Fourth Circuit Limits Reach of Federal Regulation Under the “Major Questions” Doctrine as it Relieves Shrimp Trawlers from Clean Water Act Permitting
The Clean Water Act (“CWA”) regulates the discharge of certain “pollutants” into waters of the United States (“WOTUS”). Should shrimp trawlers be subject to the regulatory framework under the CWA when they return “bycatch” (unintentionally captured marine life) back into a water of the United States, or when their trawl nets churn up rocks and sand on the ocean floor? Not in the Fourth Circuit, as the United States Court of Appeals recently held in North Carolina Coastal Fisheries Reform Group v. Capt. Gaston LLC. This is perhaps an unsurprising conclusion. The CWA is, after all, intended to regulate point-source pollution discharges into WOTUS—and, therefore, to regulate pollution and discharges. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (“EPA”) defines point source pollution as “any single identifiable source of pollution from which pollutants are discharged, such as a pipe, ship or factory smokestack.” >click to read< 10:46
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