Thomas, J., concurring
United States v. Holland, 373 F. Supp. 665, 669, 672–674 (MD Fla. 1974); 40 CFR §125.1(o) (1974) (initial EPA CWA definition). The courts that reached this conclusion relied almost exclusively on legislative history and statutory purpose. See, e.g., Holland, 373 F. Supp., at 672 (“The foregoing [legislative history] compels the Court to conclude that the former test of navigability was indeed defined away in the [CWA]”). But signals from legislative history cannot rebut clear statutory text, and the text of the CWA employs words that had long been universally understood to reach only those waters subject to Congress’ channels-of-commerce authority. See supra, at 15.
These courts and the EPA had only one textual hook for their interpretation: In defining the term “navigable waters” as “the waters of the United States,” the CWA seemed to drop the term “navigable” from the operative part of the definition. Seizing on this phrasing, the EPA’s general counsel asserted in 1973 that “the deletion of the word ‘navigable’ eliminates the requirement of navigability. The only remaining requirement, then, is that pollution of waters covered by the bill must be capable of affecting interstate commerce.” 1 EPA Gen. Counsel Op. 295 (1973). Similarly, the District Court that vacated the Corps’ original CWA definition held, without any analysis or citation, that the term “the waters of the United States” in the CWA is “not limited to the traditional tests of navigability.” National Resource Defense Council, 392 F. Supp., at 671.
That interpretation cannot be right. For one, the terms “navigable waters” and “the waters of the United States” had long been used synonymously by courts and Congress. The CWA simply used the terms in the same manner as the River and Harbor Acts. Moreover, no source prior to the CWA had ever asserted that the term “the waters of the United States,” when not modified by “navigable,” reached any water that may affect interstate commerce. Instead, The Daniel Ball made clear that “[t]he phrase ‘waters of the
