Posted on 11/18/2014 4:36:44 AM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
Business groups are joining with local government representatives and conservative lawmakers to criticize the Environmental Protection Agency’s water jurisdiction proposal, imploring the Obama administration to rescind it.
Opponents of the proposed rule say the EPA’s effort to redefine its authority over creeks, ponds and wetlands is written so broadly that it could put millions of new miles of rivers and streams under federal control, along with ditches, puddles and dry creek beds.
Such a change would be a major impediment to commerce, as businesses could suddenly need permits for all manner of routine activities like building fences or digging ditches, they charge. The effort by the EPA and the Army Corps of Engineers would muddy the waters for landowners and others already confused over whether they need permits, representatives said.
“The proposed rule provides none of the clarity and certainty it promises,” the American Farm Bureau Federation wrote in comments to the EPA, which were due Friday.
“Instead, it creates confusion and risk by providing the agencies with almost unlimited authority to regulate, at their discretion, any low spot where rainwater collects, including common farm ditches, ephemeral drainages, agricultural ponds, and isolated wetlands found in and near farms and ranches across the nation,” the group said in a document signed by dozens of other agricultural associations.
The industry that supplies stone for paving, building and industrial uses said it would feel detrimental effects from the EPA’s rule.
“If adopted as proposed, the practical implications of implementing this rule will be felt throughout the United States, especially in the aggregates industry,” said the National Stone, Sand and Gravel Association.
“Styled as a clarification and narrowing of the prior regulatory definition, the proposed rule would effectively increase the geographic reach of the [Clean Water Act] by expanding the reach of CWA jurisdiction over marginally wet intermittent and ephemeral waters, isolated open waters and wetlands by directing field staff to apply a watershed based approach without the need to gather site-specific data and analysis,” the group said.
The EPA proposed the rule in March to redefine and clarify the reach of its jurisdiction under the Clean Water Act, the main law meant to protect the country’s waterways from pollution.
After two Supreme Court decisions with different rulings on how the EPA enforces its authority, the agency felt it was necessary to provide certainty about smaller waterways like ponds, creeks and wetlands that feed into bigger bodies of water.
The agency estimated that its jurisdiction would only increase marginally.
Almost immediately, the EPA’s proposal was labeled as a massive expansion of federal power and a brazen “land grab.”
The House held multiple hearings to highlight the rule’s predicted effects, and it voted in September to force the EPA to retract the rule and go back to the drawing board. So far, that hasn’t deterred EPA officials.
The EPA had processed nearly 500,000 comments on the proposal as of Monday and was expecting to process even more.
The farm and stone groups joined more than 300 other business groups on a regulatory filing by the Chamber of Commerce that included retailers, contractors and transportation groups opposed to the rule.
“At the most fundamental level, the proposal as written represents an unjustified expansion of Clean Water Act jurisdiction far beyond the limits of federal regulation explicitly established by Congress and affirmed by the courts,” the Chamber said. “The proposal would, for the first time, give federal agencies direct authority over land use decisions that Congress has intentionally reserved to the states.”
Local and state government officials piled on.
“We believe that more roadside ditches, flood control channels and stormwater management conveyances and treatment approaches will be federally regulated under this proposal,” wrote the National Association of Counties.
“This is problematic because counties are ultimately liable for maintaining the integrity of these ditches, channels, conveyances and treatment approaches,” it said, adding that the rule would affect many Clean Water Act programs that counties participate in, including spill prevention, and dredge and fill permits.
Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad (R) brought in officials from West Virginia, Kansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma and seven other states for his comments.
“The overriding concern of a diverse group of impacted stakeholders, including state leaders, is that the proposed rule will impose significant barriers to the advancement of innovative, state- and local-driven conservation and environmental practices that would actually advance our common goal of water quality,” he wrote.
Leading GOP congressional overseers of the EPA registered their complaints too.
Sen. David Vitter (R-La.) and Rep. Bill Shuster (R-Pa.) wrote that the rule “presents a grave threat to Americans’ property rights, and its finalization will force landowners throughout the country to live with the unending prospect that their homes, farms, or communities could be subject to ruinous Clean Water Act jurisdictional determinations and litigation.”
Vitter, the top Republican in the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, and Shuster, chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, were joined by eight of their Republican colleagues with roles overseeing various environmental policies.
Numerous environmental groups teamed up to submit one coalition response in support of the rule, framing it as an essential step toward better protecting water from pollution.
“We applaud the administration’s efforts to protect our waterways from pollution,” wrote the groups, including the Natural Resources Defense Council and the League of Conservation Voters. “This proposed rule will help to improve the condition of the nation’s waters, and we strongly support EPA’s and the Corps’ efforts to clarify which waters are protected by the Clean Water Act.”
The green groups also organized mass comment drives that they say resulted in 800,000 comments submitted to the EPA in support of the rule.
EPA spokeswoman Monica Lee said the agency plans to make the rule final in the spring after reading the comments and making any necessary changes.
This is nothing but a water grab because if government controls the water, it controsl the economy. It’s Obamacare for our water supply. McCarthy, the feminist Leftist in charge. is a fellow-traveler of Obama.
When did the government decree itself owner of America? I was taught the country belonged to the people. Oh, the ‘people’ means what it does when the communists say ‘power to the people’ but what people they mean are ‘The people in government!’ I see...
