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The EPA vs. the Constitution (Supreme Court prepares to hear a major 5th Amendment case.)
Reason.com ^ | December 15, 2011 | Damon W. Root

Posted on 12/16/2011 7:24:45 PM PST by bamahead

The Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution declares that no person shall be “deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.” ... It’s one of the cornerstones of our entire legal system, with roots dating back at least as far as the Magna Carta, which declared, “No free man...shall be stripped of his rights or possessions...except by the lawful judgment of his equals or by the law of the land.”

Unfortunately, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) prefers a less venerable form of justice, as the Supreme Court will hear next month during oral arguments in the case of Sackett v. Environmental Protection Agency. At issue is the EPA’s enforcement of the Clean Water Act through so-called administrative compliance orders, which are government commands that allow the agency to control the use of private property without the annoyance of having to subject its actions to judicial review.

The case started four years ago when a married couple named Mike and Chantell Sackett received an EPA compliance order instructing them to stop construction on what was supposed to be their dream home near Priest Lake, Idaho. The government claimed their .63-acre lot was a federally-protected wetland, but that was news to the Sacketts, who had procured all the necessary local permits. Their lot ... was in fact zoned for residential use ...

--SNIP--

According to the terms of the Clean Water Act, they may not challenge the order until the EPA first seeks judicial enforcement of it, a process that could take years. In the meantime, the Sacketts risk $32,500 in fines per day if they fail to comply. And complying doesn’t just mean they have to stop building; they must also return the lot to its original condition at their own expense.

(Excerpt) Read more at reason.com ...


TOPICS: Constitution/Conservatism; Front Page News; Government; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: bloodoftyrants; communism; deadepawalking; donttreadonme; dueprocess; envirofascsim; epa; epaisajoke; govtabuse; govtjackboots; liberalfascism; lping; nobama2012; nodemocrats2012; obama; policestate; rapeofliberty; sackett; scotus; scotusepa; socialism; socialistdemocrats; tyranny
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1 posted on 12/16/2011 7:24:50 PM PST by bamahead
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To: Abathar; Abcdefg; Abram; Abundy; albertp; Alexander Rubin; Allosaurs_r_us; amchugh; ...



Libertarian ping! Click here to get added or here to be removed or post a message here!

2 posted on 12/16/2011 7:28:17 PM PST by bamahead (Few men desire liberty; most men wish only for a just master. -- Sallust)
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To: bamahead

Tyranny.


3 posted on 12/16/2011 7:28:17 PM PST by jimfree (In Nov 2012 my 11 y/o granddaughter will have more relevant executive experience than Barack Obama)
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To: bamahead

Screw the EPA and its affirmative action dictatoress.


4 posted on 12/16/2011 7:29:38 PM PST by beethovenfan (If Islam is the solution, the "problem" must be freedom.)
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To: beethovenfan

Demolish the EPA - Rick Perry.


5 posted on 12/16/2011 7:34:25 PM PST by txhurl (Perry/Pence 2012 OR Perry/Ryan 2012 or even better Perry/Abbott 2012!)
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To: AdmSmith; AnonymousConservative; Berosus; bigheadfred; Bockscar; ColdOne; Convert from ECUSA; ...

Thanks bamahead.
At issue is the EPA's enforcement of the Clean Water Act through so-called administrative compliance orders, which are government commands that allow the agency to control the use of private property without the annoyance of having to subject its actions to judicial review.

6 posted on 12/16/2011 7:38:03 PM PST by SunkenCiv (Merry Christmas, Happy New Year! May 2013 be even Happier!)
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To: beethovenfan

“Screw the EPA and its affirmative action dictatoress.”

Screw the EPA and its affirmative action dictatortrix.

Think of a perverted Feminazi in spike heels and net stockings, dressed in the hyde of a nauga, and cracking a whip.

She was like that when she was putting the DUH in FloriDUH.

PS We don’t want her back. Ever.


