Opinion of the Court
process. See 33 CFR §331.7(d). And once in court, the landowner would face an uphill battle under the deferential standards of review that the agencies enjoy. See 5 U. S. C. §706. Another alternative would be simply to acquiesce and seek a permit from the Corps. But that process can take years and cost an exorbitant amount of money. Many landowners faced with this unappetizing menu of options would simply choose to build nothing.
III
With this history in mind, we now consider the extent of the CWA’s geographical reach.
A
We start, as we always do, with the text of the CWA. Bartenwerfer v. Buckley, 598 U. S. 69, 74 (2023). As noted, the Act applies to “navigable waters,” which had a well-established meaning at the time of the CWA’s enactment. But the CWA complicates matters by proceeding to define “navigable waters” as “the waters of the United States,” §1362(7), which was decidedly not a well-known term of art. This frustrating drafting choice has led to decades of litigation, but we must try to make sense of the terms Congress chose to adopt. And for the reasons explained below, we conclude that the Rapanos plurality was correct: the CWA’s use of “waters” encompasses “only those relatively permanent, standing or continuously flowing bodies of water ‘forming geographic[al] features’ that are described in ordinary parlance as ‘streams, oceans, rivers, and lakes.’ ” 547 U. S., at 739 (quoting Webster’s New International Dictionary 2882 (2d ed. 1954) (Webster’s Second); original alterations omitted).
This reading follows from the CWA’s deliberate use of the plural term “waters.” See 547 U. S., at 732–733. That term typically refers to bodies of water like those listed above. See, e.g., Webster’s Second 2882; Black’s Law Dictionary
