As if we didn’t have enough to worry about with cap-and-trade, health care, North Korea, Iran, terrorism, and constant attacks on the 2nd Amendment, now a Senate committee votes to control every drop of water in the United States. Oh, and the U.N. will control the coasts.
by Michael Naragon
On June 18, by a vote of 12-7, the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee passed the Clean Water Restoration Act (S. 787). As with most government bills, you can bet that it has less to do with restoring clean water than it does with increasing the power of the federal government.
The bill, if passed by Congress, would “provide protection to the waters of the United States to the maximum extent of the legislative authority of Congress under the Constitution.” Again, Congress’ view of what is Constitutional is very different than the view of most American citizens.
In sum, the bill purports to keep the waters of the U.S. clean and free from contaminants. A previous incarnation of the same law, the Federal Water Pollution Control Act of 1972, restricted its influence to “navigable waters”–rivers, connected lakes, and coastlines. The new bill gives the same power to the environmental forces of the government but increases the jurisdiction to “waters of the United States.” This means your ponds, irrigation creeks, goldfish bowls, bathtubs, every drop of water in the U.S. would now be brought under federal control.
The president of the American Farm Bureau, Bob Stallman, said:
“The legislation would grant — for the first time ever — the Environmental Protection Agency and the Corps of Engineers jurisdiction over all wet areas within a state, including groundwater, ditches, pipes, streets, municipal storm drains and gutters. It would grant these same agencies — for the first time ever — authority over all activities affecting those waters, regardless of whether the activity is occurring in water or adds a pollutant.”
And one of the sponsors of this bill? Our friend, the dishonorable Senator Barbara Boxer. Apparently, complete government control over every possible aspect of our lives is one of those things she’s working very hard to achieve.
In an unrelated story on a related topic, Barack Obama, Joe Biden, and Hillary Clinton have all expressed their support for the United Nations’ Law of the Sea Treaty. The treaty, which was introduced in 1982 and has been passed by 156 countries, would give the U.N. complete jurisdiction over the oceans, including the coastlines of the United States. Some policy analysts have speculated that it will give the U.N. the ability to force pollution and carbon emissions restrictions on the U.S.
The Obama administration is pushing approval of the treaty as a means of “piracy control.” Clinton has pledged that passage of the Law of the Sea Treaty will be one of her top priorities. While we await the Senate vote on cap-and-trade, how many more bills such as these will slip through the cracks to then rear their ugly heads as liberty-eating laws?
Read more on both laws at Colin McKim’s column here.
Total control seems to be the point in everything lately
Pingback: Oncoming