Some critics have noted Holdren's penchant for making apocalyptic predictions that never come to pass, and categorizing all criticism of his alarmist views as not only wrong but dangerous. What none has yet noted is that Holdren is a globalist who has endorsed "surrender of sovereignty" to "a comprehensive Planetary Regime" that would control all the world's resources, direct global redistribution of wealth, oversee the "de-development" of the West, control a World Army and taxation regime, and enforce world population limits. He has castigated the United States as "the meanest of wealthy countries," written a justification of compulsory abortion for American women, advocated drastically lowering the U.S. standard of living, and left the door open to trying global warming "deniers" for crimes against humanity. Such is Barack Obama's idea of a clear-headed adviser on matters of scientific policy....................."
And long time Hillary supporter John Podesta is the Administration's policy muscle on this destruction. --- ".......[Podesta] (born January 8, 1949) was the fourth and final White House Chief of Staff under President Bill Clinton, from 1998 until 2001. He is the former president and now Chair and Counselor of the Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank in Washington, D.C., and is also a Visiting Professor of Law at the Georgetown University Law Center. Podesta was a co-chairman of the Obama-Biden Transition Project. On December 10, 2013, Podesta joined the Obama administration as the Counselor to the President...................."
As far as I’m concerned, the taxpayer money just given away in the name of addressing “climate change” to Guatemala and Honduras and wherever needs to come out of the EPA budget at a minimum of dollar-for-dollar and preferably 5:1. Right f’n now.
In addition to complaining about some mud puddle or ditch, which the Corps of Engineers routinely “regulates”, why not argue that the EPA doesn’t have the authority to do any of this at all.
As it is we are reduced to begging for relief from the king, instead of telling the king to sit down and shut up.
Like free men and women do.
And that means standing up to them until they stand down.
Everywhere.
Easy to write, I know, and tough to do but we have got to start. Otherwise we are the slaves they take us to be.
This rule is so broad it could easily result in permits or fines for turning a spade of dirt. It is a recipe for draconian abuse of freedom.
Exactly.
These alphabet agencies have GOT to be reigned in!
We the people did not elect the bureaucrats in these agencies, and we can’t get them fired without an act of God and twenty-seven willing witnesses, and even then, they get a nice cushy pension and full benefits!
We elect our Congress and President to make decisions on our lives - NOT these faceless, reckless, careless, bureaucrats! Every time these agencies want to tighten the rules or expand their control or handout a new level of restriction/regulation, it should have to be voted on by Congress and signed by the President! PERIOD!
No unelected, unaccountable desk jockey should have the authority to regulate anything not specifically authorized by Congress and the President! AND, not “or!”
They could even fine and prosecute for tillage or grazing or fertilizing any location they deemed to have runoff to any waterway. THatis any piece of ground anywhere! That is how sweeping the definition is!
These are the same regulations which the EPA tried in the past and were castigated and chastised by the Supreme Court for their attempted over-reach!
So, now they are trying to do it again, only with different words!
FUEPA!
This is why we voted for a GOP congress- it is time for them to deliver.
Let’s start here.
“So, now they are trying to do it again, only with different words!”
This is always the case with the left’s agenda. We should never think a victory over any of their attempts will result in anything more than them going back into a huddle to make another play for their goals.
You gotta admit they are tenacious, and we should be the same.
Bingo.
From whence did the People authorize ANY Department to create anything that is tantamount to Law?
Only those hired into Congress were given any such authority...Oh, how far we have fallen
UN Agenda 21. All your land are belong to us.
EPA and Corps of Engineers do not have the statutory authority to make these proposed rules. The 111th Congress failed to pass the Clean Water Restoration Act which would have defined “waters of the US”. These agencies also violated EO 12866 Regulatory Planning and Review and EO 13132 Federalism. There will be lots of lawsuits filed against EPA if they finalize the proposed rulemaking. We’ll see if the new Congress has the cajones to stop this nonsense. I have my doubts.
But let’s assume the rule is finalized. Agriculture has 56 exemptions from this rule however, I believe that whatever the government giveth, the government can taketh.
How does EPA determine that a rancher, such as myself, who grazes livestock on the land contributes to the chemical, biological, and physical contamination of water and would therefore need a permit? They only have a few monitoring stations in NM to measure point source pollution. EPA will need more monitoring stations to monitor non-point source pollution and they don’t have legal access to my private land to monitor surface runoff as it enters my land and when it exits my land. So their monitoring stations will be located in areas where they have legal access such as highway or county rights of way. Will that constitute best available science? Do they have the staff to monitor every rain event to measure ephemeral surface runoff in my area? I don’t think so therefore, their monitoring data would apply on a watershed basis. Does that mean their requirement for a permit will be issued on a watershed basis and all landowners within that watershed would be required to have a permit regardless of whether their farming and ranching activities contributed to the alleged contamination?
It behooves all landowners to establish their own monitoring of waters entering and exiting their land if they want to protect their property rights and their right to gain economic expectations from their land. By having their own baseline data of water quality on their land, landowners will be able to change their status from “guilty before being proven innocent” to “ok EPA, prove that I am guilty” because I have data for my land and you don’t. Of course, I believe the majority of landowners won’t do this because they have their head up their como se llama and think they are invisible.
We all need to be more assertive and proactive in protecting our rights.
Also, local governments, Counties, Soil and Water Conservation Districts, etc, can be used to protect the custom, culture, and economy of their jurisdiction, but that’s a whole nother post.
This power grab extends to every square inch of American territory.
Because every square inch is in some watershed or another.
The EPA is claiming the power to regulate the use of all of the land in the United States. This is not only a direct unconstitutional attack on the God-given property rights of the American people, it is a dire threat to the productive capacity of the country. Speak and act now, or your children, the ones they haven’t aborted or starved to death, are going to be penniless, homeless, slaves.
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