The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday refused to take on a case challenging federal rules allocating water in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta to save the Delta smelt, a minnow-like fish on the edge of extinction.
Pacific Legal Foundation had tried to get the nation’s highest court to hear their arguments against a 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decision that had upheld restrictions on pumping of Delta water to farmers and other users south of the Delta in the San Joaquin Valley and Southern California.
PLF contends the appellate court’s decision is an abuse of federal power in violation of the Commerce Clause of the U.S. Constitution that gives Congress exclusive power over trade activities among the states and with foreign countries and Indian tribes.
