The U.S. Supreme Court narrowed the federal government’s power to designate certain wetlands as federally protected in a May 25 opinion that rejected the Biden administration’s broader definition—with justices ruling that only permanent water bodies with at least a surface connection to waters considered to be “navigable” can be regulated under the U.S. Clean Water Act related to certain activities such as construction and energy development. 

At issue in the case, Sackett v EPA, was whether federally protected waters, known as "Waters of the United States," should include tributaries or wetlands that may not have a surface connection to larger bodies of water but have a significant downstream biological effect on them.