This month, the Supreme Court will review the Sacketts’ four-year-long effort to build on land that the EPA says contains environmentally sensitive wetlands. A decision in the couple’s favor could curtail the EPA’s authority and mean a fundamental change in the way the agency enforces the Clean Water Act. Even before the court takes up the case, the couple have become a favored cause for developers, corporations, utilities, libertarians and conservative members of Congress, who condemn what one ally told the court is the EPA’s “abominable bureaucratic abuse.” It is a familiar spot for the agency, which has come under withering criticism in the political arena. Republican presidential contenders routinely denounce the EPA’s actions and regulations as “job-killers,” while GOP House members have voted to ban the agency from regulating greenhouse gases and tried to cut its enforcement budget. The issue before the justices is narrow: whether the Sacketts can go to court to challenge the EPA’s initial findings that their lot contains wetlands. But their plight of not being able to develop their land while other homes are built hundreds of feet away and the threat of millions of dollars in fines have provided the EPA’s opponents with a compelling story line...more
So who is the victim here? Reading this Washington Post story you'd think it was the EPA. Their authority would be "curtailed" if the Sacketts win, the agency has been "condemned" and come under "withering criticism", there's a "ban" on some of their reg's and their opponents have a "compelling story line."
Yes sir, the EPA is the victim, not the couple in Idaho who want to build a home.
Issues of concern to people who live in the west: property rights, water rights, endangered species, livestock grazing, energy production, wilderness and western agriculture. Plus a few items on western history, western literature and the sport of rodeo... Frank DuBois served as the NM Secretary of Agriculture from 1988 to 2003. DuBois is a former legislative assistant to a U.S. Senator, a Deputy Assistant Secretary of Interior, and is the founder of the DuBois Rodeo Scholarship.
Wednesday, January 04, 2012
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2 comments:
Tell your congressman to stop funding the EPA!!
Its like you read my mind! You appear to know so much about this, like you wrote the book in it or something. I think that you could do with some pics to drive the message home a little bit, but other than that, this is great blog. A great read. I will certainly be back.
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