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GOP: Obama's new regs on 'everything from prairie puddles to power plants'
Investors Business Daily ^ | 10-3-15 | Andrew Malcolm

Posted on 10/03/2015 7:53:33 AM PDT by afraidfortherepublic

Sen. John Barrasso gives the Republican Party's Weekly Remarks

Hi. I’m Dr. John Barrasso, United States Senator for Wyoming.

Let me tell you a story about a family in my home state. Andy Johnson is 32, he works as a welder. He and his wife Katie have four kids and they live out in the country. They have a few cows and some horses. (Scroll down for video of these remarks.)

Two years ago, the Johnsons wanted to build a small pond in their front yard. They got their plan approved by the state, and used the pond to provide water for their animals. They thought it was a beautiful addition to the dry landscape. The pond attracts birds and other animals that make our state a special place to live.

Everything was fine until the Johnsons got a visit from the United States Environmental Protection Agency. Even though the state of Wyoming had approved the pond, the federal government had not.

The Johnsons now face fines of more than $37,000 every day, until they remove the pond.

This is what’s happened to government in America. It’s gotten so aggressive, so inflexible, and so unyielding — and seemingly for so little purpose.

And it’s going to get worse. The Obama administration is seizing new authority to control what it calls Waters of the United States.

This includes things like irrigation ditches, isolated ponds — even low points in the landscape where water might collect after a heavy rain. The consequences of this new federal authority will be severe.

In the final 15 months of the Obama administration, Washington bureaucrats are working overtime to finalize new rules on everything from prairie puddles to power plants.

(Excerpt) Read more at news.investors.com ...


TOPICS: Government
KEYWORDS: 114th; barrasso; bho44; bhoepa; envirowhackos; epa; gopmessage; johnbarrasso; wyoming
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To: C. Edmund Wright
Captj3233ure
21 posted on 10/03/2015 8:26:02 AM PDT by smartyaz
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To: Bobby_Taxpayer
Only "false prophets" say they can save this pond. - John Boehner

.


22 posted on 10/03/2015 8:43:13 AM PDT by Karl Spooner
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To: nathanbedford

I agree with you that we need to protect our water and air, but the bureaucrats running these monstrous agencies justify their existence and grow their budget and employees by making up problems that don’t exist.


23 posted on 10/03/2015 8:45:07 AM PDT by Rusty0604
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To: afraidfortherepublic; SheLion; Eric Blair 2084; -YYZ-; 31R1O; 383rr; AFreeBird; AGreatPer; ...

Nanny state PING!


24 posted on 10/03/2015 8:45:38 AM PDT by Tolerance Sucks Rocks (Democrats and GOP-e: a difference of degree, not philosophy)
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To: afraidfortherepublic

So what you open your mouth and say something we all know. But you never do anything about it. Give you the congress we did. Give you the senate we did. And still nothing.

So I say STFU a-hole and go back and do your job. You know the one we elected and paid you for.

I am so tired of jerks like this who do squat to help people like Cruz carry the conservative agenda. All talk and no action.

Defund them, thats what you need to do. But oh lord cant shut the government down. Blah blah blah.


25 posted on 10/03/2015 9:03:57 AM PDT by jimpick
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To: afraidfortherepublic; All

Thank you for referencing that article afraidfortherepublic. Please bear in mind that the following critique is directed at Sen. John Barrasso and not at you.

Low-information Sen. John Barrasso is another example why the 17th Amendment should never have been ratified.

More specifically, the Founding States had established the Senate to protect the interests of the states in Congress. So Dr. Barrasso should know that the states have never delegated to the feds, expressly via the Constitution, the specific power to regulate INTRAstate environmental issues such as water rights.

Dr. Barrasso should also know that even if the states had delegated to the feds the power to regulate intrastate environmental issues, the Founding States had made the first numbered clauses in the Constitution, Sections 1-3 of Article I, evidently a good place to hide them from Senators like Dr. Barrasso, to clarifiy that all federal legislative powers are vested in the elected members of Congress, not in the executive or judicial branches, or in non-elected federal bureaucrats like those running the EPA. So Congress has a constitutional “monopoly” on federal legislative / regulatory powers whether it wants it or not.

