What should be done about wetlands that aren't wet and navigable waters that aren't navigable?
These improbable conditions have become key weapons in the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's regulatory war against water rights, an unexpected power hidden in the 1972 Clean Water Act.
The law gave the EPA jurisdiction over navigable waters -- "the navigable waters of the United States, including the territorial seas" -- but nobody dreamed that such a deceptively simple definition would one day be stretched over everything, including bone-dry desert.
That is, nobody except EPA's voracious empire-building bureaucrats and Big Green's courtroom leeches. They knew that, if flash flood gullies, baked dry 364 days a year, could be legally designated "wetlands," then the water law would also be a land use law.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has its boots in CWA enforcement too, managing dams, dredging for waterway navigation and supervising ecosystem restoration.
The EPA and the Corps together have worked to bring all American waters under their control by eliminating the distinguishing qualifier "navigable" from the CWA, leaving only "waters of the United States."
If it's water, it's under EPA control -- a goal which, in fact, Democrats in Congress have been trying to reach for years.
So, what should be done about all this? Tuesday evening, Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky. -- son of presidential hopeful Ron Paul of Texas -- hosted his first-ever public conference call, exploring solutions to the CWA's many flaws.
Paul's new proposal is the Defense of Environment and Property Act of 2012, introduced a month ago with six co-sponsors, "to bring common sense back to federal water policy," according to Paul.
THOMAS, a part of the Library of Congress website, describes the main purpose of Rand's bill as "to clarify the definition of navigable waters" by specifying them as "navigable-in-fact" and "permanent," not EPA's arbitrary mush.
Paul's bill explicitly excludes all those bugs that have infected the CWA for decades. A companion bill in the House is expected to be introduced next week.
Such arcane matters wouldn't seem likely to draw many callers to a 9:00 p.m., hour-long conference call. However, the town hall attracted a respectable turnout of more than 400 call-ins, with more than 80 asking to be put in the question queue, and 14 callers who got to speak to Paul and the audience.
The senator opened with an explanation of how he got involved in the EPA water rights issue. "Shortly after I took office last year, I heard several of my colleagues talking about a horror story from Idaho," he said. "In 2005, Mike and Chantell Sackett bought a plot of land to build a home on. They filled the property with dirt and rock and prepared for construction. Three federal officials showed up and demanded they halt construction, claiming the lot was a wetland protected under the Clean Water Act.
"The EPA demanded they return the property to its original state, pay tens of thousands of dollars to remove fill material and replant vegetation. The Sacketts faced $32,500 in daily fines if they did not comply, and criminal liability if they continued construction.
"With the help of a free market public interest law firm, the Pacific Legal Foundation, the Sacketts went to court, all the way to the Supreme Court, which heard the case of Sackett v. EPA in January. A decision is expected later in the year."
Forty-five minutes of questions followed, most of which boiled down to, "Can Congress restore rights?" Most answers boiled down to, "That's going to take an election."
The call-ins brought a mix of personal horror stories of being defeated by EPA enforcers and a frustrated, angry, determination to defeat those same EPA enforcers.
If there was some single point that call-ins took with them, it was Paul's closing remark, "We need to start a movement."
The veteran property rights activists probably smiled, chuckling that the senator most likely didn't realize he had just nominated himself leader of this new movement.
Examiner Columnist Ron Arnold is executive vice president of the Center for the Defense of Free Enterprise.
These improbable conditions have become key weapons in the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's regulatory war against water rights, an unexpected power hidden in the 1972 Clean Water Act.
The law gave the EPA jurisdiction over navigable waters -- "the navigable waters of the United States, including the territorial seas" -- but nobody dreamed that such a deceptively simple definition would one day be stretched over everything, including bone-dry desert.
That is, nobody except EPA's voracious empire-building bureaucrats and Big Green's courtroom leeches. They knew that, if flash flood gullies, baked dry 364 days a year, could be legally designated "wetlands," then the water law would also be a land use law.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has its boots in CWA enforcement too, managing dams, dredging for waterway navigation and supervising ecosystem restoration.
The EPA and the Corps together have worked to bring all American waters under their control by eliminating the distinguishing qualifier "navigable" from the CWA, leaving only "waters of the United States."
If it's water, it's under EPA control -- a goal which, in fact, Democrats in Congress have been trying to reach for years.
So, what should be done about all this? Tuesday evening, Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky. -- son of presidential hopeful Ron Paul of Texas -- hosted his first-ever public conference call, exploring solutions to the CWA's many flaws.
Paul's new proposal is the Defense of Environment and Property Act of 2012, introduced a month ago with six co-sponsors, "to bring common sense back to federal water policy," according to Paul.
THOMAS, a part of the Library of Congress website, describes the main purpose of Rand's bill as "to clarify the definition of navigable waters" by specifying them as "navigable-in-fact" and "permanent," not EPA's arbitrary mush.
Paul's bill explicitly excludes all those bugs that have infected the CWA for decades. A companion bill in the House is expected to be introduced next week.
Such arcane matters wouldn't seem likely to draw many callers to a 9:00 p.m., hour-long conference call. However, the town hall attracted a respectable turnout of more than 400 call-ins, with more than 80 asking to be put in the question queue, and 14 callers who got to speak to Paul and the audience.
The senator opened with an explanation of how he got involved in the EPA water rights issue. "Shortly after I took office last year, I heard several of my colleagues talking about a horror story from Idaho," he said. "In 2005, Mike and Chantell Sackett bought a plot of land to build a home on. They filled the property with dirt and rock and prepared for construction. Three federal officials showed up and demanded they halt construction, claiming the lot was a wetland protected under the Clean Water Act.
"The EPA demanded they return the property to its original state, pay tens of thousands of dollars to remove fill material and replant vegetation. The Sacketts faced $32,500 in daily fines if they did not comply, and criminal liability if they continued construction.
"With the help of a free market public interest law firm, the Pacific Legal Foundation, the Sacketts went to court, all the way to the Supreme Court, which heard the case of Sackett v. EPA in January. A decision is expected later in the year."
Forty-five minutes of questions followed, most of which boiled down to, "Can Congress restore rights?" Most answers boiled down to, "That's going to take an election."
The call-ins brought a mix of personal horror stories of being defeated by EPA enforcers and a frustrated, angry, determination to defeat those same EPA enforcers.
If there was some single point that call-ins took with them, it was Paul's closing remark, "We need to start a movement."
The veteran property rights activists probably smiled, chuckling that the senator most likely didn't realize he had just nominated himself leader of this new movement.
Examiner Columnist Ron Arnold is executive vice president of the Center for the Defense of Free Enterprise.
