On Wednesday morning, Dec. 2, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear oral argument in Stop the Beach Renourishment v. Florida Department of Environmental Protection (“STBR”), a case that could have a profound effect on state and local governments’ efforts to respond to the coastal impacts of climate change.

STBR is a “judicial takings” case that involves a beach restoration project on Florida’s Gulf Coast, and a claim that Florida has “taken” the property of beachfront landowners. In recent years, rising sea levels and more frequent hurricanes have prompted many states to invest heavily in efforts to maintain their beaches against severe erosion. Florida is one such state, having introduced a program in which the state agrees to rebuild a highly eroded local beach area and then maintain the beach up to a fixed boundary called the “erosion control line.” This approach necessarily means that the boundary between the state land and private property shifts from the variable mean high tide mark to the newly-fixed “erosion control line.”

STBR arises from an unsuccessful challenge brought by Florida landowners to block this change in property boundaries.  Among other claims, the landowners asserted that they had a right to contact the water on their beachfront property, not merely to access it, and thus claimed that the addition of sand between their previous property boundary and the water line would unconstitutionally “take” their property rights.  The Florida Supreme Court rejected this argument, finding that there was no right under Florida law to contact the water independent of the right to access it, which was expressly preserved by Florida’s program.  After exhausting their options in state court, the landowners appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court on the theory that, in denying their state law claims, the Florida Supreme Court had so distorted Florida law that its ruling amounted to a “judicial takings.”

Setting aside the merits (or lack thereof) of the landowners’ “judicial takings” claim (discussed in greater detail here), STBR may affect the ability of state governments and environmental organizations to safeguard shorelines threatened by the effects of global warming.  A brief submitted by the Coastal States Organization in the case discusses the impact that climate change will likely have on shorelines, and explains why state and local governments need a variety of tools at their disposal to maintain and protect important coastal areas.  A ruling in favor of the landowners in STBR could restrict these efforts to protect shorelines and coastal ecosystems wherever they lay along, or within, private property, though the need to protect the integrity of such shorelines is becoming an increasingly important issue.

Constitutional Accountability Center filed a “friend of the court” brief in STBR on Oct. 5, on behalf of clients including the National League of Cities and the National Association of Counties, supporting efforts by Florida to restore beaches eroded by climate change and destroyed by hurricanes.