7 posted on 12/16/2011 7:38:21 PM PST by GladesGuru (In a society predicated upon freedom, it is necessary to examine principles."...the public interest)
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To: bamahead

The EPA, led by marxists and their disciples (Lisa Jackson), since Carol Browner’s regime under the Clintons, has been running roughshod over many American rights, including “takings”, “wetlands” definitions, “navigable waters” redefinitions, etc.

This is not to say that everything that the EPA does is leftist or wrong or illegal. It is not, but the Left today is waging “economic warfare” thru the EPA and environmental legislation “gone wild.”

There are reasonable laws and ways of cleaning up the environment as well as protecting existing areas, without using authoritarian tactics (the trademark of the Marxist Left).

If the Sacketts win, it will put a big lasso around the rogue wild horse that the EPA has become under Obama, Browner (his recent environmental advisor besides “green” czar Comrade Van Jones), and Browner’s protege’, Lisa Jackson, an out of control zealot.

They are doing a lot of harm to those who use reason in dealing with environmental issues in the government, as well as harming the Constitution.

However, they don’t give a damn about either.


8 posted on 12/16/2011 7:39:04 PM PST by MadMax, the Grinning Reaper
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To: bamahead

I cannot quite understand how we ever got ourselves in the position where the lawmaking authority of Congress has been handed over to a bunch of unelected bureaucrats.


9 posted on 12/16/2011 7:39:39 PM PST by Taxbilly
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To: Taxbilly
I cannot quite understand how we ever got ourselves in the position where the lawmaking authority of Congress has been handed over to a bunch of unelected bureaucrats.

It is because Congress -- knowingly or unknowingly -- granted them the authority.

By the same token, Congress can rescind that authority. But they haven't...

10 posted on 12/16/2011 7:48:54 PM PST by okie01 (THE MAINSTREAM MEDIA: Ignorance On Parade)
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To: txhurl

Perry has my vote!

Abolish the EPA, YES


11 posted on 12/16/2011 7:52:57 PM PST by hapnHal (hapnHal)
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To: bamahead

Administrative law has gotten way out of hand. It has been eroding the Constitution continually and automatically without consent of the people. Damn those bureaucrats that seek to destroy liberty.


12 posted on 12/16/2011 7:53:47 PM PST by grumpygresh (Democrats delenda est; zero sera dans l'enfer bientot.)
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To: Taxbilly

Congressmen have a quandary: in their own perception, they individually and especially collectively know what is good for each individual American vastly better than any such American (outside Congress) knows for himself or herself. But to continue their incredibly gracious benevolence, Congressmen require regularly the votes of those ungrateful individual Americans, who mostly despise Congress already.

In a brilliant maneuver, Congress writes legislation that gives the American people what the Congress perceives is good and even essential for them—such as this diktat—while at the same time misdirecting the rage of the people against a third party—in this case, Environmental Protection Agency.

You see, when they wrote the Clean Water Act, every single distinguished member of Congress knew what would be good for this couple, even though the couple themselves even now fail to acknowledge it and rebelliously try to evade submitting to it. Every day that the Congress fails to modify or repeal the legislation enabling this diktat, the Congress effectively affirms their foreknowledge of good for this couple. Even so, the Congress now can feign concern for them and so entice them hereafter to vote for the very members who brought them this good against which they now rebel.

Congress often uses another trick to foist unpopular regulation upon the American people: pass legislation that doesn’t take effect for many years. The American people thus do not connect the passage of legislation with its obvious, predictable effects and continue to reelect the distinguished members of Congress who passed it.


13 posted on 12/16/2011 8:04:11 PM PST by dufekin (Name our lead enemy: Islamic Republic of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Islamofascist terrorist dictator)
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To: Taxbilly

The Mandarins of China, had the long nails because they had little to do, but run the bureaucracy. The nails signified that they were better than the rest of society, and they had to do nothing physical. What we have in DC, is a Mandarin class of people.


