This is the Cato Daily podcast for Tuesday, October 4th, 2022.

I'm Caleb Brown.

The Sackets in Idaho just wanted to build a house.

Federal regulators disagreed and litigation has been ongoing now for many years.

At the core of the case is the degree to which federal regulators can prevent development on

private lands close enough to so-called navigable waterways.

The implications for the private uses of private property going forward are considerable.

The Sackets had their day in court, the Supreme Court yesterday. I spoke with Charles Yates of the Pacific

Legal Foundation and Cato's Tommy Berry. This is where I have to admit my ignorance. I thought I understood pretty well the broad issues of the Sacket case. Is it cases or case?

Because I know this is multiple times that this family has come before the US Supreme Court now.

I felt completely lost listening to the oral argument in the various discussions about how close a piece of property is to navigable water,

the differences between adjacency and other terms of art used in tests to determine whether or not some water is

able to be regulated by the Army Corps of Engineers, among other agencies.

Charles, please give me the big picture of what the sockets are facing here.

Yeah, certainly, and thank you, Caleb.

So as you intimated in your opening,

in Sacket, the Supreme Court,

at the highest level is considering the scope of the federal government's authority to regulate

wetlands on private property pursuant to the Clean Water Act. And the case is a culmination

of a really a decades long fight to curb EPA's weaponization of the Clean Water

Act against private property owners. So importantly a favorable outcome was

said important precedent and provided much needed regular

...