By Cassandra Anderson
June 8, 2011
Congress failed 3 times to pass laws (HR 2421, S. 1879 and S. 787) for federal control over almost all water, so the EPA and Army Corps of Engineers are declaring jurisdiction under the Clean Water Act.
Lisa Jackson, EPA Administrator
In this video from 2009, Lisa Jackson admits that she doesn’t know what the EPA jurisdiction is for navigable waters or wetlands, and then she says that she does need legislation to clarify the matter! That legislation has already failed 3 times because it is an affront to individualism and property rights. Additionally, several Supreme Court rulings limit EPA power.
When Jackson is asked whether she wants more enforcement ability or to expand the powers of the EPA, she responds that she wants both! She further states that the power should be broad, meaning that it will give the EPA unbounded control.
The federal government usurped power over navigable water in the early 1800’s by distorting the Commerce Clause listed in the Enumerated Powers (Article1, Section 8) of the Constitution, which says:
“To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes;”
The Commerce Clause has been stretched far beyond federal regulations over trade transactions and taxes; it now extends to federal authority over the means of commerce (trucks, roads, telephones, etc) and almost anything that crosses state lines (industry, fish, pollution, etc). This is an illogical abuse of the Constitution, but it fits the plan for centralized control.
Does federal law trump state law? ONLY when it is a Constitutional law! The Supremacy Clause says that federal laws supersede state laws “in pursuance of the Constitution”, therefore, if the federal law is not Constitutional, then action is left to the State and to the People.
A new bill introduced in the House, the Clean Water Cooperative Federalism Act of 2011, is using the guise of limiting EPA power as a trick to bind states into a federal partnership. ‘Cooperative federalism‘ means that state and local governments are used to implement federal policies. However, under the Tenth Amendment the States can ignore unconstitutional federal acts. Therefore, the feds usually bribe states with funds for implementation or they withhold funding from the states to usurp state power.
The Governor of each state has the responsibility of standing up against the EPA.
The Philosophy of Pollution
There are two opposite ideologies concerning pollution and property rights. Communist Karl Marx advocated “the abolition of private property” as all collectivists do. When the Bolsheviks were in power and applied this concept to pollution, the government was the only monopoly that owned all land and resources, and their priority was industrialization over human health. To this day, there are some rivers in Russia that don’t freeze because there are so many chemical pollutants. In 1989, the Russian Minister of Health said, “To live longer, you must breathe less”.
The opposite model of individualism is based on property rights. Your body and your property are sacred and NO ONE has the right to hurt you or take your property. If pollution harms individuals, they have the right to expect the government to stop the polluter. This was the system in the US prior to the mid-1800’s (the industrial age).
Here’s Ron Paul’s explanation (starts at 3:55):
Paul says that governments are the biggest polluters and they sanction pollution through permits and licensing. He says the proper way to resolve pollution problems is through the private marketplace (contractual voluntary arrangements) and property rights. He supports abolishing the EPA.
Agriculture Under Attack
Agricultural run-off is reportedly the primary water polluter. In the first video Lisa Jackson recommended using vegetative barriers in wetlands to filter pollution. As you can see from the video below, this policy is already damaging farms in Washington state and threatens over 60% of the farmland. The EPA ignored the State’s scientific data and implemented its regulations (not laws) under a state agency.
Conclusion
The EPA is collecting comments on its website for this new measure, but they have a history of ignoring opposition from the public. If you want to be effective, you can educate and your state lawmakers, the governor and the state water regulatory agencies (in California the lead regulatory agency is the California Water Commission) about the Tenth Amendment. These are the parties that will be offered federal bribes or will be financially threatened by the feds to implement the EPA’s regulations. Public pressure and lobbying have more power on state and local levels because they have to face you. Ultimately, the Governor is the final authority.
(C) 2011 Cassandra Anderson
Tags: Agenda 21, cassandra anderson, cwa, epa, interstate, tributaries, Water, wetlands
The proposed ‘guidance’ misrepresents case law regarding what the courts consider traditional navigable waters.
The bogus legal analysis within the proposed guidance uses case law regarding FERCs jurisdictional authority to justify some what is ‘navigable-in-fact’ waterways. The legal analysis also misrepresents judicial decisions by taking a few sentences out of context and incorporating them into a self-serving and expanded definition of traditional navigable waters.
The proposed guidance is sleazy and will not hold up in court, but certainly gets ‘Lisa (look-at-me) Jasckson’ of the EPA some air time to show Americans how ignorant and useless the EPA is for 90% of Americans. Hopefully she will return back under her rock soon.
With governments making decisions over “the commons”, rather than individuals for their own private property with strong covenants in place with their neighbors, the range and depth of impacts will rarely be investigated for the truly longterm. Instead politicians are interested in getting “the vote” in order to get or remain “in office”, the seat of current social power, enabled by the enforcers. And bureaucrats like Lisa Jackson? She’s out to please her “boss”, the politician (Pres Obama) who appointed her to that nice cushy high paying job that provides her with the power to command enforcement agents – individuals willing to initiate physical force (http://www.epa.gov/oecaerth/cr.....gents.html).
What is needed is significant numbers of individuals who recognize that (or even just begun to wonder if) the nature of human beings does not automatically lead to the conclusion that individuals must be ruled by others in order that there be orderly interactions between them, including the effects of their property and/or what takes place on it.
Society, just like any other natural system can be naturally self-regulating by means of interactions between its members, if only humans seek to discover and are allowed to implement the methods by which such self-regulation can be effective, rather than continuing to embrace social systems that need to be constantly held in an unnatural (and very unoptimal) state of balance by the operations of their rulers and other influencers. Individual self-order without rule by others is the social system whose members are humans, who have become fully adult. Just as people can become physical adults, so can they become social adults – if only they are allowed (and even required in the sense that they will not achieve their desires unless they do) to socially mature sufficiently.
A society of self-responsible individuals voluntarily interacting for the maximization of the lifetime happiness of each, all at the same time is not “utopia” – an impossibility based on facts of reality. Instead it is a very real possibility once fully understood and embraced by even a relatively small number but used as the basis of their interactions with *all* others, who will gradually come to appreciate, understand and reciprocate – or be shunned.