Posted on 07/10/2014 4:31:29 PM PDT by jazusamo
Big Government: The EPA is now claiming the authority to bypass courts and, on its own, garnish the paychecks and attach the assets of those it accuses of violating its rules. And, as with the IRS, its hard drives also crash.
The Environmental Protection Agency's insatiable lust for power has now gone beyond being the pen and the phone for President Obama's climate change, bypassing both the Constitution and the Congress in enacting rules and regulations that the American people and their representatives did not enact or even support.
Through an announcement in the Federal Register, the agency is claiming that existing federal law allows it "to garnish non-Federal wages to collect delinquent non-tax debts owed the United States without first obtaining a court order." It claims such authority under the Debt Collection Improvement Act of 1996.
These non-tax debts are fines and penalties that the EPA has levied against alleged polluters who often are innocent — farmers, for example, making common-sense decisions in running their daily lives and businesses, who discover a ditch that they dug is now considered a wetland because rainwater occasionally fills it.
"The EPA has a history of overreaching its authority. It seems like once again the EPA is trying to take power it doesn't have away from American citizens," Sen. John Barrasso, Wyoming Republican, said when he learned of the EPA's wage-garnishment scheme, according to the Washington Times.
The EPA authoritarian edicts include recently slapping a $75,000 a day — yes, a day — fine on Wyoming homeowner Andy Johnson for building a pond on his rural property to provide water for his cattle where the Six Mile Creek runs across his land.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.investors.com ...
“”The EPA has a history of overreaching its authority. It seems like once again the EPA is trying to take power it doesn’t have away from American citizens,” Sen. John Barrasso, Wyoming Republican, said when he learned of the EPA’s wage-garnishment scheme,””
And Barrasso is considering that Congress do what about it?? They do love to talk, don’t they? Don’t tell me they don’t have the authority to rein them in. The House can cut off their funding, can’t they? Congress is there for WE, THE PEOPLE and it’s time they start acting like it. They are to be overseers of the government agencies and put a stop to their foolishness when it arises.
how much rope do we have on hand ?
You can thank Nixon for the EPA and the Endangered Species Act.
I’m no legal authority or constitutional expert but in my view the only way to “rein” them in is for Congress to revoke their regulating authority and take it back themselves.
It’d probably be easier to eliminate the agency.
That’s a pretty pie in the sky polyannish attitude don’t you think? Congress is only there to do the bidding of Bankers and Big Business, nothing else. Got it. It’s peons like you that this crazy notion of freedom, Liberty and individual rights that’s ruing this country.
Sig Heil
/s
The Green IRS is completely out of hand. They write their own regulations and give them the power of law, deny people their day in court, and the list of offenses by this rogue agency go on and on. Shut them down.
Shut them down BUMP!
I ran a privately-owned public water supply for 30 years. Was forcibly retired in January. I dealt with those jerks from epa forever. They’d come out for their inspections, and be friendly, and supposedly happy. Then they’d blast the company for really dumb-ass things in their report. “Cut the grass around well 3
#3 more often, Pile up some dirt around well #1.” Total bs! I knew how to handle them, but I’m really glad I don’t have to anymore. Buncha green wussies just looking’ to cause problems. Eff them!
There are now four branches of government and the EPA heads up the regulatory branch, which is more equal than the first three and is not beholden to the electorate.
The EPA doesn’t need to be eliminated, it needs to be destroyed.
It’s time some of these agencies be burned to the ground
“It’s time some of these agencies be burned to the ground”
Don’t forget to plow salt into the ground after the burning.
Amen to that! The EPA has over 15,000 employees it needs to feed, keep busy and provide pensions for. Time to lay off 14,000 of them.
A day or two ago, “Fox & Friends” spoke with a rancher in New Mexico whose family has been on the same land for over 100 years. The EPA is about to ruin them to protect an endangered species of mouse (without any evidence the mouse is actually present on their property).
They are the Government Party - Government, protecting its interests, its ideological allies, and their many beneficiaries (both corporate and individual) against everyone else.
Unfortunately or fortunately, depending on your position, there will come a time in the future where it will be common to see EPA lawyers and bureaucrats swinging from trees or tarred and feathered as it was once the rule in the West and South for frauds and swindlers.
This listing of the meadow jumping mouse is one of the most bogus listings of endangered species. It’s criminal that any person should be displaced or lose their livelyhood over it.
excerpt:
“The meadow jumping mouse (Zapus hudsonius) is the most widely distributed mouse in the subfamily Zapodinae. It may be found from the Atlantic coast, to the Great Plains, as far north as the arctic tree lines in Canada and Alaska, and as far south as Georgia, Alabama, Arizona, and New Mexico.[2] In July 2014, it was listed as an endangered species.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meadow_jumping_mouse
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.