It's hard to describe how unscientific the Sackett v EPA SCOTUS ruling was today. By insisting that regulated waters only apply when there is "continuous surface connection" goes against everything we know about wetlands, runoff, and groundwater in watersheds.
Early in my career I did research on perchlorate, which was dumped en masse in the desert outside Las Vegas, many miles from any river. But somehow it found its way to the drinking water of Southern California...by magic? No, there are pathways that aren't obvious to the casual observer, which is why the Clean Water Act is based on science.
Regulatory authority without science is just what the MAGAs want to insist upon, because it then becomes gutted under responsible leadership, and dictatorial under them
https://www.vox.com/2023/5/25/23737426/supreme-court-clean-water-act-epa-pollution-wetlands-sackett-alito
#EPA #Sackett #SCOTUS #CleanWater
I think you're overlooking that this was not at all a scientific matter. It was a legal matter, and as much as we might want the law to be completely on the same page as science,
The question the Court had to answer was NOT what the science said. The question was what the representatives in the Legislative Branch wrote into law, *whether scientifically sound or not* as that's how the democratic process works in the US.
We are free to elect lawmakers that make laws following science or not, but if we do elect unscientific lawmakers, well, it's not an unelected court's role in our system to override the representative system.
