“Confirmed Judges, Confirmed Fears” is a blog series documenting the harmful impact of President Trump’s judges on Americans’ rights and liberties. It includes judges nominated in both his first and second terms.
Trump justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh cast deciding votes in a 5-4 ruling that limited and harmed the ability of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to enforce clean water requirements against municipalities. Trump Justice Amy Coney Barrett dissented in the March 2025 ruling in City and County of San Francisco v EPA.
What happened in this case?
As with many other municipalities, San Francisco obtained from the EPA a permit that allows discharge of wastewater – in this case, into the Pacific Ocean. The permit sets specific limits on particular pollutants, but also contains an “end result” requirement that made San Francisco responsible for the overall quality of the water in an area where the discharges occur. The city challenged this requirement, claiming that the EPA did not have the authority to impose it.
The Ninth Circuit denied the city’s petition for review and upheld the requirement. The Supreme Court decided to review the case.
Why was the decision made possible by Justices Gorsuch and Kavanaugh harmful?
Justice Alito issued a 5-4 ruling, made possible by Trump justices Gorsuch and Kavanaugh, that reversed the Ninth Circuit and struck down the EPA’s “end result” requirement. Although there was some disagreement among the majority on the precise rationale, they held that the Clean Water Act “does not authorize” the EPA to impose an “end result”-type mandate as part of its regulations.
Justice Amy Coney Barrett wrote a firm dissent, joined by Justices Kagan, Sotomayor, and Jackson. In contrast to the majority, she maintained that the statutory language clearly authorizes the “end result” rule, since “[c]onditions that forbid the city to violate water quality standards” as in this case “are plainly ‘limitations’”, as used in the law, that the EPA is authorized to impose. She wrote that the majority's interpretation of the word "limitations" in the statute "is wrong as a matter of ordinary English." As Barrett explained, the majority’s decision effectively takes “a tool away from EPA” that “may make it harder for the Agency to issue the permits that municipalities and businesses need in order for their discharges to be lawful.”
Environmental advocates have also noted the harm that the decision made possible by Gorsuch and Kavanaugh may cause. As stated by Becky Hammer, senior attorney at the Natural Resources Defense Council, the ruling “is going to make the job of EPA and other permitting agencies must harder, because the type of limits the court says have to be used are much harder to identify and calculate.” The opinion illustrates the importance of our federal courts to health, welfare and justice and the significance of having fair-minded judges on the federal bench.