EPA to Expand Its Power Over Water
When the EPA took advantage of the most insane and dangerous ruling the Supreme Court has ever produced by preposterously declaring harmless CO2 emissions — an unavoidable product of literally all human activity — to be a danger to public safety, the power grab was unprecedented in human history for its potential scope. But when it comes to seizing control over every aspect of our lives, nothing is ever enough for liberal bureaucrats. After air, what we need the most urgently is water — making it a natural target for EPA tyrants:
A group of 28 Republican lawmakers from Western states is fighting efforts by Democrats in the House and Senate to quietly expand the scope of the Clean Water Act, the federal government’s main tool for regulating the quality of the nation’s waterways.
The lawmakers sent a letter Tuesday to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada opposing efforts to rush through Congress the Clean Water Restoration Act, a bill that would allow the federal government to protect all waters of the U.S. from pollution, not just the “navigable” waters covered in current law.
Reportedly Dems are planning to ram it through quickly and surreptitiously, by attaching it to more popular legislation, such as the defense bill, and passing it at the last minute before Congress flies away for vacation.
Why do they need to sneak? Everybody wants clean water, right? But not everybody wants the federal leviathan to grant itself totalitarian control over your property because there’s a puddle in your backyard.
Republican lawmakers say they were spurred to act in part because of complaints they heard back in their states and districts.
“The concern we hear back home is that this legislation would grant virtually unlimited regulatory control over all wet areas within a state. This bill attempts to trump state’s rights and preempts state and local governments from making local land- and water-use decisions,” the letter says.
Specialists say the legislation would extend government regulation to 20 million acres of the nation’s so-called “isolated” wetlands and 59 percent of the nation’s streams that do not flow year-round.
“This legislation will hurt states and communities across America. The consequences and impacts of the Clean Water Restoration Act deserve a thorough and open debate in Congress,” the lawmakers wrote.
But a “thorough and open debate in Congress” would hardly be characteristic of our era of Obamunist “transparency,” in which bills altering the nature of our country are shoved through before anyone can even read them.
Once liberal bureaucrats have established that the air, the water, and the weather fall under their jurisdiction, the food supply will be next on the agenda. This is the reason for disturbing claims that agriculture causes the imaginary global warming bugaboo.
On a tip from Byron. Cross-posted at Moonbattery.
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Posted by Van Helsing on December 11, 2009 12:13 pm
» Filed Under 10th Amendment, 2nd Amendment, Activist Judges, Agriculture/Farming, Anti-Americanism, Barack Obama, Communism, Congress, Democrats, Despotism, Domestic Enemies, EPA, Energy, Government corruption, Government malfeasance/misfeasance, Government tyranny, House, Nancy Pelosi, Nanny State, News, Property Rights, Senate, Separation of Powers, State Sovereignty, States Rights, Statism, Supreme Court, Totalitarianism, U.S. Constitution, Unconstitutional, environmentalism, liberalism, transparency/accountability
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2 Responses to “EPA to Expand Its Power Over Water”
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Syndicate Me
I have to wonder if that is why the are buying Glocks for their agents?
http://www.epa.gov/oamhpod1/admin_placement/0902080/index.htm
This one can be fought in the courts as the federal government has no real jurisdiction to regulate intrastate commerce. Their only claim it that it would cause a controversy with an Indian Tribe, foreign nation, or another state. That can be fought with the practice of “no harm, no foul”. Of course I am assuming the federal courts would rule according to the law which is probably a stretch.