Posted on 02/21/2018 8:12:46 AM PST by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
Columbia, SC
Once again, a group of obstructionists who like to call themselves environmentalists is trying to steal opportunities away from South Carolina. The Coastal Conservation League and Southern Environmental Law Center filed a suit in federal court a week before Christmas to halt the construction of Interstate 73, highlighting their continued disregard for the public good.
These groups say the environmental impact of I-73 is too high. This couldn’t be further from the truth.
The federal government requires that any new highway be constructed along the least environmentally impactful route. Fifteen state and federal agencies have spent 16 years and $21 million to comply with this requirement by developing more than 2,000 alternative routes using a corridor analyst tool. This complex mapping system layered 52 levels of mapping data from 21 sources, taking into account the disruption of the environment, local landmarks, homes, farms and historic property. During the development process, 12,000 surveys were distributed, more than 4,000 people attended public meetings and there were more than 100 days of public comment periods (during the last of which, more than 10,000 comments in support of I-73 were received).
Only after this extensive process did officials designate this route as the least environmentally impactful, filling 324.3 acres of wetlands. To compensate for filling in 324.3 acres of wetlands, the 4,618.5-acre Gunter’s Island along the Pee Dee River will be placed into a historic trust to be preserved into perpetuity. For every acre of wetland impacted by the construction of I-73, 14 acres will be preserved.
Why does a group that claims to represent environmental interests object to a project that protects nearly 5,000 acres of land — or 14 acres for every one acre it impacts? It is clear to me that they prioritized their misguided interests over meaningful environmental protection. This is evident in their proposed alternative: the Grand Strand Expressway. Their methodology yielded a route that would fill 679.6 acres of wetlands (as opposed to the suggested 324) and disrupt 12 historic sites, the Little Pee Dee Heritage Reserve, two cemeteries, seven churches and one fire department.
It is laughable that the Coastal Conservation League claims to care about saving taxpayers money when it has repeatedly pursued legal action that would not only prevent jobs and opportunity from coming to our area but costs taxpayers millions of dollars. Where was its concern for taxpayer money when it held up the S.C. 31 extension, costing Horry County taxpayers $20 million, or demanded bear crossings be built across International Drive, which would have cost Horry County taxpayers millions of dollars? Now, its Grand Strand Expressway would cost Dillon County $7 million in annual income by eliminating access to commercial establishments that are currently easily accessible from I-95.
Worst of all, these environmental groups seem committed to preventing economic growth in the communities that need it the most. I-73 will travel from the coast across I-95 to I-74 in North Carolina. This route will cross Dillion, Marion, and Marlboro counties — three of the most distressed communities in the state. In these three counties, unemployment is almost double the national average, income is far below norms and the population is actually shrinking. I-73 promises to have transformative effects for these counties, creating 29,000 jobs, $43 million in local tax revenue, $86 million in state tax revenue and a total economic impact of $1.98 million. Infrastructure brings jobs. Just ask the 1,200 employees at Harbor Freight, the largest employer in Dillon County — situated adjacent to the newly built Dillon Inland Port.
These groups have deemed the entire public good — safety, quality of life and the economy — unimportant in comparison to their hypocritical special interests. They believe it is their duty to put up roadblocks to progress. I went to Congress to provide hope and opportunity to impoverished areas of South Carolina, which is exactly what I-73 will accomplish. The Coastal Conservation League and Southern Environmental Law Center need to be exposed for what they really are: obstructionists who have been robbing South Carolinians of opportunities.
Rep. Rice represents South Carolina’s 7th Congressional District; contact him at ricepress07@gmail.com.
I thought this was the kind of nonsense Trump was going to stop, hope he does!
The last 2-3 hrs into Myrtle Beach have long been a madness-inducing maze, with or without the Conway bypass and in-town expressways. It has always defied logic that there is no interstate access to the Grand Strand when limited-access highways can take drivers to the middle of nowhere 100 times over in the interior of the US.
Among the ‘strongest’ arguments of the NIMBY crowd is that birds will be disturbed by the development of the right-of-way. Birds. As in animals that can fly away any time they like and often do.
The California Coastal Commission has become one of the primary stumbling blocks to construction here...
Sounds like you got some of our exported nutjobs making ideas there.
Follow the money and you will find it ends up in the lawyers’ pockets. It isn’t about genuine concern for the environment, it is about those lawyers’ pockets.
Then again the recently passed state gas tax increase in SC was promised to go first to repairs and safety upgrades of existing roads, not new road construction. Of course I was foolish to believe the road construction oligarchy led by GOP state rep Hugh Leatherman of Florence would play by the rules.
"The federal government requires that any new highway be constructed along the least environmentally impactful route."
FR: Never Accept the Premise of Your Opponent’s Argument
Unconstitutional (imo) federal government interference in this highway project is explained as follows.
