Dope1: Obama's EPA used to pretend that a puddle in your property was a part of the 'Waters of the United States'. A couple in Idaho dared to build a residential house on <1acre in 2004'only to be fined and beaten up by the EPA over a puddle.

Um, wrong.

First the Clean Water Act dates back to the Nixon administration when Ohio's Cuyahoga River had "burst into
flames, fueled by oil and other industrial wastes." How dare the federal government want to become involved when states were allowing pollution to cause rivers to spontaneously combust. The nerve.

And technically, this case started in 2007 when the Sacketts wanted to build a house on federally protected wetland adjacent to Priest Lake. No puddles were involved. Alito did joke about puddles in his opinion, though, when he described the lack of clarity of the legislation:

The Act applies to 'the waters of the United States,' but what does that phrase mean? Does the term encompass any backyard that is soggy enough for some minimum period of time? Does it reach 'mudflats, sandflats, wetlands, sloughs, prairie potholes, wet meadows, [or] playa lakes?'2 How about ditches, swimming pools, and puddles?

Basically, Alito (writing for himself, Chief Justice John Roberts and justices Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett) wrote that the legislation Congress drafted was poorly written:

In simplified terms, the provision specifies that state permitting programs may regulate discharges into (1) any waters of the United States, (2) except for traditional navigable waters, (3) 'including wetlands adjacent thereto.'15 When this convoluted formulation is parsed, it tells us that at least some wetlands must qualify as 'waters of the United States."

And the court ruled that the Clean Water Act can only protect "wetlands with a continuous surface connection to bodies that are waters of the United States in their own rights".

Justice Kagan wrote in a dissent to the decision that the court's majority had appointed itself "as the national decision maker on environmental policy". She's not wrong.

Justice Kavanaugh joined Kagan, Sotomayor, and Barrett, writing that the decision will "leave some long-regulated adjacent wetlands no longer covered by the Clean Water Act, with significant repercussions for water quality and flood control throughout the United States".

Anyway, who cares if our rivers burst into flames again? What's the harm, amirite?

Oh, and hardly a 'whacking' when four justices wrote that while they agree with the Court's disposition, they do not agree with its opinion.