NEW YORK -- U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia can't be serious. In a recent decision he penned, he quoted "a famous exchange" in the 1942 movie "Casablanca" and a tale about "an Eastern guru" exclaiming, "Ah, after that it is turtles all the way down." The first quote was intended to deride the whole business of wetland protection; the second made fun of fellow Justice Anthony Kennedy for his "misreading of our prior decisions."
Scalia made these references, albeit in footnotes, in Rappanos v. U.S. The two cases the decision covered had to do with disputes on privately owned land containing wetlands. Environmental authorities objected to their development because the wetlands were found to be of the type that comes under the protection of the Clean Water Act. The CWA, created in 1972 to "restore and maintain the chemical, physical, and biological integrity of the Nation's waters," was strengthened in subsequent years to cover wetlands. The rules and regulations worked out to implement the law have grown ever more complex and detailed.
Scalia wanted to do away with all the complexities. Their accumulation has turned the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers into a "despot," he decided. The Corps, along with the Environmental Protection Agency, is a principal federal entity with jurisdiction over the CWA.