Kentucky U.S. Senators square off with Army Corps of Engineers over Cumberland River Dams

cn|2 Pure Politics ^ | 4/15/2013 | Nick Storm

[Republican Wildcat]

Top Kentucky and Tennessee officials rallied over the weekend to urge the Army Corps of Engineers Nashville District to halt plans to erect barricades to 10 dams along the Cumberland River because of hazardous conditions near the dam.

Republican U.S. Sen. Rand Paul and U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell joined up with Republican U.S. Rep. Ed Whitfield of Hopkinsville and Tennessee Republican U.S. Sen. Lamar Alexander push back against the decision, which would prevent boaters from getting near the dams.

The Army Corps of Engineers want to restrict access near the 10 dams along the Cumberland River because of powerful currents that can capsize boats and drown fisherman. Since 2009, three deaths and ten near deaths have been reported at the dams, according to the Corps.

But the members of the federal delegation say the issue has more to do with the division of power between the state and the federal government. And McConnell called it an example of an out-of-control “nanny state.”

“They’re trying to tell us what we can do. Where we can do it. How often we can do it. As if they’re smarter than all the rest of us,” McConnell said.

Paul echoed McConnell’s statements, saying it’s more of an issue of how out of touch Washington is with Kentucky.

“It’s not that the federal government is inherently stupid. Although it’s a debatable question. It’s that they’re just too far away,” Paul said. “That’s why we wanted a division of government.”

Whitfield filed the Freedom to Fish Act in the House in February as a measure to stop the Corps from erecting the barricades. The group said they would do everything in their power to allow fisherman to boat near the dams.

[muawiyah]

Glad you unnerstan ~ BTW, roughest bunch we had in third grade were the kids from Harlin and Hazzard ~ they’d already gotten 10 years work experience in the mines.

[Monorprise]

Not every state, but your right we are fighting to reclaim the freedom past generations have thrown away, and our children & grandchildren will have to fight this fight too.

Right now and for the foreseeable future the most important thing we can do is educate. We must preserve & instill into each generation the memory of freedom. For they must know what it is that they lost and what it is that they must fight to reclaim.