Free Republic

Happy holidays from the Obama administration. Federal agencies are currently working on rolling out hundreds of environmental regulations, including major regulations that would limit emissions from power plants and expand the agency’s authority to bodies of water on private property. On Tuesday, the White House released its regulatory agenda for the fall of 2013. It lists hundreds of pending energy and environmental regulations being crafting by executive branch agencies, including 134 regulations from the Environmental Protection Agency alone. The EPA is currently crafting 134 major and minor regulations, according to the White House’s regulatory agenda. Seventy-six of the EPA’s pending...

Had today's politicians and opinion-makers been in power four centuries ago, Americans might celebrate "Starvation Day" this week, not Thanksgiving. The Pilgrims started out with communal property rules. When they first settled at Plymouth, they were told: "Share everything, share the work, and we'll share the harvest." The colony's contract said their new settlement was to be a "common." Everyone was to receive necessities out of the common stock. There was to be little individual property. That wasn't the only thing about the Plymouth Colony that sounds like it was from Karl Marx: Its labor was to be organized...

Imagine that you run a grocery store with your daughter, a store you have owned for thirty years. Imagine that just last year the IRS found no violations in an audit of your store. Now imagine that, despite continuing your sound business practices, you awake one day to find the IRS has seized your entire bank account. The IRS has used a technique called civil forfeiture against you and you find your Constitutional guarantee of innocence until proven guilty has been completely reversed. That is the nightmare that Terry Dehko and his daughter Sandy Thomas found themselves in on January...

While the country is immersed in Obamacare headlines and a congressional tussle over delays and mandates, the Obama administration is stealthily moving toward unprecedented control over private property under a massive expansion of the Environmental Protection Agency’s Clean Water Act authority. The proposed rule, obtained by the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee in advance of EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy’s testimony at a Thursday oversight hearing, widely broadens the definition of waterways over which the federal government has jurisdiction to as little as a water ditch in a backyard. The Clean Water Act redefinition of “waters of the United States”...

SALT LAKE CITY — A coalition of conservation groups is hailing a federal judge's ruling Monday to strike down portions of the Richfield Bureau of Land Management plan they said gave deference to off-road vehicles at the expense of the environment. "This landmark decision is a resounding rejection of the BLM’s mismanagement of Utah’s stunning public lands,” said Stephen Bloch, legal director for the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance. ... The Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance was among seven groups that filed a legal challenge to the Bush-era plans following their adoption in 2008, contending they imperiled pristine landscapes. The Richfield plan...

Tennessee’s second poorest county will suffer even more if the federal government buys 120,000 acres of land in that area, near Memphis, all for the stated purpose of wildlife preservation, said that county’s mayor. Lauderdale County Mayor Rod Schuh told Tennessee Watchdog Friday that his county, while poor, relies on farming and agriculture as the primary drivers of its economy. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife’s plan to expand the Lower Hatchie National Wildlife Refuge, assuming it buys out as many properties as it can, will rob the county of its most valuable commodity, Schuh said. Primarily, almost 60 percent of...

Three environmental groups petitioned the federal government Monday to block new oil and gas development in an area of key sage grouse habitat near Douglas. The petition came a month after Gov. Matt Mead announced a plan with Chesapeake Energy to allow drilling in what is known as the Douglas Core Area and represented an effort by environmentalists to counter what they see as an erosion of state sage grouse protections. ... WildEarth Guardians, the Biodiversity Conservation Alliance and American Bird Conservancy petitioned the Department of Interior and U.S. Bureau of Land Management to prohibit construction of new wellpads and...

Colorado property owners affected by a federal proposal to list the sage grouse as an endangered species should be compensated for the loss of their ability to earn a living from the land, Rep. Scott Tipton.. The Colorado Republican asked Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) Director Dan Ashe at a House hearing if the federal government planned to compensate those who would no longer be able to raise crops or cattle on property claimed for the bird’s critical habitat. “No,” Ashe replied sharply. The proposed map of the listing and bird’s wide-ranging territory over two million acres of Colorado and...

Forget Obamacare, its online health-care records, death panels making decisions on your treatment and other privacy-invading provisions. Forget the Internal Revenue Service agenda. As well as the National Security Agency spy programs. It seems the most egregious infringement on Americans’ rights could come from the Environmental Protection Agency. The EPA, according to critics in Congress, “intends to expand federal regulatory authority under the Clean Water Act to include even the most isolated wetlands, seasonal drainages, and prairie depressions.” The proposed rushed change in regulations would assert “unprecedented control” over private property across the United States, opponents assert. Several members of...

Two Republican House members have sent a letter to the EPA questioning new rules being formulated that would give the EPA sweeping authority over streams and wetlands on private property. The EPA is justifying the rules by saying it's part of its mandate to enforce the Clean Water Act. But Reps. Lamar Smith (R-Texas) and Chris Stewart (R-Utah), both ranking members of the Science and Technology Committee, doubt the EPA's science in justifying the regulations and want the agency to slow down and get other opinions.

