Supreme Court to Hear Case on Muddy Runoff from Logging

When the US Supreme Court decides to hear a case, you can bet there’s more on the justices’ minds than the “facts” of the case.

The Supreme Court recently said it will decide whether to uphold or overturn an appeals court decision that mud washing off roads caused by nearby logging operations should be considered pollution the way agricultural runoff is considered pollution.

But what’s really going on here is how far a court – in this case, the federal appeals court in San Francisco – can go in exerting its authority over a federal agency. The appeals court effectively said to the US Environmental Protection Agency: start regulating road mud the same way you do agricultural runoff. The Supreme Court will decide whether the court went too far and that the authority for such a decision should remain the hands of the federal agency.

So while this is a case about the environment, the reason why the Supreme Court will hear it is something else altogether.

To learn more, read the article at Boston.com.