{
  "id": "RL30670",
  "type": "CRS Report",
  "typeId": "REPORTS",
  "number": "RL30670",
  "active": false,
  "source": "EveryCRSReport.com",
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    {
      "source": "EveryCRSReport.com",
      "id": 101986,
      "date": "2002-12-18",
      "retrieved": "2016-05-24T20:01:38.939941",
      "title": "Constitutional Bounds on Congress' Ability to Protect the Environment",
      "summary": "Federal protection of the environment must hew to the same constitutional bounds as any other\nfederal activity. In the past decade, the Supreme Court has invigorated several of these bounds in\nways that present new challenges to congressional drafters of environmental statutes. This report\nreviews five of these newly emergent constitutional areas. For each area, the focus is its significance\nfor current and future federal environmental legislation. \n   First, the Commerce Clause , requiring that activities regulated by federal laws\n enacted under\nthe Clause have a sufficient nexus with interstate commerce. In 1995, the Supreme Court sustained\na Commerce Clause challenge to a federal law for the first time in 60 years, and did so again in 2000. \nThus far, lower courts have rejected such challenges to federal environmental laws, but in 2001 the\nSupreme Court opted for a narrow reading of federal Clean Water Act jurisdiction over \"isolated\nwaters,\" in part to avoid Commerce Clause issues.\n   Second, standing to sue in the federal courts . Article III restricts standing (who is\n a proper\nparty to bring suit) to those who can demonstrate injury in fact, causation, and redressability. In a\nseries of decisions during the 1990s, the Supreme Court interpreted these requirements with\nincreasing stringency, making standing more difficult to establish and lessening the viability of many\npotential environmental citizen suits. In a sharp turnabout, however, the Court in 2000 eased the\ninjury-in-fact and redressability components.\n   Third, the Takings Clause of the Fifth Amendment , declaring that when the federal\n government\n\"takes\" property, just compensation is owed. The federal environmental program most commonly\nattacked in takings suits is the Clean Water Act section 404 wetlands program. Other federal\nprograms occasionally challenged as effecting takings include the Endangered Species Act, Surface\nMining Control and Reclamation Act, Rails to Trails Act, and Superfund Act. \n   Fourth, the Tenth Amendment , stating that powers not granted to the Federal\n Government are\nreserved to the states. Invoking this Amendment, Supreme Court decisions during the 1990s held\nthat Congress cannot compel the participation of state legislatures or state executive-branch officials\nin federal programs. But conditions on the grant of federal funds to the states and other noncoercive\napproaches to enlisting state cooperation with federal environmental initiatives have been judicially\napproved.\n   Fifth, the Eleventh Amendment , which together with general principles of state\n sovereign\nimmunity bars Congress from authorizing private lawsuits against unconsenting states. Because the\nAmendment applies only to private suits against states and does not prohibit suits against state\nofficials for injunctive relief, it has thus far not been a major constraint on congressional\nenvironmental efforts. Noncoercive approaches (preceding paragraph) are also available.\n  Finally, the report briefly sketches two constitutional doctrines that, while recently active, have\nnot received Supreme Court resuscitation. One, the Article I nondelegation doctrine, was used by\na lower court to void Clean Air Act regulations before being returned to its former quiescent status\nby the Supreme Court in 2001. The other, Article II's vesting of enforcement authority in the\nexecutive branch, is today argued by some citizen-suit defendants as being inconsistent with\n citizen  enforcement of federal environmental laws. The Supreme Court has yet to\nresolve the issue.",
      "type": "CRS Report",
      "typeId": "REPORTS",
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      "topics": []
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  "topics": [
    "American Law",
    "Constitutional Questions"
  ]
}