So by delegating regulatory powers to third-party agencies like the EPA, powers that Congress doesn’t have in the first place, Congress is wrongly protecting nonexistent federal legislative powers from the wrath of the voters in blatant defiance of Sections 1-3 referenced above.

And Sen. Barrasso is probably as constitutionally clueless as the low-information voters like Andy Johnson who elected him. So when Andy Johnson exercised his 17th Amendment-protected power to vote for Sen. Barrasso, power that the Founding States had never intended for ordinary citizens like Mr. Johnson to have, Mr. Johnson essentially shot himself in the foot by electing somebody to office who didn’t know two clauses worth of the Constitution to be able to protect him from unconstitutional federal agencies like the EPA.

Are we having fun yet?

The ill-conceived 17th Amendment needs to disappear, and constitutionally clueless senators who don’t know the Constitution’s simple rules well enough to protect the voters who elected them from unconstitutional federal government overreach as well.


26 posted on 10/03/2015 9:04:32 AM PDT by Amendment10
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To: nathanbedford

[[the density of the rest of the country has made it necessary to resort to government to protect water rights,]]

“Densely populated”? Do you realize you can fit the whole WORLD’S population in just one state? Texas? This country is NOT ‘densely populated” Not by a long shot- There are TINY spots throughout the country where the population is dense- however, 90+% of the country is open country- nooen living there- free and clear of humans-


27 posted on 10/03/2015 9:09:38 AM PDT by Bob434
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To: afraidfortherepublic

He isw going to unleash unholy hell on this country before he’s done- not only is he pushing for un agenda 21, but he’s also pushing to enact a un governed ‘police state’ to ‘fight extremism’ here In the US- So we’re going to have the UN controlling our lands AND policing the states-

It’s coming- the next 15 months are going to be hell -


28 posted on 10/03/2015 9:31:28 AM PDT by Bob434
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To: afraidfortherepublic

Revelations 12:12...


29 posted on 10/03/2015 9:50:15 AM PDT by Caipirabob (Communists... Socialists... Democrats...Traitors... Who can tell the difference?)
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To: afraidfortherepublic

Why did they need to get approval from anyone? If this is what Wyoming is, I’m going to have to sadly mark it off my list of wide open places to get away from liberal rule makers.


30 posted on 10/03/2015 10:40:26 AM PDT by bgill ( CDC site, "we still do not know exactly how people are infected with Ebola")
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To: knarf

Not that old but not a new story. The pond was dug in 2012. He was being fined $7500/day at that time.


31 posted on 10/03/2015 10:48:24 AM PDT by bgill ( CDC site, "we still do not know exactly how people are infected with Ebola")
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To: Karl Spooner

Well, there’s the problem. It’s not the pond but all this about a dam’d flag.


32 posted on 10/03/2015 10:50:23 AM PDT by bgill ( CDC site, "we still do not know exactly how people are infected with Ebola")
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To: Bob434

Do you suppose there is a reason why they live where they do and not in the wastes of Wyoming?


33 posted on 10/03/2015 11:07:00 AM PDT by nathanbedford ("Attack, repeat, attack!" Bull Halsey)
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To: bgill
At my age, one or two is four or five ..... sometimes even eight or ten.

Thanx

34 posted on 10/03/2015 11:09:18 AM PDT by knarf (I say things that are true ... I have no proof ... but they're true.)
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To: nathanbedford

the whole of the US isn’t wasteland, far from it- most of it is pristine land- which the federal government has confiscated for their own-

Sure there are parts that aren’t inhabitable, but the big picture here is that if we can fit 9 billion people in just one state, with room to spare, then we can certainly fit 300 million no problemo- with vast room to spare-

I had a chart of howm uch land is infact habitable, and it was a large % of the land-

People like Ted Turner claiming we’re ‘running out of room’ and advocating culling people (Yes- he thinks that is a good idea) Have their head up their butts because they either don’t know the facts, or they do and are trying to deceive the world into thinking we’re ‘running out of space’- It’s a lie=- we are not- We’re not even a tiny bit close to running out of space


35 posted on 10/03/2015 2:21:44 PM PDT by Bob434
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To: Bob434; Gondring
I had a chart of howm uch land is infact habitable, and it was a large % of the land-

Well for heaven sakes man why have you been keeping this chart a secret? Why haven't you shown it to the people of Los Angeles and to the people of Las Vegas begging for water? Why haven't you shown it to the people who are sitting in traffic jams in New Jersey for hours in commutes? The truth is there is very little habitable and attractive land with good climate where people want to live. The idea that you're going to put 9 billion people in the wastes of West Texas is too absurd to debate.

