Dorking out to the Supremes

My environmental law class has an extra credit assignment -- betting how each justice will vote in 3 upcoming clean water act cases. So, I thought that I would spend some time looking through recent stuff.

I am reading the transcript of an oral argument and laughing to tears. Justice Breyer is hilarious. And I can't decide how sad it makes my life that I think that. Anyway. Breyer asks counsel: "So, if I punch a great big hole in the bottom of lake eerie, I didn't violate the act." Counsel responds something like No. "But, if I take a great big dump truck of dirt and dump it in lake Eerie and displace all the water, I violate the act?" The counsel not only responds in the affirmative but continues to say "We only bring in a little dirt, at the margins." And Justice Breyer replies: "Okay then. So your argument is that if you only violate the act a little bit, you get off?"