Posted on 02/18/2023 11:34:47 AM PST by Right Wing Vegan
Nebraska on Thursday joined 24 other states in a lawsuit against the Biden administration’s new rule defining so-called Waters of the United States, or WOTUS.
The multi-state coalition said the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and Army Corps of Engineers rushed to publish the new rule, even though the Supreme Court is expected to issue a key decision on the scope of WOTUS in a few weeks.
Nebraska Attorney General Mike Hilgers, in a statement announcing Nebraska’s role in the lawsuit, said the new rule would detrimentally affect farmers who may need to get permission from the EPA and Corps of Engineers to fill or dredge wetlands or waterways, depending on whether those features fall under the federal government’s purview.
Felt by farmers, homebuilders
Likewise, his statement said, developers, homebuilders, miners and other property owners face implications in making changes or improvements to their land.
“If the final rule is left in place, then ranchers, farmers, miners, homebuilders, and other landowners across the country will struggle to undertake even the simplest of activities on their own property without fear of drawing the ire of the federal government,” according to the coalition’s lawsuit.
It continues: “Landowning Americans of all stripes will thus be left with a choice: fight their way through an expensive and lengthy administrative process to obtain complex jurisdictional determination and permits or face substantial civil and criminal penalties.”
The final rule followed a decades-long process to define the geographical reach and authority of the EPA and Corps of Engineers in regulating streams, wetlands and other water bodies under the Clean Water Act.
Extended battle
The Obama administration in 2015 sought to clarify what waters on private properties the EPA and Corps of Engineers could regulate. The Trump administration replaced the WOTUS rule with the Navigable Waters Protection Rule, which was finalized in 2020 and which significantly narrowed what could be included.
President Biden expanded the rule again.
Notably, Hilgers’ statement said, the new rule redefines “navigable waters” to include ponds, certain streams, ditches and other bodies of water under the Clean Water Act, as determined by the EPA and the Corps of Engineers.
Others in the coalition are Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Iowa, Indiana, Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, Virginia, West Virginia and Wyoming.
The states have announced a motion for preliminary injunction to stop the Biden Administration’s new WOTUS rule while it’s under litigation.
They literally claim jurisdiction over rainwater that stands in plowed furrows of a farm field.
My understanding is that the Federal courts are wholly responsible for this mess because they allowed the traditional definition of WOTUS (a year-round body of water connected interstate capable of floating a fully laden canoe— which was about 6 inches, I believe) to be redefined as having a “nexus” to interstate commerce, the term “nexus” of course nowhere being defined in statute or the common law.
“fill or dredge wetlands or waterways”? How about a mud puddle on top of a hill? People have already been persecuted for less.
The bastards can destroy you for nothing and on a whim without even a pretense of due process.
The sorry picks and their minions need to learn that a desperate man with his back against the wall doesn’t have a hell of a lot to lose.
If it can float a Popsicle stick, it’s a navigable waterway...
River Navigators. That was the title of the person who
was going to tell us just what we could or couldn’t do even
on our own property.
It is a thing.
https://www.irpt.net/event/2023-missouri-river-navigators-meeting-save-the-date/
(h/t DoughtyOne)
.
Why not? It's safe and effective.
Or pools up in backyards also,I believe.
Pretty standard bureaucratic maneuver by regulatory agencies to muddy the waters (pun intended) by issueing rules or directives relating to something in litigation. If the courts rule in favor of the regulators they can push ahead quickly to find some designated fall guy to crucify to show clout. If the courts rule against the regulators they will the rules they have issued still have sort legal standing bases on the organic law establishing the agency.
Reason to keep beating the drums over the E Liverpool wreck. It may help damage or distract the EPA.
I suspect they think they own the water in your clogged gutters.
"Nebraska joins other states to fight new WOTUS rule"
FR: Never Accept the Premise of Your Opponent’s Argument
One very basic problem with so-called EPA rules is this imo. The drafters of the Constitution delegated federal legislative powers only to elected members of Congress, not to non-popularly elected bureaucrats running constitutionally undefined, so-called federal regulatory agencies like IRS or EPA as infamous examples.
"Article I, Section 1; All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives [and the EPA, IRS, etc.?]."
In other words, the drafters of the Constitution expected elected lawmakers to accept the risk being voted out of office for making unpopular laws.
In fact, expecting citizens to comply with edicts made by non-elected bureaucrats, particularly when corrupt Congress lets federal bureaucrats get away with stealing state powers to make their edicts, wrongly weakens the constitutionally enumerated voting power of ordinary qualified citizen voters.
Constitutionally indefensible federal regulatory agencies have undoubtedly helped to foster the problem of infamous career lawmakers. After all, career lawmakers know that they can get away with making laws to improve their personal welfare while letting bureaucrats who have better job security make unpopular, constitutionally indefensible federal edicts. This is abuse of ordinary taxpayers is arguably a way to bypass 13th Amendment which prohibits involuntary servitude.
