Stunner

I'd mentioned that last semester I was lucky enough to assist with some minor research for Richard Lazarus on his American Rivers brief (party) on the SD Warren case.  When the case was argued in mid Feb, some of the hearty research assistants camped out on the sidewalk to hear the oral arguments given to the Supreme Court.

Today the Court unanimously affirmed today in an opinion by Justice Souter (No. 04-1527).

That'd be 9-0.

This is pretty damn awesome - Lazarus is a wizard.

I think the walk-away import of this is that the states' abilities to regulate how clean they want their rivers to be and what those rivers can be used for (anything from industry to recreation) via the 401 standards has been strongly affirmed by SCOTUS.  One of the questions that came up at oral arguments was "Could a state simply ban all hydroelectric power plants on its rivers?"  The response that should have been given (and the post decision truth of the matter) is "Yes."  However, although handing the political ball to the states is important, if we want to to view this as an environmental victory, we have to remember that there *must* be local involvement (political will) to keep our waters clean in all 50 states.  A state can probably still abdicate its power and simply approve anything that comes down the pike by chaging its water quality standards.