The federal Clean Water Act is a notoriously complex statute, imposing federal permitting on a wide variety of land uses, industrial activity, and conservation projects based on turbid regulatory standards. For decades, the Environmental Protection Agency and Army Corps of Engineers, which jointly administer the law, have tried to bring a modicum of clarity by issuing “nationwide permits“—a suite of boilerplate permits authorizing anyone to engage in certain, common activities subject to conditions to mitigate the impacts of those activities. In April, a federal court upended this regime, holding that the most recent issuance of nationwide permits violated the Endangered Species Act. Last month, the Supreme Court intervened to limit the effect of the lower court’s decision, an early indication that the case has drawn the Justices’ interest.
Nationwide permits are a rare example of a bipartisan reform of environmental regulation. Dating back to the 1970s, they…
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Utopia, you are standing in it! 
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