14 posted on 12/16/2011 8:07:50 PM PST by runninglips (Republicans = 99 lb weaklings of politics. ProgressiveRepublicansInConservativeCostume)
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To: bamahead; Berlin_Freeper; Genesis defender; golux; proud_yank; Bockscar; grey_whiskers; WL-law; ...
 


Beam me to Planet Gore !

15 posted on 12/16/2011 8:57:40 PM PST by steelyourfaith (If it's "green" ... it's crap !!!)
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To: grumpygresh
It has been eroding the Constitution continually and automatically without consent of the people. Damn those bureaucrats that seek to destroy liberty.////
...and if these "bureaucrats" can't/shall not justify their actions constitutionally, then their agency / department should @ least reduced or be abolished.

16 posted on 12/16/2011 9:36:32 PM PST by skinkinthegrass (I can take tomorrow, spend it all today. Who can take your income, tax it all away. Obama Man can. :)
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To: bamahead

I realize that judicial culture fetishizes the concept of precedent but eventually the Supreme Court is going to have to rein in the EPA if the Constitution is to have any meaning.


17 posted on 12/16/2011 9:57:36 PM PST by denydenydeny (The more a system is all about equality in theory the more it's an aristocracy in practice.)
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To: txhurl
Demolish the EPA - Rick Perry.

that is why I support Perry over Newt or anyone else running.

There are evil humans within the EPA that, if they had the power, would not hesitate to implement policies that would kill tens of millions of citizens. They are that evil. They are sadistic and yet steal our tax money to survive. They must sit at their desks frustrated because they can't protect Earth by ridding the planet of the human infection.

In an ideal world the EPA would be abolished, the buildings across the land that housed the EPA would be razed and the ground salted. The employees would be imprisoned for 100 years breaking rocks in Death Valley. Their families would stripped of all assets down to one set of clothing.

The singular agency that can destroy our Republic is the EPA.

18 posted on 12/16/2011 10:33:53 PM PST by sand88
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To: txhurl; hapnHal; sand88; bamahead; beethovenfan; denydenydeny; dufekin; GladesGuru; grumpygresh; ...
I am all for abolishing the EPA...

But why do people say PERRY will abolish the EPA?
He did NOT say that.
He said he would "rebuild" the EPA.

Here is what he said...

Perry: And I will tell yah, It's three agencies of government when I get there, that will be GONE

Commerce, Education, and the um, ah, what's the third one there...?

Let's see,
{laughter} [Ron Paul tries to help, saying "there are five"]

Oh, FIVE, OK, so Commerce, Education, and ahh, the um, ahh, ahh,

[Romney tries to help] "EPA?"

Perry: EPA, There you go. No, again...

[Commentator loudly interrupts] "SERIOUSLY? Is EPA the one you were talking about?

Perry: No sir, No sir, we were talkin about the, um, agencies of government...
The EPA needs to be rebuilt, there's no doubt about that.


[Commentator] But you can't name the third one?

Perry: The third agency of government...

Commentator: Yes...

Perry: I would do away with.... Education, ahh... the ahh... um, (more laughter)

[Someone else tries to help] "Commerce."

Perry: Commerce, [now thumbing thru his notes] ... and. let's see... I can't. The third one, I can't. Sorry. ... Oops.

[About ten minutes later, he remembered the third one]

Perry: 'By the way, that was the Department of Energy I was reaching for a while ago.'
I don't mind if people LIKE Perry, or VOTE for him, as long as they don't misquote him and say he WILL abolish this monstrosity Nazi agency.

19 posted on 12/16/2011 11:31:01 PM PST by Future Useless Eater (Chicago politics = corrupted capitalism = takeover by COMMUNity-ISM)
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To: Taxbilly

We have been using “authorities” for years in MA. Port Authorities, Convention Center Authorities, Turnpike Authorities, Healthcare Authorities, etc..

They make great places to hide dumb relatives or retired legislators. They generate their own cash flow and make unpopular decisions with no constituent blow-back.

See the Big Dig for details.


20 posted on 12/17/2011 5:21:44 AM PST by Makana
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