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terest is equally powerful, regardless of the proximity of the swamp or the water to a navigable stream. Nothing in the text, the stated purposes, or the legislative history of the CWA supports the conclusion that in 1972 Congress contemplated—much less commanded—the odd jurisdictional line that the Court has drawn today.
The majority accuses respondents of reading the term "navigable" out of the statute. Ante, at 172. But that was accomplished by Congress when it deleted the word from the § 502(7) definition. After all, it is the definition that is the appropriate focus of our attention. Babbitt v. Sweet Home Chapter, Communities for Great Ore., 515 U. S. 687, 697-698, n. 10 (1995) (refusing to be guided by the common-law definition of the term "take" when construing that term within the Endangered Species Act of 1973 and looking instead to the meaning of the terms contained in the definition of "take" supplied by the statute). Moreover, a proper understanding of the history of federal water pollution regulation makes clear that—even on respondents' broad reading—the presence of the word "navigable" in the statute is not inexplicable. The term was initially used in the various Rivers and Harbors Acts because (1) at the time those statutes were first enacted, Congress' power over the Nation's waters was viewed as extending only to "water bodies that were deemed 'navigable' and therefore suitable for moving goods to or from markets," Power 513; and (2) those statutes had the primary purpose of protecting navigation. Congress' choice to employ the term "navigable waters" in the 1972 Clean Water Act simply continued nearly a century of usage. Viewed in light of the history of federal water regulation, the broad § 502(7) definition, and Congress' unambiguous instructions in the Conference Report, it is clear that the term "navigable waters" operates in the statute as a shorthand for "waters over which federal authority may properly be asserted."
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