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The Effect Of The United States Supreme Court's Eleventh Amendment Jurisprudence On Clean Water Act Citizen Suits: Muddied Waters, Hope M. Babcock

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

This Article focuses on the impact of the Court's Eleventh Amendment jurisprudence on citizen suits authorized under the Clean Water Act (CWA), because that law's cooperative federalism structure is typical of many other environmental laws, and because citizen suits have historically played a critical role in its implementation. The CWA's citizen suit provision (section 505), which specifically incorporates the Eleventh Amendment, has brought on citizen suits the full force and effect of the Court's current state sovereign immunity jurisprudence. The prevailing wisdom is that the Court's state sovereign immunity jurisprudence will not bar CWA citizen suits brought to enforce federal …