Posted on 07/03/2016 7:36:09 PM PDT by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
Earlier this month a federal court in California ruled that a farmer plowing his land without a permit from the federal government is breaking the law. In 2013, the Army Corps of Engineers, without any notice or due process, ordered the owners of Duarte Nursery to cease use of their land for allegedly violating the Clean Water Act (CWA). The violation: plowing. The California court agreed with the federal government’s action, despite the fact the CWA specifically exempts normal agricultural activities like plowing from regulation.
This overreaching assertion of federal power is not an isolated incident. For decades, the EPA and the Army Corps have aggressively sought to stretch the bounds of the CWA. When Congress passed the CWA, the federal government was given regulatory authority over “navigable waters,” which the statute additionally defines as “waters of the United States.” While the word navigable may seem to have an obvious meaning to most Americans as bodies of water that can be navigated by watercraft, federal bureaucrats have identified these terms as a license for a massive regulatory land grab.
Asserting ambiguity, the EPA has tried to use the CWA language to claim control over essentially any water which eventually might find its way into a navigable waterway. They have asserted jurisdiction not just over logical sources like large tributaries of navigable waters or wetlands immediately adjacent to rivers but have tried to reach their regulatory arms to isolated puddles or dry stream beds which only see running water during large rainstorms. This overreach has been repeatedly struck down by the Supreme Court, most recently in 2001 and 2006. But these repeated rebukes have not stopped the regulators.
In June of 2015, EPA finalized yet another rule seeking to broadly define “waters of the US” under the CWA. Like its previous attempts, this rule goes well beyond any reasonable definition of “navigable waters.” The rule would require federal permits even for ditches and puddles, almost any water within the boundaries of the United States. This sort of excessive permitting requirement would impose new costs on virtually every American: not just farmers, but anyone who owns land.
Thankfully, this new rule has been put on hold nationwide for the moment by federal courts while its legality and constitutionality is challenged, but the danger remains. The bureaucrats have made clear with their repeated attempts at overreach using the CWA that they will not be dissuaded by the courts, even if this newest attempt is also struck down by the Supreme Court.
This saga shows the folly of broad grants of power to regulatory agencies. The bureaucracy cannot be trusted to use its powers with restraint. When the power of the regulatory state grows, the liberty of the American people diminishes. Reining in the power of the regulatory state should be a priority of all American citizens.
I have a Nuisance License in my truck that allows me to dispatch any dam beavers I want to in our local creeks and streams.
But hildabama, not so much. Besides, what difference, at this point, does it make? Kinda a slap in the face to all of those that have worked jobs involving classified information and KNOWING that even if we accidently release some of it we could at least be fired, at worst, jail time and fine.
Funny thing here... after all society has gone thru, from Magna Carta to Declaration, here we are... reverting back to the Feudal System.
The Duarte Nursery I think is on land leased from the Army Corps of Engineering as part of the flood control system for the Santa Ana River. Lots of nurseries, gravel pits and the like. Same is true of watershe’d for the LA river.
I was wondering if that was the case. If so it is not his land. Thanks.
President Trump is going to have a busy first 6 months firing complete departments.
Different technicality I suppose. But still why would they lease lands for purposes that are not permitted? If not a violation of rights, then it is false marketing.
Lets remember Gandhi, Dr. Martin Luther King and non-violent civil disobedience.
Glenn Beck used to talk about such things, then became a tool of the political machine that enslaves us all.
It will take people willing to sacrifice themselves in the face of the SWAT teams and other types of force government can bring to bear on a situation.
Let the government forces be the ones to open fire, use force, kill and or injure freedom loving people.
Heck, in Oregon this year people armed for self-defense did not use any violence but the FBI fired the first shots in an incident that led to LaVoy Finicum’s murder and the injury of Ryan Bundy.
Does anybody have to ask why all those weapons and ammo in the hands of the 3-4 letter (non LE by design) agencies?
This has little to do with the Clean Waters Act
it establishes precedent on what you can do on your own land.
Want to garden ? - get a permit !
Want to water your garden ?- get a permit !
Want to purchase seeds ? - get a permit !
Want to sell extra produce from the garden/farm ? - get a permit !
And of course they will be fees which will pay the salaries of the bureaucrats who impose and collect these fees !
And they will sell this concept, saying that it will pay for itself and be self-funding.
And that will raise the price of produce in the store as well as from the garden (!) and you will wonder why you are eating cat food to survive.
While we’re fighting like hell to defend our rights to freedom of speech and to keep and bear arms, the bastards are taking away our property rights. Yeah! Go ahead and vote for the Clintstones. Brilliant!
maybe they leased land assuming they could farm and didn’t read the restrictions. Or maybe the restrictions changed somewhere along the way. Who knows?
Most farmers are Republican with the exception of corn growers. Those that grow corn reap huge profits due to the federal mandates for ethanol in gasoline.
Actually I am a great proponent of ethanol. It should be put in charred oak barrels and loving cared for for years. Preferably 12 years are more. We then call it sour mash whiskey and I buy it a very premium price.
Not Kalifornistan. This is Fedzilla; the Federal EPA and Federal Army Corpse of Engineers engaged in tyranny.
And what if they used their guns and ammo on mass unarmed resistance to their tyranny?
Fuel ethanol seems a fig leaf. When the amount of petroleum-based energy needed to create it is accounted for, have we saved importing a drop? You’d think we would be hearing about how greenly the ethanol farms were being managed, but opening the issue would probably end up with some embarrassing questions being asked.
That's the legislature's job, and must never be assigned to unelected criminals.
Thought CA went along with it.
There are cases in history, some recent, heading home...
If you can plow it, it is not a waterway.
= = =
In CA it used to be a lake. Just looking for lost guns.
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