Posted on 11/14/2014 1:10:47 AM PST by EternalVigilance
The Clean Water Act prohibits certain discharges to “navigable waters” without a federal permit. The Act defines “navigable waters” as “waters of the United States” which the Corps and EPA originally took to mean traditional navigable waters that could be used in interstate commerce. This is important because the Clean Water Act is based on the commerce power. By definition, regulation of waters under the Act must be necessary to and in furtherance of interstate commerce. But it didn’t take long before the agencies started pushing the envelope on federal jurisdiction claiming regulatory authority over wetlands and other nonnavigable waters that had nothing to do with commerce, let alone interstate commerce.
Things came to a head when the Corps asserted jurisdiction over small, remote pools that were wholly isolated from traditional navigable waters. The case went to the U.S. Supreme Court in SWANCC v. Corps (2001). The court chastised the Corps for setting up a moving target for its jurisdiction and forbade the Corps from regulating “isolated water bodies.” In support of this decision the court observed the regulation of nonnavigable, intrastate waters would read the term “navigable” right out of the Act and raise constitutional questions about the scope of the commerce power and State’s Rights.
Unfortunately, the case did not change agency practice much. The EPA and Corps continued to regulate nonavigable, intrastate waters and even expanded their jurisdiction claiming they could now regulate any water with a hydrological connection to traditional navigable waters. This lead to federal regulation of typically dry land features such as arroyos and washes in the desert as well as ditches, drains and culverts hundreds of miles from traditional navigable waters.
In 2006, in a Supreme Court case called Rapanos v. United States, PLF challenged the agencies’ jurisdiction as overbroad. A majority of the court agreed with PLF that the government had overreached and the Corps and EPA could not regulate a water merely because it has a hydrological connection to downstream navigable waters.
However, in April of this year, the Corps and EPA proposed a highly controversial rule redefining the term “waters of the United States” in a way that contradicts the SWANCC and Rapanos decisions. Under the new rule, these agencies seek to regulate “isolated water bodies” and any other water body with a hydrological connection to traditional navigable waters, the very waters the Supreme Court said the agencies could not regulate.
These agencies have redefined the term “waters of the United States” so broadly that it covers virtually any wet spot in the country, including ditches, drains, intermittent streams, ponds, impoundments, prairie potholes, and large buffer areas along every watercourse. Only minor water features are excluded from federal control, such as artificial pools or ponds, but only if they are in dry, upland areas.
As we document in our comments opposing the rule, the Corps and EPA’s self-serving redefinition of “waters of the United States” is undoubtedly the largest expansion of power ever proposed by a federal agency. It would far exceed federal jurisdiction, usurp the power of the States to manage local land and water resources, nullify constitutional limits on federal authority, and conflict with Supreme Court precedent. You can read our detailed analysis of the rule here.
This proposed rule is patently unreasonable and should be amended or withdrawn. If it is not, you can count on PLF being in the courts again to hold overzealous bureaucrats accountable to the rule-of-law.
the solution is to disband the corps and epa immediately.
time to fix nixon’s most stupid idea.
cut funding to zero. they can’t be allowed to keep ignoring clear court smackdowns of their illegal rules and regs. people lose land, money and freedom becuase these people prosecute them under these illegal rules and regs.
Yup.
bkmk
I guess their definitions of ‘waters’ and what to do about them has a direct corollary to how safe they feel in their tyranny.
Some might say a pickup truck, a tarp, and an isolated dark mountain road is better than BURYING them. :0)
Time for DeFund-amental Transformation in America!
Government, although secular in nature, by the nature of its power and pervasive coverage of society, has a kind of moral influence on its citizens, especially those who are more oriented to power as compared to principle.
When government refuses to be restrained by its own Constitution, as the citizen could plainly understand it, then it should come as no surprise when some citizens get the idea they don’t have to be restrained either. It is made worse when government officials themselves are brazen about their outrageous acts, and their fellow lawmakers give them cover and the media makes excuses.
One of the roots of such wasteful, foolish, intrusive, thuggish, and sometimes tyrannous government is the ease with which it can create almost unlimited amounts of money out of thin air. Near-infinite money buys near-infinite government, and a bureaucracy that is generously funded can entertain an open-ended dream about how to expand its realm.
Every day more people are coming to the judgment that a carefully organized effort to repair the constitution via the States’ power to propose and ratify amendments has less risk to our liberty and prosperity than the present trajectory of the federal government and especially the federal bureaucracy.
But I say, "let Mr. EPA enforce his law."
The Left has only contempt for liberty, and the American people have drunk their Koolade.
UN Agenda 21 objectives:
Reduce the population of America by 66% and relocate the survivors to mega-cities within eleven mega-regions.
Remaining US land will be under the control of the Wildlands Project for use in conjunction with Biological Diversity.
Restrict Americans’ movement throughout the country and control the amount of food production by reassessing farm lands to projects that “save the environment”.
Forget about ever building a pond on your property.
Amen Brother...!
I've known for fifteen years and it misses defining the limits of "navigable" which in common law was a vessel with a minimum of ten deadweight tons. Waters capable of transporting smaller boats for personal or recreational use such as kayaks do not qualify despite the fact that there are "commercial" whitewater rafting businesses.
BUMP
The EPA should probably be abolished all together.
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