Petitioners Chantell and Michael Sackett purchased a residential lot in a residential neighborhood, zoned and permitted by local authorities for construction of their home. After they began earthwork prepatory to such construction, they received a Compliance Order from the EPA effectively ruling that moving around dry earth and fill materials on their residential lot to begin their homebuilding project somehow involved discharge of a pollutant into the navigable waters of the United States in violation of the Clean Water Act. The Sacketts were denied any hearing to contest the Compliance Order by the EPA and by federal courts. They sought a Writ of Certiorari on the grounds that without any such hearing they were denied Due Process of Law. The ACRU filed an amicus brief in their support on April 28, 2011, arguing that Certiorari should be granted on these grounds, and also because the EPA’s action involved an unconstitutional regulatory Taking as well.

READ THE AMICUS BRIEF HERE.