Feds Seek To Tighten Noose on Development By Expanding Clean Water Act Regulatory Control

From our friends at the Pacific Legal Foundation comes word of this effort, "to stretch federal power so broadly that it could potentially cover every pond, puddle and pothole in the country."  Since Alaska has more ponds, puddles, lakes, rivers and streams than any other state and 3/4 of America's coastline, the 49th state's citizens should be alert to this new EPA rulemaking effort, detailed below.  This new regulation would provide new ammunition to White House efforts, using zoning techniques, to restrict human activity in the nation's oceans and in areas affecting rivers and streams feeding the oceans and Great Lakes.  We believe this could also be an effort to employ vast new cadres of federal enforcers who will seek control over oil, gas and mining (including fracking) activity on public and private lands while charging a new schedule of fees to finance government agency growth.   It is another way of redistributing wealth, jobs and power from the private sector to government, as we discussed in Monday's commentary.    -dh

PLF.  Federal officials are pushing a new rule to vastly expand their power over water and land under the Clean Water Act. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the Army Corps of Engineers, relying on EPA's new report on "connectivity" that is still in draft form and under review, aim to regulate isolated water bodies that have no significant effects on navigable waters.

This plan is an apparent conflict with PLF's 2006 victory at the U.S. Supreme Court in Rapanos v. United States. In an October 31 PLF news release, PLF Principal Attorney M. Reed Hopper warned federal regulators of pursuing this expansion of power.

"We seem to be witnessing a push to stretch federal power so broadly that it could potentially cover every pond, puddle, and pothole in the country," Hopper said. "Federal regulators should be warned that if their new water rule veers away from statutory and constitutional principles, they risk sailing into a lawsuit."