Public lands continue to draw attention in San Juan County. A series of public meetings in October will allow local residents to learn about several issues and make their voices heard. The US Fish and Wildlife Service has released an environmental assessment and an economic analysis of the Gunnision sage grouse proposals. ... Public comment on the studies will be accepted until October 19. It is expected that the US Fish and Wildlife Service will make a decision on designation by March 31, 2014. The federal agency is considering the designation of the sage grouse as an endangered species and...

Anyone that's familiar what the bible, anything like that, when Jesus said that you're going straight to hell if you didn't treat the less of his brothers and sisters, and what did he say, he said he was hungry. They give him food stamps. – Tax evading Congressman Charlie Rangel The demons are emerging from their pits, folks, and they're slithering toward the TV cameras. Cheatin' Charlie is not "familiar" with "the bible, anything like that." If he were, he would understand that "You Shall Not Steal" and "You Shall Not Covet" are two of the Ten Commandments, and that...

I’ve always paid my taxes and have never been arrested or charged with any crime in my life. I am a successful small-business man. But in January of this year, I woke up to find that my business’ entire bank account — more than $35,000 — had been wrongly seized. Later that same day, I was writing checks to my vendors. A federal agent strolls in. She tells me my hard-earned cash was taken by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). I was shocked. I’ve broken no law, committed no crime and was never warned my store could be in trouble....

United States v. $35,651.11 (The cash in the account of Schott's Supermarket) Feds Seize Family Grocery Store’s Entire Bank Account Can the government use civil forfeiture to take your money when you have done nothing wrong—and then pocket the proceeds? The IRS thinks so. For over 30 years, Terry Dehko has successfully run a grocery store in Fraser, Mich., with his daughter Sandy. In January 2013, without warning, the federal government used civil forfeiture to seize all of the money from the Dehkos’ store bank account (more than $35,000) even though they’ve done absolutely nothing wrong. Their American Dream is...

Meanwhile, Tea Party Conservatives are getting beaten up royally by greedy, unelected federal and UN Bureaucrats looking to push a Regionalism plan called Seven/50 (seven counties in 50 years) in an early November vote. The Treasure Coast, seven county region is awash with beautiful scenery, big bucks campaign donations and swing vote mathematics, but is also hooked to the Gore Triangle in the south which has already fallen to the UN Regionalism abomination. “I’ll let some of my pets loose on them,” a gator trapper muttered after testifying against Seven/50 at a recent Martin County Commission meeting. He spoke eloquently...

as debate heats up on Capitol Hill over the proposed listing of the Sage Grouse as an endangered species, a key concern of Colorado Republican Rep. Scott Tipton is that it may never be de-listed, even if the population recovers. If the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) decide to list the species, the new protections would restrict management of two million acres in Colorado considered critical habitat, including private property. That means limited use of the property for grazing or energy development. “If we have a recovery in Garfield County, it will never be taken off the listing because...

The Bureau of Land Management is currently considering several Resource Management Plan proposals in Montana, with one major objective ostensibly aimed at conserving sage grouse habitat to bolster population growth. However, one look at the management plans clearly shows that the stated intentions are very different from what the plans would actually accomplish. In reality, these RMPs are one of the biggest threats to private property rights and natural resource development that our state has seen in years. The RMPs would effectively shut down BLM-managed land, as well as some privately held land, to development by eliminating grazing permits, restricting...

Fireworks won’t be the only thing flying high over the Capitol during the Fourth of July celebration. An American flag made of hemp, a non-psychoactive variant of marijuana, will be flown over the Capitol on July 4 for one day. Industrial hemp–which is considered by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to be a Schedule I substance along with ecstasy and heroin–is a type of cannabis plant that cannot legally be grown in the U.S. but is legally imported and used in hundreds of products ranging from rope to clothing.

WASHINGTON — A legal dispute that started with Florida wetlands ended Tuesday in a Supreme Court victory for conservatives and private property advocates nationwide. In a 5-4 decision that could impede government regulators at all levels, the court effectively made it harder for public agencies to demand property or money in exchange for issuing a land-use permit. At a certain point, the conservative majority reasoned, these demands amount to an unconstitutional taking of property without compensation. “Land-use permit applicants are especially vulnerable to (this) type of coercion,” Justice Samuel Alito wrote for the majority, “because the government often has broad...

JUST HOURS before dawn on May 14, Jackie Underwood's three daughters held her in their arms as the cancer stole the last breath from her broken body. For many days before, and almost every day since, her children - Makia Underwood, 32, Zakia Clark, 29, and Tasha Clark, 27 - have worn hats and shirts that read "F--- CANCER," with the "C" in "F---" replaced by a breast-cancer-awareness ribbon. "That's how we feel. It took our mom away. It's a demon. It's the devil," Zakia Clark said. "There are no other words you can use to explain how you feel....