The U.S. Supreme Court agreed last week to consider restricting the government's authority to regulate wetlands, scheduling the first major environmental law test for new Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. Washington Times The justices said they will hear arguments from two sets of Michigan property owners seeking to build on land designated as wetlands. A federal appeals court said the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers could block the projects to protect water quality and wildlife.a Michigan man, John A. Rapanos, was convicted of violating the Clean Water Act for filling his wetlands with sand to make the land ready for development. He also lost a civil suit, which is at issue in his appeal. Justice Roberts may have played a central role in the decision to get involved. Under his predecessor, the late William H. Rehnquist, the court last year rejected a similar appeal by John Rapanos, one of the landowners involved. "What has changed here is we have a new judge on the court," said Mr. Rapanos' attorney, M. Reed Hopper, a lawyer with the Pacific Legal Foundation in Sacramento, Calif. "This does suggest that Judge Roberts is as fair-minded as we hoped." The cases ask whether the Clean Water Act, which gives permitting authority to the corps, covers wetlands that aren't adjacent to a river or other navigable waterway. The justices also will consider whether Congress has power under the Constitution's Commerce Clause to regulate those wetlands. The disputes are follow-ups to a 2001 decision that struck down a corps rule designed to protect migratory bird habitats on local ponds. The Supreme Court in that case said the rule lacked a "significant nexus" to the "navigable waterways" that are covered under the Clean Water Act. The justices also agreed to hear a separate case from Maine that asks whether the Clean Water Act applies when water passes through a dam. The question is whether that process constitutes a "discharge" subject to the environmental law. Environmentalists have been worried about how Roberts will vote in such cases. As an appeals court judge, he suggested in 2003 that federal power is limited. He had urged the appeals court to reconsider its decision restricting a San Diego area construction project because it encroached on the habitat of the rare arroyo southwestern toad. But in the first major oral argument he heard, Roberts chided a lawyer for Oregon who was there to try to protect that state's physician-assisted suicide law from being made secondary to the federal Controlled Substances Act. In the Supreme Court cases involving wetlands, Bush administration lawyer Paul Clement, the solicitor general, said the government has long-standing power to protect waterways, even if that means limits on pollution on nearby land.In a second case, justices will decide if the Army Corps of Engineers had the authority to restrict the development of a condominium in MacComb County, Mich. The government contends the work could pollute Lake St. Clair, which connects Lake Huron and Lake Erie. Justices also agreed to hear a third case involving the same law, the 1972 Clean Water Act. It was filed by the owner of hydroelectric dam projects in Maine which provide electricity for the company's paper mill. Lawyers for S.D. Warren Co. argue that the company should not be required to get permits for some of its operations. The cases are Rapanos v. United States, 04-1034, Carabell v. Army Corps of Engineers, 04-1384, and S.D. Warren Co. v. ME Board of Environmental Protection, 04-1527.