Posted on 05/25/2023 5:02:13 PM PDT by Bonemaker
The Supreme Court on Thursday established a more stringent test to determine whether the Clean Water Act applies to a wetland. The ruling was a setback for the Environmental Protection Agency and a victory for an Idaho couple, Michael and Chantell Sackett, who have been battling with the federal government for over 15 years in their efforts to build a house on an empty lot near a large lake.
(Excerpt) Read more at scotusblog.com ...
“Clean Water Act” = Control people seeking independence....
Now honor the 10th Amendment and END it.
“Four justices – Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, Brett Kavanaugh, and Ketanji Brown Jackson – agreed that the CWA does not apply to the wetlands on the Sacketts’ lot, but they disagreed with the majority’s reasoning.”
"When I first came here, this was all swamp. Everyone said I was daft to build a castle on a swamp, but I built it all the same, just to show them. It sank into the swamp. So I built a second one. That sank into the swamp. So I built a third. That burned down, fell over, then sank into the swamp. But the fourth one stayed up."
Farmers drained their lands with ditches and they called ditches wetlands.....If there was a puddle here and a puddle there...with a significent space in between....they joined it all together and called it a wetland....No creek running through those puddles.
And flood plains....they went nuts with those maps, too.
This couple got told in 2007 to stop backfilling their land to prepare for construction! Sixteen years to put your life on hold to build your dream house? Sorry, but I would have sold up and moved somewhere else where I’d be able to build what I want on my own land.
He was handed a list of all the same type
Congress still had to approve. Blame republicans
That’s a ridiculous assertion. I used to live on the Mississippi River (Quincy, IL). The reason the levees are there (on the Missouri side where I lived) is because the land they are protecting is low-lying, sometimes even below the normal river level, but certainly below flood stage. Most of that land is very fertile farm land that benefits from the periodic flooding. That’s why even though those farmers sometimes lose their homes and other infrastructure to floods, they keep coming back. During one of the bad floods in the 70s, the river at Quincy flooded the Missouri side about 8 to 10 feet deep out to a distance of seven miles west of the river. I’m not sure what Kavanaugh is imagining when he thinks that land beyond the levees is somehow providing “flood control.” Either the levees work, which keeps the flood water contained within the general course of the river, or they fail and the low-lying land they were protecting floods. During my time living along the river, I don’t recall seeing any flood-protecting wetlands, whatever those are - it was all either low-lying farmland or elevated river bluffs. Maybe once it reaches the swamps of Louisiana things change, but not north of there.
After Kavanaugh went through the hurricane of crap the left put him through during his confirmation hearings, I was worried that once he was on the court he might contract a sort of political Stockholm syndrome and start drifting left to show his accusers that he wasn’t the “ultraconservative” monster they portrayed him as. I believe that the left’s primary goal during confirmation hearings for conservative appointees is of course to force a “No” vote or so rattle the appointee that they withdraw. But failing that, their Plan B is to traumatize the appointee so severely that once they’re confirmed they lean toward trying to prove that they’re not what they were relentlessly accused of being, and the way they tend to do that is by drifting left at times.
You may have a point. The guy is not an ex-(forever) Marine.
This is a real win for homeowners.
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It COULD be. But, cities like Austin lose these Supreme Court battles and go home with their tail between their legs. Then, over the next year or two, they move a few phrases, change some pronunciation, add a phrase or two and then get their Council to rubber stamp a NEW law that pursues the same objective.
It get’s slammed in the courts again and the process starts all over again. I could tell you first hand horror stories of litigating with Austin but it would take a book. I once won 3 jury trials (over several years) over the same issue in their Environmental Court. If I had lost, fines could have and would have been hundreds of thousands of dollars. The years old case finally settled for a hundred bucks.
What about the people?? Why are we always the losers??
I actually thought John Roberts would have caved. Usually he likes to uphold the Federal agencies’ doctrines.
This is a real win for homeowners. Some of the wetland maps were insane...specifically designating man made ponds as wetlands.
Farmers drained their lands with ditches and they called ditches wetlands.....If there was a puddle here and a puddle there...with a significent space in between....they joined it all together and called it a wetland....No creek running through those puddles.
And flood plains....they went nuts with those maps, too.
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At the top of the list of anti-American jackbooted thugs, and a major reason every single voter with a stream, pond, well, irrigation system, or rainwater usage system should be
pleading with relatives neighbors, and total strangers to vote for President Donald Trump in the coming election.
Kavanaugh disagreed with Alito’s strict interpretation of the definition of wetland, ironically siding with the left justices.
I’m not sure that I disagree with him on this, but I’ve clearly stated that I never wanted him on the court for his wishy-washy 2A arguments.
The decision was right, but the Court was wrong to cloud it with an unresolved matter of wetlands definition.
The feds are pushing utter propaganda on wetlands regularly on the radio.
Their statements in the ads are factually incorrect, but the ugly irony is that they wield their position as a weapon only against private landowners.
The entire Willamette Valley technically is a wetland, yet the CWA is only rolled out against landowners in specific battles such as this one which made it to SCOTUS.
And let’s not talk about all the areas now safely behind dikes bordering the entire Mississippi... /s
After Kavanaugh went through the hurricane of crap the left put him through during his confirmation hearings, I was worried that once he was on the court he might contract a sort of political Stockholm syndrome and start drifting left to show his accusers that he wasn’t the “ultraconservative” monster they portrayed him as. I believe that the left’s primary goal during confirmation hearings for conservative appointees is of course to force a “No” vote or so rattle the appointee that they withdraw. But failing that, their Plan B is to traumatize the appointee so severely that once they’re confirmed they lean toward trying to prove that they’re not what they were relentlessly accused of being, and the way they tend to do that is by drifting left at times.
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Excellent perception of exactly how the process is meant to influence the thinking of conservative appointees, and it appears to have worked perfectly in the case of Mr. Kavanaugh!
I watched a ‘This Old House’ episode where the home was next to a river and the homeowner was told by some local gov’t dept they could not develop the land from 100ft from the river..... It was just land with trees spaced apart. The home further up the hill. They were only allowed to remove what was considered evasive plants.
100ft of their property was off limits.
But, cities like Austin lose these Supreme Court battles and go home with their tail between their legs. Then, over the next year or two, they move a few phrases, change some pronunciation, add a phrase or two and then get their Council to rubber stamp a NEW law that pursues the same objective.
It get’s slammed in the courts again and the process starts all over again. I could tell you first hand horror stories of litigating with Austin but it would take a book. I once won 3 jury trials (over several years) over the same issue in their Environmental Court. If I had lost, fines could have and would have been hundreds of thousands of dollars. The years old case finally settled for a hundred bucks.
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Exactly describes how Democrats think and act, and how any sane person could rationalize voting for such people is beyond my comprehension. “DESPICABLE” is the description that comes most readily to mind in regard to such people!
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