Free Republic

President-elect Trump's pledge to "drain the swamp" in Washington struck a chord with millions of Americans ... Clean Power Plan: After failing to pass cap-and-trade legislation through Congress, Obama had his political appointees at the EPA slap coal-fired power plants with greenhouse-gas-emission limits they knew the industry couldn't meet ... In doing so, EPA usurped the states' role in regulating electricity markets within their boundaries, and even commandeered the states to enforce its new policy. ... Paris Climate Change Agreement .. entails a substantial transfer of wealth from American taxpayers into the waiting hands of Third World potentates ... Waters...

When farmers plow their land, it produces grooves called "furrows," bordered by small ridges of dirt. But in pursuit of new regulatory powers, federal agencies refer to the little dirt mounds by another term: “mini mountain ranges.” That seemingly absurd distinction is being used to impose more federal control over private land use decisions made by U.S. farmers. That was the claim described in a U.S. Senate committee report released Sept. 20. The committee reviewed the powers held by the nation’s two largest environmental regulation agencies, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Environmental Protection Agency, and a proposed...

Emphasizing the need for congressional action, farm groups renewed their call for reform of Clean Water Act enforcement, following release of a report documenting how federal agencies overreach their authority to regulate farmland. The report, issued last week by the majority staff of the U.S. Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, describes numerous incidents in which the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and Environmental Protection Agency have tried to expand their authority to regulate what crops farmers grow and how they grow them, based on the agencies' interpretation of the act.

Earlier this month a federal court in California ruled that a farmer plowing his land without a permit from the federal government is breaking the law. In 2013, the Army Corps of Engineers, without any notice or due process, ordered the owners of Duarte Nursery to cease use of their land for allegedly violating the Clean Water Act (CWA). The violation: plowing. The California court agreed with the federal government’s action, despite the fact the CWA specifically exempts normal agricultural activities like plowing from regulation. This overreaching assertion of federal power is not an isolated incident. For decades, the EPA...

The United States Forest Service severely damaged a forest road and trail in Northwestern Idaho earlier this month, raising serious questions about the agency’s ability to care for federally-managed lands. During the first weekend in June, several members of Northwestern Gold Prospectors Association (NWGPA) planned to attend a gathering to prospect private claims in the Bedrock Gulch and Eagle Creek areas. When the prospectors arrived, Forest Road 152 was blocked with cement barricades and hundreds of felled trees. ... Photographs from that day show large logs laid crosswise and laterally on the trail, covered with hundreds of large pine branches...

The White House’s Clean Water Act requires property owners to surrender possession of land that falls under its jurisdiction. The law, which has frustrated landowners for 40 years, was expanded last year when the Obama administration issued new rules for which bodies of water can be claimed as government property. Hawkes Co., Inc. was one of the businesses affected by the White House’s environmental guidelines. The company, which provides peat for golf courses, was prevented from using property in Marshall County, Minnesota, because it had been deemed federally controlled wetlands by the United States Corps of Engineers. The Supreme Court took up...

When Wyoming rancher Andy Johnson decided to create a stock pond for horses and cattle on his 8-acre property, he did what any conscientious landowner would do. He got permits from both the state and local government before moving any dirt. What he didn’t count on was a power-mad Environmental Protection Agency.

$16 million in fines dropped, threats canceled. A Wyoming rancher threatened by the Environmental Agency with $16 million fines for getting a state permit and building a stock pond on his ranch has reached a settlement that will have the fines go away and he’ll keep his stock pond. WND reported in 2015 on a lawsuit filed on behalf of Fort Bridger, Wyoming, rancher Andy Johnson by officialsl with the Pacific Legal Foundation seeking to vindicate his property rights. The lawsuit explained federal law clearly exempts stock ponds from the rules of the EPA, which had filed a compliance order...

Retired EPA scientist Phil North, the man the Pebble Partnership says was the mastermind behind the effort to block its proposed mine in southwest Alaska, spent a full day answering questions from a congressional committee Thursday. ... North’s whereabouts were unknown – at least to Pebble executives – for nearly two years. But the company eventually found him. Pebble compelled his return to the U.S. from the Asia-Pacific, where he was on a grand tour with his family, to answer questions related to a lawsuit over the proposed Pebble mine. North sat for questions from Pebble attorneys in Washington, D.C....

A Linn County man who farms near Albany could face big daily water-pollution fines from the federal Environmental Protection Agency because he has failed to remove or get permits for a massive rock and earthen dike he built along the North Santiam River. William Case, 77, could be fined $37,500 a day for violations to the federal Clean Water Act, according to a lawsuit the EPA filed last month in U.S. District Court in Eugene.

