Articles

Author: Reed Hopper One has to confess a sort of perverse admiration for the federal government’s unending expansion of power under the Clean Water Act. The recent Draft Guidance on Identifying Waters Protected by the Clean Water Act, by the Corps of Engineers and the EPA, that authorizes federal regulation of virtually any wet spot … ...

Just breaking: The United States Supreme Court has ruled unanimously in favor of the Sacketts in Sackett v. EPA. Here is the opinion. More to come. Update: More here. … ...

Damien Schiff, who won the case of Sackett v. EPA before the Supreme Court earlier this year, will be speaking about that case at the Cato Institute’s annual Constitution Day Conference at 1pm Eastern, 10 Pacific. You can watch live on C-SPAN 2, or over at the C-SPAN website. Update: You can watch the archived … ...

Andy Johnson owns eight acres of land in Fort Bridger, Wyoming, where he’s made his family’s home and raises livestock. A small stream crosses his property and provides water for his livestock, as it has for prior owners going back decades. In 2012, he erected a small dam on the stream to create a stock … ...

Controversy continues to boil over the Animas River spill. In case you don’t recall, this spill occurred late last year when EPA contractors burst a plugged mine, sending three million gallons of waste water (including arsenic) into the Animas River and other waterways. EPA waited nearly 24 hours to tell anyone about the massive spill, ̷ ...

Today, Pacific Legal Foundation filed its Respondents’ Brief on the merits in United States Army Corps of Engineers v. Hawkes Co., Inc. The Supreme Court of the United States will hear oral arguments in the case on Wednesday, March 30, 2016. PLF advances property rights cases for Supreme Court review in order to protect the constitutional & ...

Earlier today, the Federalist Society published a close look at the legal issue the Supreme Court of the United States will consider later this month in Pacific Legal Foundation‘s Hawkes case. The piece, written by PLF principal attorney Damien Schiff and yours truly, is called U.S. Army Corps of Engineers v. Hawkes Co., Inc.: Wetlands Juri ...

The Johnson family’s long ordeal with EPA, concerning their construction of an environmentally-friendly stock pond on their private property, is finally over. After ordering Andy Johnson to remove the pond, on pain of tens of millions of dollars in potential fines, the federal government has agreed to settle the case. Importantly, under the s ...

As my fellow Liberty Bloggers have joyously explained, the Supreme Court’s unanimous ruling for our clients in U.S. Army Corps of Engineers v. Hawkes Co. will provide relief to millions of landowners whose property is subject to ever-expanding claims of federal jurisdiction and control. Just how important the Hawkes decision turns out to be w ...