Amy Coney Barrett joined the liberal justices in a dissent against Samuel Alito—and his thinly veiled policy agenda.

On Tuesday, the Supreme Court substantially weakened federal limitations on raw sewage discharge into nearby bodies of water. Its 5–4 decision will, in practice, free cities to dump substantially more sewage into rivers,

Northwestern Pritzker School of Law’s Robert Weinstock and Alexa Longstaff say there are shortcomings to the Supreme Court majority’s opinion in the Clean Water Act permit case, and the result could lead to a more adversarial permitting system.

The dissent, authored by Justice Amy Coney Barrett, suggests that the legal theory of five-vote majority decision was largely of the Court’s own making and contends that its narrow interpretation of “limitation” is unsubstantiated and “wrong as a matter of ordinary English.” It offers the following examples to rebut the majority’s conclusion.

On March 4, 2025, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a 5-4 decision in City and County of San Francisco v. Environmental Protection Agency, narrowing

The Supreme Court weakened restrictions on the discharge of raw sewage into water supplies in a 5-4 decision to roll back provisions of 1972's Clean Water Act.

The U.S. Supreme Court handed down a ruling on Tuesday that strikes down some rule that allowed the Environmental Protection Agency to limit the amount of pollution discharged into America’s waterways. The ruling was 5-4, with Amy Coney Barrett joining the court’s more liberal justices in dissenting.

On Tuesday, March 4, 2025, the Supreme Court issued an opinion in City and County of San Francisco, California v. Environmental Protection

The Supreme Court on Tuesday ruled that EPA cannot enforce requirements in wastewater permits that “do not spell out what a permittee must do or refrain from doing,” in a major blow to the agency’s power under the Clean Water Act.

The U.S. Supreme Court dealt a blow to the Environmental Protection Agency in a ruling on Tuesday involving a wastewater treatment facility owned by the city of San Francisco that could make it harder for regulators to police water pollution.

The Supreme Court's decision is the latest in which conservative justices have reined in pollution control efforts.