The EPA Had a Bad Day at the Supreme Court

Yesterday the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the case of Sackett v. Environmental Protection Agency. At issue is whether the EPA’s use of “administrative compliance orders,” which are essentially government commands issued to property owners, should be subject to judicial review under the Fifth Amendment's Due Process Clause. In other words, when the EPA tells a homeowner to stop building because of a possible violation of the Clean Water Act, does that homeowner have the right to promptly challenge the EPA in court? As Robert Barnes observes in The Washington Post, “Justices across the ideological spectrum appeared troubled by the EPA’s position that Mike and Chantell Sackett do not have the right to go court to challenge the agency’s wetlands decision.” Barnes continues:

The government has said the EPA’s power to issue compliance orders, with its threats of huge fines, is a way to quickly move to stop environmental damage. Allowing polluters to go to court would tie up the agency in litigation.

But several justices seemed to agree with the Sacketts’s lawyer, Damien M. Schiff of the Pacific Legal Foundation, that those subject to the EPA orders should not have to wait for the agency to decide whether to go to court.

What we need to do is to force Congress to define the penalties for each act against the Constitution, so if these bureaucrats are accused and convicted, there is no question of evading penalty. It should include fines on individuals, jail time, prison time and in extreme cases the death penalty, I suppose.

The lack of penalty for wrong doing is one reason, I believe, that we have such an out of control government.

I had no idea, wow —I rollerblade and dive there all the time.

I sometimes played frisbee with some of the CG dudes there.

I’m so disappointed to hear this.

NOAA already has a large and fancy facility near the lighthouse on Asilomar, in the dunes near Spanish Bay.

The way they’ve decorated it with art you would NEVER guess they’re ecp storm-troopers, but then again maybe that’s the idea.

Found an interesting, and very valid, Opinion from the Supreme Court at The Environmental Protection Agency U-n-c-o-n-s-t-i-t-u-t-i-o-n-a-l by Sheriff Richard Mack.

US Supreme Court Justice Scalia wrote the following commentary in his delivered Opinion for the case Printz v. United States (95-1478), 521 U.S. 898 (1997)

Finally, and most conclusively in the present litigation, we turn to the prior jurisprudence of this Court. Federal commandeering of state governments is such a novel phenomenon that this Court's first experience with it did not occur until the 1970's, when the Environmental Protection Agency promulgated regulations requiring States to prescribe auto emissions testing, monitoring and retrofit programs, and to designate preferential bus and carpool lanes. The Courts of Appeals for the Fourth and Ninth Circuits invalidated the regulations on statutory grounds in order to avoid what they perceived to be grave constitutional issues, see Maryland v. EPA, 530 F. 2d 215, 226 (CA4 1975); Brown v. EPA, 521 F. 2d 827, 838-842 (CA9 1975); and the District of Columbia Circuit invalidated the regulations on both constitutional and statutory grounds, see District of Columbia v. Train, 521 F. 2d 971, 994 (CADC 1975). After we granted certiorari to review the statutory and constitutional validity of the regulations, the Government declined even to defend them, and instead rescinded some and conceded the invalidity of those that remained, leading us to vacate the opinions below and remand for consideration of mootness. EPA v. Brown, 431 U.S. 99 (1977).

Although we had no occasion to pass upon the subject in Brown, later opinions of ours have made clear that the Federal Government may not compel the States to implement, by legislation or executive action, federal regulatory programs.

[My bold above]

We do need a federal EPA to coordinate the various State EPA's, but that could be accomplished with ten percent of the middle/upper management and 33 percent of the bureaucrats - terminate the rest.

Looks as if this is going to be another slap-down for the EPA and the greenazis infesting it!

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