Posted on 07/03/2016 7:36:09 PM PDT by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
Earlier this month a federal court in California ruled that a farmer plowing his land without a permit from the federal government is breaking the law. In 2013, the Army Corps of Engineers, without any notice or due process, ordered the owners of Duarte Nursery to cease use of their land for allegedly violating the Clean Water Act (CWA). The violation: plowing. The California court agreed with the federal government’s action, despite the fact the CWA specifically exempts normal agricultural activities like plowing from regulation.
This overreaching assertion of federal power is not an isolated incident. For decades, the EPA and the Army Corps have aggressively sought to stretch the bounds of the CWA. When Congress passed the CWA, the federal government was given regulatory authority over “navigable waters,” which the statute additionally defines as “waters of the United States.” While the word navigable may seem to have an obvious meaning to most Americans as bodies of water that can be navigated by watercraft, federal bureaucrats have identified these terms as a license for a massive regulatory land grab.
Asserting ambiguity, the EPA has tried to use the CWA language to claim control over essentially any water which eventually might find its way into a navigable waterway. They have asserted jurisdiction not just over logical sources like large tributaries of navigable waters or wetlands immediately adjacent to rivers but have tried to reach their regulatory arms to isolated puddles or dry stream beds which only see running water during large rainstorms. This overreach has been repeatedly struck down by the Supreme Court, most recently in 2001 and 2006. But these repeated rebukes have not stopped the regulators.
In June of 2015, EPA finalized yet another rule seeking to broadly define “waters of the US” under the CWA. Like its previous attempts, this rule goes well beyond any reasonable definition of “navigable waters.” The rule would require federal permits even for ditches and puddles, almost any water within the boundaries of the United States. This sort of excessive permitting requirement would impose new costs on virtually every American: not just farmers, but anyone who owns land.
Thankfully, this new rule has been put on hold nationwide for the moment by federal courts while its legality and constitutionality is challenged, but the danger remains. The bureaucrats have made clear with their repeated attempts at overreach using the CWA that they will not be dissuaded by the courts, even if this newest attempt is also struck down by the Supreme Court.
This saga shows the folly of broad grants of power to regulatory agencies. The bureaucracy cannot be trusted to use its powers with restraint. When the power of the regulatory state grows, the liberty of the American people diminishes. Reining in the power of the regulatory state should be a priority of all American citizens.
Abolish all federal agencies, period.
Maybe I’m reading it wrong, but it looks to me like federal bureaucrats and federal courts.
Gee, sounds a lot like our co-op development. Housing Naziism at its finest. I'm surprised they let people with different colors of hair in there. They do love their conformity.
An organization that has built enough nuclear weapons to end all life on earth, is worried about a farmer plowing a field in California ?
Trump should be great at beating back Nanny State encroachments, if anyone can.
Unfortunately, too often an absolutely toxic combo of regulatory agencies and the courts can combine to extend the tentacles of vicious dimwitted bureaucrats.
This is ALL federal courts. So it’s your fault for not stopping the federal government.
Kill the Kulacs, build the kolkhose
UN Agenda 21 strikes again.
Control the water, control the food, control us...
Everybody in the USA is a felon.
“Kaliphorniastan strikes again.”
This has nothing to do with the State of California! This is a FEDERAL Action! Nice try to conflate the facts though. I know you hate us so much. BTW, why don’t you send the Robinsons a short note berating California! They’re in Fresno, and the last time I looked, Fresno was in California.
http://www.pacificlegal.org/file/Order-on-summary-judgment-motions.pdf
Nutshell: Duarte hired someone to level uneven, compacted graze-land, with no recent history of farming activity, into flat farm land for wheat, including backfilling creeks, swales and vernal ponds that trapped seasonal runoff. Big no-no. (see pg35, 6. Summary at link) (there are also maps pg 5,9,10 within the briefing)
Filburn claimed that since the wheat in question never left his farm and was not involved in interstate commerce, the federal government could not fine him. The supreme court ruled otherwise and the penalty stood.
This has been going on for a long time. It will continue to go on until something happens to change it.
The bureaucracy only does what the Bureaucrat-in-Chief allows it to do. The easiest and quickest way to reign in the bureaucracy is to dethrone its evil leaders. Off with their.......mandates.
“Funny thing here... after all society has gone thru, from Magna Carta to Declaration, here we are... reverting back to the Feudal System.”
Aided and abetted by the fact that a majority of the population, both legal and illegal residents of the USA, have no idea whatsoever as to what you just posted since they know nothing of the meaning of Magna Carta (spelled Magna Charta when I was in school) or the Feudal System (which we studied in great detail in the public school system in the fifties). Many would have no clue that your reference to “ declaration” refers to the Declaration of Independence which was the original founding document of the United States of America. People are not likely to assert themselves in defense of something of which they are ignorant.
Actually I am technically in disagreement with your post. I see us as headed toward something far worse than the feudal system.
shoot the messenger
Assuming Trump wins it will be very easy and quick to see whether he meant any of what he has said. If he does not move very quickly to eliminate entire departments he has been blowing smoke. There is a long list which could be eliminated with only beneficial results. I would be hard put to say which should go first. As for unemployment increasing just give the existing employees an opportunity to do real work such as cleaning toilets to earn their pay, those who refuse can be considered as not seeking work and therefore not to be counted as unemployed and not to receive unemployment compensation or severance pay. As for those who do accept the menial jobs, paying their inflated salaries for menial work would at least eliminate the cost of all the damage they are currently doing which vastly exceeds their paychecks. Those who accept the menial tasks might learn some humility which could actually result in their becoming worthwhile people rather than drones.
He better not be blowing smoke. We’ve had enough of that for far too many years.
When I refer to the feudal system, I'm meaning a great deal worse than Monty Python's depiction (ie, "Help! Help! I'm being Depressed!! I'm being Depressed!"). So, I probably agree with you here.
As Churchill put it, we “...will sink into the abyss of a new Dark Age, made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights of perverted science...”
BTTT
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