Posted on 09/29/2011 11:17:15 AM PDT by WilliamIII
In 2005, Mike and Chantell Sackett bought a piece of land in Idaho, and set about building a modest home on their $23,000 lot. The dreadful flaming eye of the Environmental Protection Agency soon turned upon them, and they were told their little half-acre parcel of land, which is located about five hundred feet away from a lake, was a federally protected wetland.
(Excerpt) Read more at humanevents.com ...
That wasn’t checked or verified when they purchased the lot?
This is an example of why we could use a President Perry.
Instead we’re going to get either a President Romney or another Obama term.
Thank you Perry-bashers. Thank you Bachmann. Thank you Santorum. Thank you all.
Admitting defeat long before the first primary, even? Jeez.
Did perry say he’d shut down the EPA? I thought that was Cain.
Texas is at war with the EPA too.
Here they want to destroy oil and gas jobs. especially since Texas gets tax money from them.
Let’s face it the EPA is nothing more than A bunch of fascist brainless thugs. This agency MUST be pulled out by it’s roots and all regs canceled and start IN THE STATES with SANE regs.
Texas has long looked favorably on natural-gas development and believes its oversight of the industry sets the standard. Gas production has significantly increased in recent years and the state collected $725.5 million in production taxes in its most recent fiscal year. The legislature has been actively looking for new ways to promote gas usage, from generating more electricity from the fuel to building a string of fueling stations for gas-powered vehicles.
This isn’t the only showdown between Texas and the EPA. State officials have refused to comply with federal attempts to regulate greenhouse gases. The state attorney general has brought two lawsuits against the EPA to block its new greenhouse-gas rules, which require oil refineries and other emitters to reduce their emissions. Texas officials say the new rules are an attempt by the federal government to control industrial development and could choke economic growth.
Land becomes federally protected wetlands when the EPA declares it so. It’s not like there is a specific list that congress approved. There’s a list of sorts, but the EPA adds to it anytime they feel like it.
I suspect a neighbor wanted the lot undeveloped without having to purchase it themselves, so made a confidential anonymous complaint so the gov’t could do the dirty work.
“dear epa, you have no authority to assign unsubstantiated status to my property”
“You think you can call my dry land a wetland, then tell me I can't use it?”
“I'll call your @$$ a duck and declare open season!”
I doubt we’ll get all the details.
Sounds to me like the Sacketts need to take to court whomever sold them the half acre of wetlands...
Maybe they can drain the lake and then it’s no longer a wetland.
Sort of like if you kill the last of an endangered species, there’s nothing left to protect.
Yep. Happens every day. Control land without buying it.
based upon what I have read regarding the definition of a “wet land,” is that a “wet land” is any piece of land that has now, in the past, or during the next rainstorm will have water on its surface for any amount of time. Thus after the next rainstorm, your back yard could be declared a “wet land” by the EPA.
I’m guessing that the EPA’s justification was that they saw water standing in a hole dug on the property as construction was beginning and, WALAA, decided that the property was a “wet land.”
Remember your federal Congress gave the authority to the EPA to do whatever it wants in the way of regulations because they were and are to LAZY to write specific legislation and be held accountable at election time for passing it.
.....”This agency MUST be pulled out by it’s roots and all regs canceled and start IN THE STATES with SANE regs.”
The word for this upcoming election cycle: SANE, as there doesn’t seem to exist any sanity in our government, and certainly NOT in Congress since 2007 when the Democrats took over.
We must get rid of the Left in every aspect of our government right down to the smallest bureaucracy, which means eliminate ALL of the Leftist inspired divisions, and departments the Left created within the Fed Gov. for the purpose of establishing that Fed. Gov. as the all powerful Centralized Government contrary to the Constitutional design of the founders such as D.O.E., Dept. Education, E.P.A., Fish, and Wildlife, the list goes on. Leave not a single spark of what was, or the Left if ever they get back in will fan that spark back into an even larger flame than they have burning, incinerating us today.
In the SWANCC vs. Corp of Engineers (2001) SCOTUS struck down the Corps Migratory Bird Rule.
The Army Corps of Engineers (Corps), which issues permits for the discharge of dredged or fill material into navigable waters, interprets “the waters of the United States” expansively to include not only traditional navigable waters, 33 CFR §328.3(a)(1), but also other defined waters, §328.3(a)(2), (3); “[t]ributaries” of such waters, §328.3(a)(5); and wetlands “adjacent” to such waters and tributaries, §328.3(a)(7). “[A]djacent” wetlands include those “bordering, contiguous [to], or neighboring” waters of the United States even when they are “separated from [such] waters … by man-made dikes … and the like.” §328.3(c)
This definition of wetlands was also struck down by SCOTUS in Rapanos v. United States. (2006)
So now the EPA is saying that the current land owners must pay all fines and file all fees and have the permit denied BEFORE they can have standing in the Federal Courts to challenge the designation of a piece of property as 'wetlands"
It is a bureaucratic work around their previous two losses. SCOTUS has taken the case, and I think the reason is to SPANK the EPA a third time.
And the EPA will ignore the SCOTUS decision if it goes against them. The EPA has definitely become a rogue agency, run by people who firmly believe that only they can make the correct decisions for the people of this country. Another case of the socialist/facist/communist mindset that has gotten into the federal agencies.
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