First, noting that patriots need to develop the habit of checking all actions of the federal government against its constitutionally limited powers, please consider the following about so-called “federal” roads.
The only roads that the Founding States expressly authorized the feds to make are postal roads, evidenced by the Constitution’s Clause 7 of Section 8 of Article I.
"Article I, Section 8, Clause 7: To establish Post Offices and post Roads;"
In fact, President Thomas Jefferson had officially clarified that the states would first need to appropriately amend the Constitution before the feds would have the specific power to regulate, tax and spend for making highways and other public things.
"On a few articles of more general and necessary use, the suppression in due season will doubtless be right, but the great mass of the articles on which impost is paid is foreign luxuries, purchased by those only who are rich enough to afford themselves the use of them. Their patriotism would certainly prefer its continuance and application to the great purposes of the public education, roads, rivers, canals, and such other objects of public improvement as it may be thought proper to add to the constitutional enumeration of federal powers [emphases added]"—Thomas Jefferson : Sixth Annual Message to Congress
But since there were no smart phones to spread Jefferson's message in those days, when the rookie 14th Congress tried to pass the public works bill of 1817 that would have enabled the feds to build the roads, rivers and canals that Jefferson had indicated, President James Madison appropriately vetoed the bill, arguing that such roads are not included in Congress's constitutional Article I, Section 8-limited powers.
Veto Message
In other words, Congress evidently did not understand that it first needed to successfully petition the states for an amendment to the Constitution that would have given Congress the power to build commercial reads before making its public works bill, the states not obligated to ratify any proposed amendment to the Constitution.
As a side note to this discussion, consider that founders Jefferson and Madison officially indicated limits on the fed's power to buy private land for public use, such power indicated in the 5th Amendment
Getting back to the fed's limited powers, consider that Route 66, Eisenhower's national freeway, probably other commercial roads as well, were built without the required express constitutional consent of Constitution's Article V state majority imo. (The ill-conceived 17th Amendment (17A) has been a real headache and really needs to be repealed.)
Although I'm sure that the states would have gladly expressly constitutionally delegated to the feds the specific powers that they need to build commerce roads, I attribute this major constitutional oversight concerning the fed's limited powers to post-Civil War, World Wars, and other wars “amnesia” concerning the fed's constitutionally limited powers and the previously mentioned 17A.
”The system of the General Government is to seize all doubtful ground. We must join in the scramble, or get nothing. Where first occupancy is to give right, he who lies still loses all.” —Thomas Jefferson to James Monroe, 1797.
FDR and his low-information Congress were a bad combination too imo. Again, 17A no help.
In fact, Jefferson had put it this way about the fed's constitutionally limited powers.
"In every event, I would rather construe so narrowly as to oblige the nation to amend, and thus declare what powers they would agree to yield, than too broadly, and indeed, so broadly as to enable the executive and the Senate to do things which the Constitution forbids." --Thomas Jefferson: The Anas, 1793.
But wait! There's more.
Regarding SC's road project, neither have the states expressly constitutionally given the feds the specific power to decide environmental issues. So the fed's unconstitutional interference in state affairs is coming in layers with this SC road issue.
What a mess! 8^P
Corrections, insights welcome.
The first step for a remedy to this unconstitutional big federal government mess is this. Patriots need to finish the job that they started in 2016 when they elected Trump President.
More specifically, patriots now need to be making sure that there are plenty of Trump-supporting patriots candidates on the 2018 primary ballots who will commit to respecting the fed's constitutionally limited powers, and pink-slip career lawmakers by sending patriot candidate lawmakers to DC on election day.
And until the states wake up and repeal 17A, as evidenced by concerns about the integrity of Alabama's special Senate election, patriot candidates need to win elections by a large enough margin to compensate for possible deep state ballot box fraud and associated MSM scare tactics.
Hacking Democracy - The Hack
As I understand it, the first federally funded commercial road was the National Road, later numbered U.S. 40. This was in the early 1800’s, and the Supreme Court ruled in its favor. So basically, hammers and axes were being taken to the Constitution from the Republic’s very beginning.
(Later on, the feds pulled funding from at least part of the National Road, requiring some states to set up toll houses to collect money used to repair and maintain the road.)
you can’t take a dump in cal within 3 miles of the beach unless the Coastal commission hands you the TP
Thank you for mentioning the National Road.
I had also questioned the National Road (associated with Cumberland Road). But consider that President Thomas Jefferson had signed the bill that funded it in the same year that he wrote his indication of the fed’s need for enumerated powers.
National Road
So I surmise that the road at least satisfied the postal roads clause (1.8.7), but possibly the power to purchase of private land for public use indicated in 5th Amendment.
But also condider that interpreting the purchase of private land too widely defeats the purpose of Jefferson and Madison official clarifications of Section 8-limited powers imo.
Again, corrections, insights welcome.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.