WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Supreme Court's conservative majority continued its gradual erosion of
federal powers over the states today with an important ruling limiting the scope of a landmark
environmental law.
The court ruled 5-4 that the federal Clean Water Act should not prevent a group of suburban
Chicago localities from building a landfill atop seasonal ponds used by migrating birds.
The court found that the federal government did not have the power to stop the proposed
landfill, but the justices stopped short of overturning part of the massive 1972 environmental
law.
The landfill would be built atop abandoned gravel pits that are now filled with water and
used as migratory bird habitat.
Congress did not intend the Clean Water Act to cover such small bodies of water, Chief
Justice William Rehnquist wrote for the majority. Likewise, a 1986 refinement of the
environmental law that deals specifically with the needs of migratory birds does not give the
federal government such control, he added.
"Permitting the (government) to claim federal jurisdiction over ponds and mudflats," such
as those in the Illinois case, "would also result in a significant impingement of the states'
traditional and primary power over land and water use," Rehnquist wrote.
For the last five years, the 5-4 majority has ruled that the commerce clause does not apply
to noneconomic activity inside a state's borders.
The Illinois case concerns a group of local governments that want to build a landfill on
about 500 acres near Chicago, including about 17 acres classified as wetlands.
The Clean Water Act requires a permit from the Corps of Engineers for landfills affecting
"waters of the United States," including lakes, wetlands and ponds.
The local Illinois governments first requested a permit from the federal government in 1986,
and have fought the case ever since. The landfill authority claims that the federal Army Corps
of Engineers lacks jurisdiction in the case, since the pools do not really connect with any
interstate waterway.
The Clinton administration backed the Army Corps in the case.
A federal judge ruled for the government, and the Chicago-based 7th U.S. Circuit Court of
Appeals agreed.
The case is Solid Waste Agency of Northern Cook County v. U.S. Army Corps of Engineers,
99-1178.