ATTENDING a United States Supreme Court hearing was never on Bob Pepper’s bucket list.
“My bucket list has things I think I can actually accomplish,” he laughed. “I know you can stand out at 5:30 in the morning on the line to try getting into the Court, and I thought ‘no, I don’t think I’m doing that.’”
But when PLF invited Pepper to attend Hawkes Co. v. U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the former entrepreneur, semiconductor executive, and self-described political junkie wasn’t about to say no.
Pepper and his wife, Star, began supporting PLF in 2010—coincidentally, the same year trouble began for the Pierce family in Hawkes. That is, the federal bureaucrats’ land grab under cover of the EPA’s “Waters of the U.S.” (WOTUS) rule, even though the land in question was 90 miles from any “navigable waterway.”
“To argue that the Pierces’ property includes ‘Waters of the United States’ is to me, almost comical,” said Pepper. “I wondered, ‘when are they going to settle this dang thing?’”
So on March 30, 2016, Pepper watched PLF senior attorney Reed Hopper argue for the rights of the Pierce family, and millions of landowners who previously had no way to challenge wrongful application of the Clean Water Act.
“Boy, he was a giant of preparedness: succinct answers and really, really well prepared,” Pepper said of Hopper. “He was on target.”
Watching the Hawkes case was an unforgettable experience for Pepper—especially when Justice Anthony Kennedy declared at one point that the entire Clean Water Act is “arguably unconstitutionally vague.”
And Bob was elated about the unanimous decision two months later that gave PLF its first of two back-to-back Supreme Court wins in 2016.
“There’s certainly a great feeling of joy in being able to contribute to PLF’s goal of stopping government overreach. And it’s certainly one of the reasons we are supporters, because [PLF] has done remarkable things for people.”
