Private property wins over Big Government

The war isn't over; this is but one battle. But what a *sweet* victory it is....

It’s possible to overstate the impact of the Supreme Court’s unanimous decision yesterday on Sackett v EPA, which reversed an EPA compliance order that kept an Idaho couple from building a home on land expressly zoned for that purpose.  As Ilya Somin notes, the court never took up the question of the Fifth Amendment, but rather limited its scope to the Administrative Procedure Act, which means that a Congressional repeal of the APA could undo Sackett, at least temporarily.  As things stand now, however, the Supreme Court has changed the manner in which agencies have to act when issuing compliance orders, which now — despite the Obama administration’s best legal efforts — have to be subject to judicial review before the EPA can start levying massive fines as an extortive device to keep from having their orders challenged.

Do read the whole thing, but the bottom line is, the US EPA (and, by extension, President Obama) has been seriously smacked down.