The Clean Water Act at 50: New Challenges Around the Bend
The Clean Water Act was part of a pathbreaking series of laws that ushered in a wholly novel era of environmental conservation on a nationwide scale. It followed shortly after the first Earth Day demonstrations of 1970 and at a time when memories of the Cuyahoga River catching on fire in Cleveland, due to oil slicks on the water’s surface, were still fresh. Today, the Clean Water Act is credited with helping to improve water quality throughout the nation, notably in the Chesapeake Bay as well as restoring trout streams in Appalachia. It has proved vital to the preservation of wetlands, which filter out pollutants, protect against flooding, and mitigate the erosion of shorelines.
However, today, the Clean Water Act faces new challenges. A lawsuit out of Idaho, Sackett v. Environmental Protection Agency, is now before the U.S. Supreme Court and may result in a dramatic rollback of the federal government’s jurisdiction over the waters of the United States. By some estimates, 80 to 90 percent of wetlands would lose protection under the Clean Water Act if jurisdictional rules are weakened. The Supreme Court case is set to be argued in October 2022, with a decision likely by spring 2023.
UVA’s Lifetime Learning in partnership with the Sustainability Office invites you to hear from three University of Virginia professors with nationally recognized expertise on this live controversy. Jonathan Cannon is the Blaine T. Phillips Distinguished Professor of Environmental Law Emeritus and was the General Counsel for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency from 1995 to 1998. Karen McGlathery is a Professor of Environmental Sciences and Director of the Environmental Resilience Institute at the University. She also leads the Virginia Coast Reserve Long Term Ecological Research program, based on Virginia’s Eastern Shore. Cale Jaffe is a Professor of Law and Director of the Environmental Law and Community Engagement Clinic. He was lead author of a brief on behalf of the Idaho Conservation League in support of the EPA in the Sackett case that is currently before the Supreme Court.
Speaker Biographies
Jonathan Cannon, Blaine T. Phillips Distinguished Professor of Environmental Law Emeritus at the University of Virginia School of Law
Jonathan Cannon is the Blaine T. Phillips Distinguished Professor of Environmental Law Emeritus at the University of Virginia School of Law. Before coming to UVA in 1998, Cannon held various positions at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, including General Counsel (1995-98) and Assistant Administrator for Administration and Resources Management and Chief Financial Officer (1993-95). He is the author of Environment in the Balance: The Green Movement and the Supreme Court and articles on the Clean Water Act and its applications.
Karen McGlathery, Professor of Environmental Sciences in the College and Graduate School of Arts & Sciences at the University of Virginia
Karen McGlathery is Professor of Environmental Sciences, Director of UVA’s Environmental Resilience Institute, and Director of the Virginia Coast Reserve Long Term Ecological Research program based at UVA’s Coastal Research Center. McGlathery has been on the UVA faculty since 1996. Her research focuses on the effects of climate and land use change on coastal ecosystems. In addition to Virginia’s Eastern Shore, she and her students have worked in New England, Florida, Bermuda, Denmark, New Zealand, and Mozambique. McGlathery was a Research Fellow in Denmark at the University of Copenhagen and the National Environmental Research Institute. She serves on the Virginia Governor’s Technical Advisory Committee for Coastal Resilience, the Research and Education Advisory Committee of Virginia Sea Grant, and the Executive Board of the National Science Foundation Long Term Ecological Research Network.
Cale Jaffe, Professor of Law at the University of Virginia School of Law
Cale Jaffe is a Professor of Law and Director of the Environmental Law and Community Engagement Clinic. Through his work with the clinic, Jaffe has represented a diverse array of public-interest clients, from a community group working to preserve an early 20th-century black schoolhouse in Cumberland County, Virginia to parties filing amicus briefs in the Supreme Court of the United States on issues related to the Clean Water Act, the Atomic Energy Act, Superfund, and the preservation of the Appalachian Trail. His work has blended academic research with real-world public policy. In 2020, Jaffe was appointed by Governor Ralph Northam to serve on the Virginia Coal and Energy Commission. Of particular interest for today’s discussion on the Clean Water Act, he has represented the Idaho Conservation League on a “friend of the court” brief filed in Sackett v. Environmental Protection Agency, a potentially landmark Clean Water Act case heard by the Supreme Court in October 2022.