But let us consider the idea of installing 9 billion people in one state and I will show you a dystopia rivaling our worst prisons. State control of everything would be mandatory; there will be no liberty. Everything, and I mean everything including air, light, water and exercise space for children would be rationed. The more density the less quality of life, the more density the less liberty.

The absolute number of people competing for space on the highways, for public services, for a hearing in our courts, our fish stocks, our beaches, our waterways, our land-use, all compete against one another for these resources. Inevitably, the government must arbitrate among these competing claims. Inevitably, those free beaches will be denied you and you will lose that liberty, just as you have lost your liberty to freely fish, to hunt, to build on your own land, to visit our national parks, to maintain animals on your property, etc. Do you really think your right to drink soda from a 16 ounce cup is in jeopardy in sparsely populated North Dakota as it is in densely populated New York City? Do you really think in a society of 310 million people we can survive without zoning laws limiting your right to use your property? You just lost liberty. It was not so when I was a youngster with 140 million people.

This is not a conservative question, we don't have to deny that there is insufficient habitable and desirable land for the doubling of American population every fifty years in order to maintain our conservative credentials. I don't know where this notion that growing population is good comes from among conservatives. Is it because misguided conservatives do not want to admit a predicate that allows for abortion? Is it because there is a Roman Catholic tradition that does not want to admit a predicate for birth control? Is it to sustain the Wall Street Journal's editorial approach of open borders? Is it because there is a misguided conservative tradition that no land use controls can be accepted even when we need actual protection from our neighbors?

The idea of Jeffersonian democracy, the idea of the New England Cracker Barrel democracy, only works when there is sufficient space for man to live independent both of his neighbor and the government. Double your population and halve your liberties


36 posted on 10/03/2015 3:08:25 PM PDT by nathanbedford ("Attack, repeat, attack!" Bull Halsey)
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To: nathanbedford

[[Well for heaven sakes man why have you been keeping this chart a secret? Why haven’t you shown it to the people of Los Angeles and to the people of Las Vegas begging for water? Why haven’t you shown it to the people who are sitting in traffic jams in New Jersey for hours in commutes? ]]

And small areas of crowding refute wide open spaces how again? You are missing htep oint- Whiel people may decide to crowd into tiny areas- the fact still remains that the vast majority of this country is open- and peo[pel do not have to live in such crowded areas-

[[The idea that you’re going to put 9 billion people in the wastes of West Texas is too absurd to debate.]]

Again you miss the point completely- I stand by my last post- The point isn’t about whether we should do this- the whole point, whi9ch should be obvious, but apparently isn’t- is that this world is NOT over-run by people- I would have thought the example would have sufficed but I guess not-

I’ll let the rest of your liberal rant speak for itself


37 posted on 10/03/2015 3:16:51 PM PDT by Bob434
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To: nathanbedford
Is it because misguided conservatives do not want to admit a predicate that allows for abortion?

**********************

I was fairly certain that was going to be a part of your argument.

38 posted on 10/03/2015 3:19:28 PM PDT by trisham (Zen is not easy. It takes effort to attain nothingness. And then what do you have? Bupkis.)
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To: Karl Spooner

It’s tiny.


39 posted on 10/03/2015 3:20:06 PM PDT by trisham (Zen is not easy. It takes effort to attain nothingness. And then what do you have? Bupkis.)
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To: trisham
I have no idea whether the confirmation of your supposition comforts or discomforts you.

No one on these threads can claim stronger anti-abortion credentials that I claim for myself.


40 posted on 10/03/2015 3:24:25 PM PDT by nathanbedford ("Attack, repeat, attack!" Bull Halsey)
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