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The Agriculture Department violates the Constitution by barring farmers from its support programs if they plant crops on wetlands, said an Iowa lawsuit that challenges the four-decade-old Swampbuster rule. The Pacific Legal Foundation, which won a Supreme Court decision last May that narrowed federal protection of wetlands, is one of three conservative law firms representing the plaintiff, CTM Holdings LLC. Swampbuster, like the Sodbuster rule to protect grasslands, is part of an agreement under which farmers modify their operations in exchange for crop subsidy payments or access to federally subsidized crop insurance. In the past, farmers agreed to limit planting of so-called program crops, such as corn and wheat, when they applied for farm subsidies. In reality, said the law firms supporting CTM Holdings, Swampbuster runs contrary to the Fifth Amendment, whose final clause says: "nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation." "Assistance programs like those affected by Swampbuster should not be contingent on property owners signing away their rights to use their land," said the Pacific Legal Foundation. It said USDA designation of wetlands on a 71-acre tract owned by CTM Holdings made the entire farm impractical to cultivate and was the equivalent of a government takeover of the land. CTM Holdings is owned by Jim Conlan, an attorney. The Supreme Court ruled last May that the 1972 clean water law applied only to wetlands with a continuous surface connection to streams, oceans, rivers or lakes. That is a far more restrictive standard than the "significant nexus" test the Court created in 2006. The Pacific Legal Foundation, which argued the case for a couple blocked from building a home in northern Idaho, called the May decision a profound win for property rights.

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Lawsuit Challenges Swampbusters