Tuesday, June 12, 2012

A Massive Land and Water Grab


By Alan Caruba

The tension between the states and the federal government is built into the U.S. Constitution and the Tenth Amendment stipulates that “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.”

The Constitution was written in an era of monarchies by men who were determined to preserve the rights of individual citizens and of the sovereign republics, the states, who were coming together for their common protection and welfare without ceding any powers to the federal government that would deprive them of the governance of their states.

The Founding Fathers were well aware that it is the nature of all governments to seek to accrue more and more power at the expense of citizens and states or provinces within their borders. The rise of the so-called environmental movement has given ample proof that their concerns were well-grounded. I yearn for the day when we stop calling them “environmentalists” and simply the communists that they are.

The latest in the long war between a rapacious federal government, filled with departments and agencies seeking to control every square inch of the nation’s land mass has been an audacious power grab by the Environmental Protection Agency in league with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. There are specific steps any agency must take before it can assert federal control of any kind.

Using the original Clean Water Act which permits the EPA to only regulate “navigable waters”, i.e., rivers and lakes, this rogue agency and the Corps is seeking to ignore the restriction and assert control over every body of water in the U.S. including a puddle of rain water or a pond in your backyard. If it weren’t so absurd and so outrageous, it would sound like science fiction, but the science the EPA uses is usually invented out of thin air.

Specifically, the EPA has issued “a guidance document” saying they want to eliminate or just ignore the word “navigable” so they could control “all waters of the United States and all activities affecting all waters of the United States.”

Senator John Barasso (R-WY) has introduced the “Preserve The Waters of the US Act” (S-2245) to ensure that the EPA and Corps are held in check and required to obey the Clean Waters Act’s previsions and intent.

In March the co-chairs of the National Conference of State Legislatures wrote Sen. Barasso, noting its opposition to the way the EPA and Corps are trying to circumvent “the formal rulemaking process, inclusive of a federalism consultation process with state and local governments” noting that their unilateral declaration of expanded powers “would effectively preempt existing state authority and are too significant to be addressed in a guidance document.”

The Land Rights Network of the American Land Rights Association is calling on Americans to write, call, email and fax their senators to support S-2245. The reason is simple and at the same time chilling. Unless S-2245 is enacted, the EPA and Corps would have unprecedented powers to seize the water or land from families, farmers, small businesses and all others, devastating economic and recreational activity, as well as many small communities throughout the nation that depend on such waters.

The permitting process alone, a major instrument of destruction that the EPA and other agencies of the federal government uses, would explode to the point where some bureaucrat in Washington would decide if you could install a pool, dig a drainage ditch, install a watering pond for livestock, and thousands of other common uses of water.

Parenthetically, the federal government owns nearly 650 million acres of land; almost thirty percent of the land area of the nation. Much of it is in western states and, indeed, it owns virtually the entire state of Alaska. Aside from land that has been put aside as Indian reservations, national parks and forests, and for use as military reservations such as army posts, marine bases, and naval stations, the federal government, spurred on by environmental groups, has been buying private property for habitat protection of alleged endangered species. It is bogus. It is communism.

If the EPA and Corps is not restricted from their latest effort to ignore the Clean Water Act’s limits, they will initiate the further destruction of the Constitution and the rights of both the states and the American people.

© Alan Caruba, 2012

7 comments:

Ronbo said...

The first act of President Ronbo will be to end the existence of the EPA!

Do I have your vote in November? :-)

But seriously folks, can anyone tell why we need the EPA is the first place?

Harry Dale Huffman said...

If the EPA's actions in this are counter to the original Clean Air Act, then why can't the states block it judicially, instead of having to introduce another bill, legislatively? As you say, it seems outrageous that the EPA thinks it can just redefine terms against the clear and expressed intent of the original Clean Air Act. I would ask the same question with regard to the EPA's official pronouncement that carbon dioxide, which plants take in for food and give off the oxygen we breathe, is a "pollutant". Where are the primary checks and balances upon the EPA that a sane man (me) thinks should be already in place against such indefensible actions by the EPA? Why is the EPA allowed to function as its own legislative, executive and judicial power? Is the nation so insane?

Alan Caruba said...

We did without one until 1970 and would be far better off without it now. Keeping the air and water clean was and should be a function of the states.

Alan Caruba said...

Harry, what else dod you expect from Eco-Fascists? They have no regard for the rule of law.

Zamir said...

Well, this is rather unfortunate. I suppose I shall have to make a moat out of my lake and fill it with gators to keep the government away. Oh, and then extend my fence to surround my property and electrify it...

Wow, I feel like I'm back in the Middle Ages!

sykes.1 said...

All these problems, and many others, derive from the Constitution itself and the long-standing practice of the Supreme Court to grant expansive powers to the federal government. The only way to solve the problems is to eliminate (not change) the Constitution. Either breakup the US into separate sovereign countries or, if a union is desired, reinstate the Articles of Confederation.

It is of interest that the Constitution Convention was organized to reform the Articles. Its members overstepped their orders and wrote a completely new constitution.

LarryOldtimer said...

Once upon a while ago, there were State rights, but the provisions of te 17th Amendment to the Constitution was the worst amendment posible.

States gave up their rights because of simple bribes, because of federal highways funds being withheld if the states did not pass stupid eckowhacko nonsense state laws.