Oppose Federalization of all waters of the U.S.

[Mr. Rodgers]

This may be a little old but lets keep our eye on it. Send an email to your reps.
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Oppose Federalization of all waters of the U.S.

"[This water bill is the] biggest bureaucratic power grab in a generation."
- Senator James Inhofe

UPDATED June 25, 2009
The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee approved the Clean Water Restoration Act (S. 787) by a vote of 12-7 on June 18, 2009. As described below, this bill would place virtually all the waters of the United States under federal control. U.S. Senator James Inhofe (R-OK) is a ranking member of the Environment and Public Works Committee and has recently issued a warning against the passage of S. 787. The legislation is the "biggest bureaucratic power grab in a generation," Inhofe said. (To view Sen. Inhofe's remarks, click here.)


The committee vote was a strictly partisan vote as Democrats voted FOR the bill while Republicans voted AGAINST it. The list of names may be found by clicking here.
http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.c...n=Members.Home

Since Senator Mike Crapo (R-ID) moved to put a hold on S. 787, it cannot be voted on the Senate floor until at least 60 Senators vote to remove the hold. This adds an additional step to the process so the bill can't be rushed through. Hopefully this will force more Senators to read the bill and gain even more opposition to its passage.

E-mail to your Senators requesting that they reject this bill.

Senator Russ Feingold (D-WI) introduced S. 787 on April 2, 2009. The bill, known as the Clean Water Restoration Act, would redefine the government’s control over water. The bill is currently in the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works and already carries 24 cosponsors.

Among other things, S. 787 would amend the Federal Water Pollution Control Act (enacted in 1972) by striking the term “navigable waters” from the bill and replacing it with “waters of the United States.”

What does that mean to you? Simply put, it would federalize basically every water deposit within the United States and place restrictions on landowners.

This bill would federalize virtually every water deposit in the nation and therefore threaten both private property rights and states' rights.

http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c111:S.787:


http://mustangdaily.net/feds-seek-to...for-the-beach/

[larrymeyer]

Don't known how this would work in Pa as the State government has control over all waters in the state. Thats why you need a fishing license to fish a pond on your own property

[Sandcut]

Well, just for your information, the arguments that Inhofe is making about this proposed legislation are to environmental regulation what comments from the VPC and the media are to gun ownership. Deliberate misinformation aimed at tweeking partisan, emotional chords to serve their own twisted self interest. (and those of their contributors)

This "new" legislation is an attempt to amend the wording of Clean Water Act to remove confusing, poorly constructed wording to a law that was implemented in 1972 by a REPUBLICAN administration. The "new" wording is actually just a way to incorporate the regulatory definition of what constitutes a "waters of the US". The definition that was used by the USEPA and US Army Corps of Engineers from 1976 until roughly 2002 until it was overturned on a technicality (albeit a legitimate one) by the SCOTUS.

The gloom and doom that Inhofe refers to never occurred between 1976 and 2002. It's my opinion that Inhofe is being disingenuous with his claims that my shooting a lead bullet into water will suddenly be forbidden. The Clean Water Act doesn't regulate any such thing and it wouldn't if the proposed legislation was passed either. This is complete BS nonsense!

As far as state's rights go, this gets to be tricky when it involves something like water that has a tendancy to 1) travel between states and 2) support commerce between states, hence the Federal Govt.'s interest (and constitutional mandate) in regulating it.

Let's play a hypothetical game here involving two states, Upstreamdom and Downstreamiana. If state's rights prevailed and Upstreamdom had lax environmental regulations, individual Upstreamdomians could pollute their streams to their hearts content while the citizens of Downstreamiana bear the environmental brunt of the impact to their drinking water, collapse of their fishing stock which would collapse their fishing industry, etc., etc. thus effecting interstate and foreign commerce. Upstreamdom could effectively shut off the water supply to Downstreamiana and Downstreamiana would have no recourse. Their industry would collapse while Upstreamdom's industry and commerce thrived.

In the real world some states, PA being one, have very strong water management programs which almost makes the Federal program redundant (I said "almost.") Other states, Delaware being one, have almost non-existant water protection regulations for their inland waters. In these cases, having a minimum set of Federal requirements staves off the potential for industries that heavily finance their congressmen from completely trashing the water supply at the expense of the citizenry.

The long-winded point that I'm trying to make is this. I'm all for state's rights and limited government. However, there is, every once in a while, a situation that arises in which a centralized government manages a resource more effectively and efficiently than the sum of each individual states combined.

Or we can go with the absolute state's right argument and go back to having the Coyahoga River catch fire again.

If you enjoy fishing, hunting or have a non-municipal water supply (e.g., a well) you may want to consider contacting your reps and asking them to support this proposal. Just my $0.02. Feel free to disagree.