Owners of land taken over by feds getting day in court

The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to reconsider a determination by the federal Environmental Protection Agency that it controls what happens on a privately owned parcel of residential land in Idaho and the landowners must do its bidding. The EPA had warned the owners, Mike and Chantell Sackett, they could be fined millions of dollars if they disobeyed the federal officials' instructions to undo the preliminary construction work they had begun on what was supposed to be their dream house. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled they would have to go through a $200,000 government application process even to get a judicial review of the decision. But that changed when the high court notified the Pacific Legal Foundation, an organization working on behalf of the Sackett family, that it had accepted the dispute for review. "The decision to take the case and review an anti-property rights ruling by the 9th Circuit should be encouraging for all property owners, all across the country," said Damien Schiff, senior staff attorney with Pacific Legal. "With this case, the Supreme Court confronts important issues for property rights and due process. When the government seizes control of your land, and you disagree with the justification, shouldn't you be allowed your day in court? Just as important, should EPA be a law unto itself, without meaningful accountability to the courts and the Constitution?" he said...more

The Petition to the Supreme Court is here and a video made in Nov. of last year is below.