(NDAgConnection.com) – Monday marks the first day of the Supreme Court’s new term, and the justices are wasting no time in weighing another challenge to one of the nation’s bedrock environmental laws.

According to the Washington Post, the court will hear oral arguments Monday morning in a closely watched challenge to the Clean Water Act, passed in 1972 to protect all “waters of the United States”— including streams, rivers, lakes and wetlands — from harmful pollution.

Environmentalists fear the court’s conservative majority could dramatically narrow the law’s reach, undercutting the federal government’s ability to protect waterways — and the wildlife for which they provide critical habitat — across the country.

“This decision will be nothing short of a life-or-death sentence for coho salmon, razorback suckers, California tiger salamanders and hundreds of other endangered animals that rely on ephemeral and intermittently flowing streams and wetlands,” Hannah Connor, a senior attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity, said in a statement.

However, business groups and home builders have cheered the court’s decision to take the case. They argue that legal confusion over the definition of “waters of the United States,” or WOTUS, has created regulatory chaos for businesses and property owners.

“Without clear guidance from this Court, the Chamber’s members will continue to endure an expensive, vague, and time-consuming process whenever they need to determine whether a project or activity will impact waters subject to federal jurisdiction,” the U.S. Chamber of Commerce wrote in a brief.

The case comes after the Supreme Court ruled in June that the Environmental Protection Agency had overstepped its authority under the Clean Air Act to slash planet-warming emissions from power plants.