Thirty years in the making, the total maximum daily load (TMDL) program of §303(d) of the Clean Water Act (CWA) has never seemed farther from implementation. As state governments increasingly have…

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is in the process of redesigning the Clean Water Act's (CWA's) total maximum daily load (TMDL) program. Section 303 of the Act requires states and,…

Under the Wetland Conservation subtitle of the Food Security Act of 1985, as amended, commonly known as "Swampbuster," wetlands may be used to grow crops provided they are not degraded by this…

The U.S. Supreme Court decision last term in Solid Waste Agency of Northern Cook County v. U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (SWANCC), striking down the migratory bird rule for…

Few, if any, issues have divided environmental lawyers more than the legitimacy of the Migratory Bird Rule (Rule). Ever since its adoption in 1986 by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA…

In Solid Waste Agency of Northern Cook County (SWANCC) v. U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the U.S. Supreme Court recently held that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (the Corps) does not…

Environmentalists are no strangers to disappointment in the U.S. Supreme Court, but the recent case of Solid Waste Agency of Northern Cook County v. U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (…

This past January, the U.S. Supreme Court held that the Clean Water Act (CWA) did not authorize the federal government to prohibit a landfill operator from filling isolated ponds on its property…

For the last several years, federal circuit courts have debated the exact jurisdictional scope of §404 of the Clean Water Act (CWA), which authorizes the Secretary of the U.S. Army (the Army),…

Through the post-World War II era the U.S. Congress, by an incremental process of experimentation and error, developed the knowledge and experience that led to the imposition of individual permits…