"Congress is not empowered to tax for those purposes which are within the exclusive province of the States." —Justice John Marshall, Gibbons v. Ogden, 1824.
“If the tax be not proposed for the common defence, or general welfare, but for other objects, wholly extraneous, (as for instance, for propagating Mahometanism among the Turks, or giving aids and subsidies to a foreign nation, to build palaces for its kings, or erect monuments to its heroes,) it would be wholly indefensible upon constitutional principles [emphases added].” — Justice Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution 2 (1833).
”Simply this, that the care of the property, the liberty, and the life of the citizen, under the solemn sanction of an oath imposed by your Constitution, is in the States and not in the federal government [emphases added]. I have sought to effect no change in that respect in the Constitution of the country.” —John Bingham, Congressional. Globe. 1866, page 1292 (see top half of third column)
"From the accepted doctrine that the United States is a government of delegated powers, it follows that those not expressly granted, or reasonably to be implied from such as are conferred, are reserved to the states, or to the people. To forestall any suggestion to the contrary, the Tenth Amendment was adopted. The same proposition, otherwise stated, is that powers not granted are prohibited [emphasis added]." —United States v. Butler, 1936.
Pelosi: "We have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it." (non-FR; 6 sec.)
“Cherish, therefore, the spirit of our people, and keep alive their attention. If once they become inattentive to the public affairs, you and I, and Congress and Assemblies, judges and governors, shall all become wolves [emphasis added]. It seems to be the law of our general nature.” - Thomas Jefferson (Letter to Edward Carrington January 16, 1787)
Otherwise stated, how many unconstitutional, unaccountable 4,155 page omnibus spending bills does it take to run the US Mail Service, one of the very few powers that that the states have actually expressly constitutionally given to the feds to dictate an aspect of peacetime domestic policy?
"Article I, Section 8, Clause 7: To establish Post Offices and post Roads;"
"From the accepted doctrine that the United States is a government of delegated powers, it follows that those not expressly granted, or reasonably to be implied from such as are conferred, are reserved to the states, or to the people. To forestall any suggestion to the contrary, the Tenth Amendment was adopted. The same proposition, otherwise stated, is that powers not granted are prohibited [emphasis added]." —United States v. Butler, 1936.
Patriots, the bottom line is this imo. What is your threshold of “pain” for peacefully stopping unconstitutionally big state and federal governments controlled by bully, constitutionally undefined political parties, from oppressing the people under their boots?
The inevitable remedy for ongoing, post-17A ratification, corrupt political party treason (imo)...
All MAGA patriots need to wake up their RINO federal and state lawmakers by making the following clear to them.
If they don’t publicly support either a resolution, or a Constitutional Convention, to effectively "secede" ALL the states from the unconstitutionally big federal government by amending the Constitution to repeal the 16th (direct taxes) and 17th (popular voting for federal senators) Amendments (16&17A), doing so before the primary elections in 2024, that YOU will primary them.
If the proposed amendment was limited strictly to repealing 16&17A, relatively little or ideally no discussion would be needed before ratification of the amendment imo.
With 16&17A out of the way, my hope is that Trump 47 becomes the FIRST president of a truly constitutionally limited power federal government.
In the meanwhile, I'm not holding my breath for significant MAGA legislation to appear in the first 100 days of new term for what may still prove to be another RINO-controlled House.
Trump will hopefully do another round of primarying RINOs for 2024 elections.
Notice Minnesota, land of 10,000 lakes, isn’t in the coalition fighting this.
Uber communist governor Walz has gone full lockstep with the insane Biden wokesters. It was a nice place to live during my childhood, democrat politicians have ruined it.
Does not look good for Nebraska, look what the EPA has done to Palestine, Ohio.
WOTUS is another Communist policy by the Communist President!
The USSC has ruled against the neo-fascist, rogue EPA redefining navigable waters in Rapanos v US and SWANCC v US.
The criminal, fascist federal bureaucrats continue to defy the courts, and the solution is for the states is designate the federal fascists as terrorists and begin arrests of these bureaucrats.
And yes, the states, as sovereigns, can arrest them, drag them before the bench and sentence them to state prison.
Minnesota nice: “sile and say hello netting you and stab you in the back when you pass. They have been that way since the fifties. Happy Hubert Humphrey was a prime example.
Yes! DesertRhino is correct.
This is heinous FedGov overreach, and is just the next step along the path of destruction on which the progressives have kept this once great nation for the last 70+ years.
Frankly, every day that goes by without hearing news about some EPA drone having his brains blown out just makes me think about how far we have fallen as free citizens.
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