The Supreme Court today denied certiorari in a case challenging the watershed-wide effort led by the EPA to reduce pollution flowing into the Chesapeake Bay. The Court’s action leaves standing a lower court ruling upholding the effort. CPR Member Scholar Rena Steinzor, Professor of Law at the University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law, issued the following reaction:
“The Supreme Court’s decision is a milestone victory for the restoration of the Chesapeake Bay and the thousands of local waters in the Bay watershed. Today’s decision should at last put an end to any efforts to evade responsibility for reducing nutrient and sediment pollution. The Bay cleanup effort still has a very long way to go, with a lot of tough decisions and hard work ahead, but the Court’s ruling should give hope to the millions of people in this region who have had to live with degraded and polluted waters for decades. Moreover, the decision is a clear affirmation of the plain meaning of the Clean Water Act and EPA’s authority to enforce it. As the Farm Bureau has argued, it has nationwide implications.”
