which provides “the objective of this Act is to restore and maintain the chemical, physical, and biological integrity of the Nation’s waters.”
The EPA’s charge is to enforce the law to fulfill that objective. The EPA has the burden of proving that conduct or actions undermine that objective, usually by expert testimony. The court has substituted its judgment for that of the experts, essentially taking the side of polluters instead of clean water.
Rather than following the unambiguous language of the statute, the court, not environmental experts, is determining environmental policy.
William Weinischke, Bethesda
