County of Maui v. Hawaii Wildlife Fund

County of Maui v. Hawaii Wildlife Fund
Supreme Court of the United States
Argued November 6, 2019 Decided April 23, 2020
Full case name	County of Maui, Hawaii v. Hawaii Wildlife Fund, et al.
Docket no.	18-260
Citations	590 U.S. ___ (more) 140 S. Ct. 1462; 206 L. Ed. 2d 640
Argument	Oral argument
Case history
Prior	Haw. Wildlife Fund v. County of Maui, No. 1:12-cv-00198, 24 F. Supp. 3d 980 (D. Haw. 2014); affirmed, 881 F.3d 754 (9th Cir. 2018); rehearing en banc denied, 886 F.3d 737 (9th Cir. 2018); cert. granted, 139 S.Ct. 1164 (2019).
Holding
The statutory provisions at issue require a permit when there is a direct discharge from a point source into navigable waters or when there is the functional equivalent of a direct discharge.
Court membership
Chief Justice John Roberts Associate Justices Clarence Thomas · Ruth Bader Ginsburg Stephen Breyer · Samuel Alito Sonia Sotomayor · Elena Kagan Neil Gorsuch · Brett Kavanaugh
Case opinions
Majority	Breyer, joined by Roberts, Ginsburg, Sotomayor, Kagan, Kavanaugh
Concurrence	Kavanaugh
Dissent	Thomas, joined by Gorsuch
Dissent	Alito
Laws applied
Clean Water Act

County of Maui v. Hawaii Wildlife Fund, No. 18-260, 590 U.S. ___ (2020), was a United States Supreme Court case involving pollution discharges under the Clean Water Act (CWA). The case asked whether the Clean Water Act requires a permit when pollutants that originate from a non-point source can be traced to reach navigable waters through mechanisms such as groundwater transport. In a 6–3 decision, the Court ruled that such non-point discharges require a permit when they are the "functional equivalent of a direct discharge", a new test defined by the ruling. The decision vacated the ruling of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, and remanded the case with instructions to apply the new standard to the lower courts with cooperation of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).