By Charles Boothe, Bluefield Daily Telegraph
BLUEFIELD, W.Va. — Arguments related to an effort to protect state rights on water and land regulations were heard by the U.S. Supreme Court Monday.
West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey, who led a 26-state coalition in filing a brief in the case, said the High Court heard arguments Monday in a case that could determine how far the federal government’s regulatory reach extends over rivers, lakes, streams, pools of water, wetlands and more.
“The Supreme Court needs to define once and for all the term ‘waters of the United States’ in such a way that st..ate lands and waters are not subject to the whims of unelected bureaucrats,” Morrisey said. “Not only does the confusion challenge the states’ sovereignty, but it is extremely costly to property owners who can spend years and tens, or even hundreds of thousands of dollars just getting permission from the federal regulators to build on their own property.”
Morrisey said the central case, Sackett v Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), is a decades-long battle over the reach of the federal Clean Water Act…