A federal court ruled Friday that President Obama’s regulation to protect small waterways from pollution cannot be enforced nationwide. In a 2-1 ruling, the Cincinnati-based Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit delivered a stinging defeat to Obama’s most ambitious effort to keep streams and wetlands clean, saying it looks likely that the rule, dubbed Waters of the United States, is illegal. “We conclude that petitioners have demonstrated a substantial possibility of success on the merits of their claims,” the judges wrote in their decision, explaining that the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) new guidelines for determining whether water is subject...

OK, here’s the background. Once upon a time, the Obama administration decided to implement a ruling – without the input of Congress, mind you – that defined ““waters of the U.S.” to include virtually any wet area — even a rain-fed temporary pool — that is close to any other body of water with a physical connection to a navigable waterway.” As you can imagine, this was and is a massive attempt to extend the reach of the regulatory State into areas that they do not traditionally have the ability to go into. By making essentially all waters federal waters,...

--snip-- In a January 2014 violation notice, the agency said Mr. Johnson had violated the Clean Water Act by digging out Six Mile Creek and dumping in tons of river rocks without getting necessary federal permits. The agency ordered him to take steps to restore the creek under the supervision of environmental officials, or face accumulating fines of as much as $37,500 a day. Mr. Johnson refused. He argued that he had gotten full approvals from Wyoming officials, and said the federal government had no business using national water laws to make decisions about the creek that meanders through the...

The very same crew which recently dumped three million gallons of toxic sludge out of an abandoned mine and turned the Animas River in Colorado the color of a yellow banded poison dart frog for roughly a week has just issued a whole new set of rules to “protect” small pools of water. They would also like you to know that these rules are going into effect even though a federal judge put them on hold in 13 states, too. This new batch of regulations is going to “protect” bodies of water which may include the ditch in front...

In an exclusive interview with Breitbart News, Rep. Kevin Cramer (R-ND) reacted to a recent injunction that blocked a new regulation that would have granted the federal government jurisdiction over some waterways across the United States. “I wasn’t surprised by the injunction even though other courts were sort of failing to see the logic of states’ cases in other filings,” Cramer exclusively told Breitbart News. On Friday, North Dakota’s U.S. District Judge Ralph Erickson ordered a temporary injunction against the Obama administration’s rule, which would grant the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), along with the Army Corps of Engineers, authority over...

A federal judge has ruled that a controversial regulation that would give the Environmental Protection Agency jurisdiction over small streams and ditches is bureaucratic overreach and has halted the implementation of the rule. The judge was not pleased with the EPA, who said they would go ahead and implement the regulation in the 37 states that did not sue to end it.

A federal judge in North Dakota on Thursday blocked a new Obama administration rule that would give the federal government jurisdiction over some smaller waterways just hours before it was set to go into effect. U.S. District Judge Ralph Erickson in Fargo issued a temporary injunction requested by North Dakota and 12 other states halting the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and Army Corps of Engineers from regulating some small streams, tributaries and wetlands under the Clean Water Act. The rule, which has prompted fierce criticism from farmers among others, was scheduled to take effect Friday. North Dakota Attorney General Wayne...

BISMARCK, N.D. — A federal judge in North Dakota on Thursday blocked a new Obama administration rule that would give the federal government jurisdiction over some state waterways. U.S. District Judge Ralph Erickson of North Dakota issued a temporary injunction against a the rule, which gives the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and Army Corps of Engineers authority to protect some streams, tributaries and wetlands under the Clean Water Act. The rule was scheduled to take effect Friday. “The risk of irreparable harm to the states is both imminent and likely,” Judge Erickson said in blocking the rule from taking effect....

Today we filed our complaint in the Federal District Court of Minnesota challenging the Corps and EPA’s extreme rule redefining “waters of the United States” subject to federal control under the Clean Water Act, and other laws. The case is entitled Washington Cattlemen’s Association, et al. v. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, et al,. ... We represent ranchers, farmers and private parties from 5 different states arguing the new rule violates the Clean Water Act itself, as interpreted by the Supreme Court, and exceeds federal power under the Constitution. The new rule covers virtually all waters in the U.S. and much...

Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi sued the Obama administration Monday to stop a new regulation asserting federal authority over minor waterways like streams and wetlands. The rule from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is one of the most controversial regulations from the Obama administration, redefining how the EPA enforces the water pollution protections of the Clean Water Act. In the lawsuit, filed in a Houston-based federal court, the states argue that the rule “is an unconstitutional and impermissible expansion of federal power over the states and their citizens and property owners.” The states’ attorneys general — all Republican — said the...