Posted on 01/18/2012 7:57:18 PM PST by WilliamIII
The EPA has 17,000 full time employees and approximately a $8.4 billion budget. It also has a fondness for hunting bullfrogs with a shotgun.
Case in point: Mike and Chantell Sackett began building on waterfront property at Priest Lake, Idaho, in 2007. Their lot was less than a single acre (.63) and bordered by other residential properties. As they were laying gravel and grading the property, EPA officials arrived, claimed they were acting on an anonymous tip, and declared the location a “wetland without a federal permit.” Essentially, EPA issued a compliance order directing the Sacketts to restore the site to its previous condition.
The order demanded they “remove all fill, replace any lost vegetation, and monitor the fenced-off site for three years,” or else face “great cost” and a “threat of civil fines of tens of thousands of dollars per day, as well as possible criminal penalties.” The fines in the Sackett case ranged up to $37,500 per day.
For average Americans, EPA compliance orders carry the weight of law because options are, well, extremely limited. The lucky recipients of a compliance order basically have two choices: (1) They can obey the EPA and comply. In the Sackett case, the cost of cleanup and restoration would have exceeded the $23,000 they had originally paid for the property. (2) The other choice is to force the EPA’s hand and wait for a suit. This option comes with a kicker for the property owner — the daily EPA fine meter ticks on until the court date comes.
If the landowners choose door No. 2, the EPA can bleed them dry: ... (The Sacketts currently owe the EPA close to $40 million.)
(Excerpt) Read more at deltafarmpress.com ...
How is their property any different than their neighbors? It would seem that if all the land was a wet land then even their neighbors would be in violation too.
Yes Sir Mr. EPA, we were roasting wienees on the grill there and then the next thing we knew the whole place went up in flames. Sorry bout yer frogs.
Barnabas Sackett must be rolling over in his fictional grave.
if the “brilliant” EPA officials would make the fines high but realistic, they would be much more of a threat. They can fine me $37,500 from now until the end of time and it would not frighten me a bit...I haven’t $37.50 to my name and their threats would fall on deaf ears. I see that happening often, especially in federal cases, so and so was found guilty, sentenced to 30 years in prison and fined $1,250,000....what’s the point???
THIS MONSTER MUST BE KILLED
Cut? Hell, Dissolve it totally.
⇓Size DC!
IT'S NOT WATERFRONT property! Who writes this drivel?
What's being exposed here is the failure of government in that some nickle and dime lifer who has nothing, does nothing and means nothing to anyone but himself was making his taxpayer funded rounds in his taxpayer funded truck befoer going to his taxpayer paid lunch and decided to justify his position by "writing someone up" for an innocuous violation.
But, kaakaa hit the fan when the Sacketts stood their ground and government being what it is, they could not back down. So, millions are going up in smoke while the justice we all know should be done is in question, possibly hanging on the votes of the two communist justices Obama has put on the Supreme court because the republicans in the senate have no balls. The case certainly has its cloudy elements; both sides are contesting who knew what and when. But at the end of the day, it appears EPA would rather sacrifice the Sacketts than admit that something smells odd and make the common man bow to the bureaucracy right or wrong. In a battle with common sense, EPA has bound regulation, judicial review, due process and bureaucracy into a Gordian knot that desperately needs to be cut. Since 2007, when the Sackett saga began, how much U.S. money has EPA spent on the case? How many millions in American taxpayer dollars will EPA burn up in pursuit of the Sacketts? No wonder EPA needs a $8.4 billion budget
And here's the kicker:
Did you notice that the EPA was acting on an anonymous tip?
Odds are that is a neighbor who liked the free park land next door and had an "in" with somebody in the EPA.
This is what went on in Soviet or fascist states -- turning somebody in to the secret police to get their property or job, or because their house spoils your view. Although it's gone on since the days of the Bible (Ahab and Naboth's vineyard).
Welcome to the police state, courtesy of the EPA.
Good point. Maybe some “greenie” who has a gripe with the Sacketts for something totally unrelated to their wanting to build a home.
It’s a seasonal wetland ID’d as such by the Fish and Wildlife Service with caveats that their analysis could be off (other branches of the GOVT could have a different determination) and that folks should check with their gov’ts, which the Sacketts more or less did.
I would wager that one of the bordering neighbors didn’t want their little half-acre of heaven to have a new neighbor.
$8.4 billion budget to put people out of work and destroy the economy.
It wasn't developed before the satellite and software survey was done.
One of many. It's ironic that to the Left, Nixon is the ultimate Boogie Man. But the reality is, he made all of LBJ's disastrous "Great Society' dreams come true when he could have stopped them in their tracks.
Nixon was a slick politician who had no real convictions beyond foreign policy. On that front, he did the best he could, but on spending and social policy, he was a tool for the hard left. He gave them every thing they wanted and destroyed generations in the process.
Every time you go through some run-down 'inner city' neighborhood where kids are shooting each other every day, credit Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon for the carnage. It was never either of their 'intentions', but between them with their 'compassion' (fueled by other people's money), they killed more blacks than the KKK could ever dream of. And it continues with no end is sight.
“THIS MONSTER MUST BE KILLED”
And the FTC too. This is another agency that does major damage to small companies. Few companies have the resources to fight them. It’s a corrupt agency with a revolving door to outside law firms representing companies that use the FTC to ruin their rivals. Some FTC commissioners belong in jail.
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