Brian4Liberty
06-24-2014, 04:38 PM
The EPA and the Forest Service are attempting to take water rights from States via bureaucratic executive fiat.
Oversight Hearing on “New Federal Schemes to Soak Up Water Authority: Impacts on States, Water Users, Recreation, and Jobs”
The Subcommittee meets today in response to urgent protests made by a wide range of state and local governments, farmers, ranchers, public land users and private land owners in response to threatened action by the EPA and the Forest Service to vastly expand their authority over water use at the expense of long established state jurisdictions, rights and prerogatives and in direct violation of the constitutional separation of powers.
...
Now, the Forest Service threatens, through executive fiat, to assert management control over “surface and groundwater resources that are hydraulically interconnected, and (to) consider them interconnected in all planning and evaluation activities.” It also asserts federal supremacy over state water rights not only on National Forest Service land, but on adjacent lands that could conceivably affect federal lands.
The unconstitutional and illegal assertion of such authority would impose federal riparian rights in direct violation of current federal law. It overturns western state doctrines of prior appropriations that have guided water policy in those states for more than 150 years. As we will hear, the economic impact of this action is devastating to those states.
Meanwhile, the EPA now threatens, again through executive fiat, to vastly increase its jurisdiction over virtually ALL water in the United States. The Clean Water Act provided EPA jurisdiction over navigable waters. In 2010, then-Congressman Oberstar proposed legislation to delete the term “navigable waters” to vastly re-define “waters of the United States.” The Democratic majority in that Congress declined even to hear the bill. Under a Constitution that gives Congress exclusive authority to legislate, the EPA now threatens to change the law itself to vastly increase its power and jurisdiction.
By this act, the EPA is seizing control over virtually every body of water in the United States, including many agricultural and drainage ditches, ornamental lakes, conduits used for water recycling, and small creeks and streams, including those that exist only during heavy run-offs.
...
These proposals must be withdrawn and there is bipartisan support to do just that. Many Democrats have joined Republicans to urge this Administration to withdraw the “Waters of the U.S.” proposal. Chairman Hastings and many members of the Natural Resources committee and the House and Senate Western Caucus are sending a letter today urging the Agriculture Secretary to withdraw his Forest Service Groundwater Directive.
...
I believe that these proposals open a new chapter in executive agencies running amock – seizing powers by their own edicts that have been specifically denied them by the legislation that created them in the first place. They fundamentally alter the relationship between the legislative and executive branches and the relationship between the states and the federal government – all in a manner wholly antithetical to the structure and construct of our system of checks and balances and of the sworn duty of every official to abide by the laws and the Constitution.
...
More:
http://mcclintock.house.gov/2014/06/oversight-hearing-on-new-federal-schemes-to-soak-up-water-authority-impacts-on-states-water-users-re.shtml
Oversight Hearing on “New Federal Schemes to Soak Up Water Authority: Impacts on States, Water Users, Recreation, and Jobs”
The Subcommittee meets today in response to urgent protests made by a wide range of state and local governments, farmers, ranchers, public land users and private land owners in response to threatened action by the EPA and the Forest Service to vastly expand their authority over water use at the expense of long established state jurisdictions, rights and prerogatives and in direct violation of the constitutional separation of powers.
...
Now, the Forest Service threatens, through executive fiat, to assert management control over “surface and groundwater resources that are hydraulically interconnected, and (to) consider them interconnected in all planning and evaluation activities.” It also asserts federal supremacy over state water rights not only on National Forest Service land, but on adjacent lands that could conceivably affect federal lands.
The unconstitutional and illegal assertion of such authority would impose federal riparian rights in direct violation of current federal law. It overturns western state doctrines of prior appropriations that have guided water policy in those states for more than 150 years. As we will hear, the economic impact of this action is devastating to those states.
Meanwhile, the EPA now threatens, again through executive fiat, to vastly increase its jurisdiction over virtually ALL water in the United States. The Clean Water Act provided EPA jurisdiction over navigable waters. In 2010, then-Congressman Oberstar proposed legislation to delete the term “navigable waters” to vastly re-define “waters of the United States.” The Democratic majority in that Congress declined even to hear the bill. Under a Constitution that gives Congress exclusive authority to legislate, the EPA now threatens to change the law itself to vastly increase its power and jurisdiction.
By this act, the EPA is seizing control over virtually every body of water in the United States, including many agricultural and drainage ditches, ornamental lakes, conduits used for water recycling, and small creeks and streams, including those that exist only during heavy run-offs.
...
These proposals must be withdrawn and there is bipartisan support to do just that. Many Democrats have joined Republicans to urge this Administration to withdraw the “Waters of the U.S.” proposal. Chairman Hastings and many members of the Natural Resources committee and the House and Senate Western Caucus are sending a letter today urging the Agriculture Secretary to withdraw his Forest Service Groundwater Directive.
...
I believe that these proposals open a new chapter in executive agencies running amock – seizing powers by their own edicts that have been specifically denied them by the legislation that created them in the first place. They fundamentally alter the relationship between the legislative and executive branches and the relationship between the states and the federal government – all in a manner wholly antithetical to the structure and construct of our system of checks and balances and of the sworn duty of every official to abide by the laws and the Constitution.
...
More:
http://mcclintock.house.gov/2014/06/oversight-hearing-on-new-federal-schemes-to-soak-up-water-authority-impacts-on-states-water-users-re.shtml