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2022 | Winter Issue

The Water Issue

An entire magazine dedicated to the government's regulation of water—and soggy land—under the Clean Water Act.

Without clear Court guidance on the Clean Water Act, the federal government’s authority over private property is virtually limitless. As Chief Justice John Roberts said at one point during oral arguments, “Water goes everywhere eventually.”

– Damien Schiff, Pacific Legal Foundation

what’s inside

How the Sacketts Got Stuck in a Kafkaesque Nightmare

James S. Burling

“Somebody must have slandered Josef K.,” Franz Kafka writes in the opening line of The Trial, “for one morning, without having done anything wrong, he was arrested.” Josef K. spends the novel in a futile (and ultimately fatal) quest to learn from a mindless bureaucracy what his supposed crime is and how he can prove his innocence. At one point, a priest tells Josef K., “It is not necessary to accept everything as true. One must only accept it as necessary.” The Environmental Protection Agency has adopted this same stance in the case of Sackett v. EPA, which has now spanned 15 years and gone to the Supreme Court twice, most recently in October.

Earth, Wind, and Water: 1970s Activists and the Administrative State

Frank Garrison

In the late 1970s, two sociologists asked: Where had all the 1960s radical activists—the countercultural voices who clamored for a revolution—ended up in the seventies?

Apocalyptic Environmentalists Want Fewer Humans on Earth

Joseph Kast

Larry G. Salzman

Last July, two climate activists glued their hands to the 540-year-old Botticelli painting Primavera at the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, Italy. The painting, which depicts mythical figures in a green garden, is one of the most studied and praised in Western Civilization. It is thought to be an allegory about the abundance of nature.

Meet Clean Water Act Criminals

Paige Gilliard

Brittany Hunter

When environmentalists celebrate the 50-year impact of the Clean Water Act, they talk about what the law means for animals and plant life. The CWA, they say, has helped fish, birds, and turtles thrive in America’s waterways.

Showdown at the Supreme Court

Damien M. Schiff

The first spectator arrived at midnight. He brought a sleeping bag and an umbrella, then waited outside the Supreme Court all night while it drizzled on and offOther spectators arrived between 2 and 6 a.m. By the time I arrived at the Supreme Court around 9:00 a.m., there was a line of people down the block, waiting in the cold.
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Stories of liberty and justice

Sword&Scales is a quarterly magazine with in-depth stories about liberty, equality, and justice. Published by Pacific Legal Foundation, a public interest law firm with a winning record at the Supreme Court, Sword&Scales features narratives from history, courtroom showdowns, and the real experiences of people fighting for their rights.

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