Supreme Court allows Idaho couple to challenge EPA on wetlands ruling "There is no reason to think that the Clean Water Act was uniquely designed to enable the strong-arming of regulated parties into "voluntary compliance" without the opportunity for review--even judicial review of the question whether the regulated party is within the EPA's jurisdiction," wrote Justice Antonin Scalia. The Sacketts wanted to build a home on a 0.63-acre lot near pristine Priest Lake in the Idaho panhandle that they bought for $23,000. But after three days of bringing in fill dirt and preparing for construction in 2007, officials from the EPA and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers ordered the activity stopped and said they suspected the land contained wetlands. Months later, the agency sent the Sacketts a "compliance order" that said the land must be restored as a wetlands before the couple could apply for a building permit. The government acknowledged that fines for failure to comply with the orders could be as much as $75,000 a day. The question for the justices was whether the couple had the right at that point to appear before a judge and contest the agency's contention that their land contained wetlands subject to the Clean Water Act. Scalia joked in summarizing the decision from the bench that the Sacketts were surprised by the EPA decision that their land contained navigable waters of the United States "having never seen a ship or other vessel cross their yard." Even before the court took up the case, the Sacketts had become a favored cause for developers, corporations, utilities, libertarians and conservative members of Congress, who condemn what one ally told the court is the EPA's "abominable bureaucratic abuse." It is a familiar spot for the agency, which has come under withering criticism in the political arena. Republican presidential contenders routinely denounce the EPA's actions and regulations as "job-killers," while GOP House members have voted to ban the agency from regulating greenhouse gases and tried to cut its enforcement budget. Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. joined in the criticism in a concurring opinion, saying the position taken by the federal government in the case "would have put the property rights of ordinary Americans entirely at the mercy of Environmental Protection Agency employees." Lower courts had agreed with the government that the agency's compliance orders are not subject to judicial review. They have said that because the EPA must prove a violation to a judge for the court to levy fines, that is the proper time for the courts to get involved. The government has said the EPA's power to issue compliance orders, with its threats of huge fines, is a way to quickly move to stop environmental damage. Allowing polluters to go to court would tie up the agency in litigation. The court's opinion said that could still be the case. "Compliance orders will remain an effective means of security prompt voluntary complians in those many cases where there is no substantial basis to question their validity," Scalia wrote.