Royal C.Gardner, Professor of Law, Director of the Institute for Biodiversity Law and Policy, Stetson University College of Law

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ABSTRACT

In May 2023, the U.S. Supreme Court once again waded into the wetland wars. In Sackett v. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, in a decision written by Justice Samuel Alito, the Court very narrowly interpreted the statutory term “waters of the United States,” also known as WOTUS. If a wetland is a WOTUS, then it is protected by the Clean Water Act. If it is not a WOTUS, then the Clean Water Act does not apply. Brenda Mallory, the Chair of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, called Sackett “one of the largest judicial rollbacks of environmental protections in U.S. history.” The first thing that must be done, she said, is “to be honest, clear, vocal, and visual about the impact of the Supreme Court’s ruling.” This presentation provides such an assessment.

BIO

Royal C. Gardner is Professor of Law and Director of the Institute for Biodiversity Law and Policy at Stetson University College of Law. He has worked on wetland law and policy issues for more than three decades, beginning, oddly enough, at the Pentagon. Recent projects include serving as the Chair of the Scientific and Technical Review Panel of the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands, testifying before a World Bank arbitration panel, and coauthoring amici briefs on behalf of environmental scientists and scientific societies. He was lead counsel for an amici brief filed on behalf of twelve national and international scientific societies in Sackett v. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, as well as for the amici brief filed for aquatic scientists and scientific societies that the U.S. Supreme Court cited in the case of County of Maui v. Hawaii Wildlife Fund. He was a lead coordinating co-author of the Global Wetlands Outlook, the Ramsar Convention’s flagship publication on the state of the world’s wetlands. He is also the author of Lawyers, Swamps, and Money: U.S. Wetland Law, Policy, and Politics, which has a small cult following. His book Waters of the United States: POTUS, SCOTUS, WOTUS, and the Politics of a National Resource will be published by Island Press in December 2024.

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