The Supreme Court is set to open a new nine-month term today packed with major cases. The cases include disputes centered on big issues, including race and the environment, that give its conservative majority fresh opportunities to flex their muscles.
First up is an environmental case.
The top U.S. court annually kicks off its term on the first Monday of October. Important cases are on the schedule right away. The court is stacked with conservative judges, with a 6-3 conservative majority.
The court includes one new face this term, a liberal appointed by President Joe Biden. Appointee Ketanji Brown Jackson is the U.S.’s first Black woman justice. She joins the court’s liberal bloc after being confirmed by the Senate in April to succeed now-retired Justice, Stephen Breyer.
On the term’s first day, the justices are set to hear arguments in a case that could limit the scope of a landmark federal environmental law, the Clean Water Act of 1972.
Environmental experts and lawyers fear another massive hit to the environment. The court issued a decision in June that constrained the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions under a different anti-pollution law, the Clean Air Act.
The court on Monday will consider for a second time a bid by Chantell and Mike Sackett, a married couple from Idaho, to build a home on the property that the EPA has deemed a protected wetland requiring a permit under the Clean Water Act, which they had failed to obtain.
There has been much political debate as well as litigation over how much of a connection with a waterway a property must have in order to require a permit.
Last term, the court also reigned over massive issues. The two biggest rulings in the last session were on abortion and firearms. The court ended the recognition of a woman’s constitutional right to abortion and expanded gun rights.
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