Time to Reign-in the Federal Bureaucracy; EPA Overreach a Prime Example

The EPA, like most federal agencies in accordance with the Constitution, is supposed to concern itself with national and/or interstate issues.   But the EPA is intruding into the smallest local and private property issues -- with the most ridiculous of pretenses.   The worst examples include the EPA intruding itself into issues such as a home-made pond on an individual's property!  If that's not bad enough, they threaten these people with ruinous fines and deny administrative remedies.  The EPA has strayed far away from it's Constitutional role when they step down hard on small private property owners well outside any reasonable interpretation of the laws.

Read what happened to Andy Johnson, a welder in Wyoming and his family.  From Charles Hurt at the Washington Times:

He and his wife built a small pond on their rural property using the stream flowing through it. They stocked the pond with trout so that their three small children could fish. The pond is an oasis for wildlife such as ducks and geese passing through.

It is precisely the sort of industriousness that reasonable people and zealous stewards of the environment applaud. But the EPA is made up of neither reasonable people nor zealous stewards of the environment. 

They are crazed hypocrites greedy for unchecked power and hellbent on destroying the passions that connect people to the nature surrounding them. Like the Food and Drug Administration in the movie “Dallas Buyers Club,” the EPA has become the face of absolute power in the hands of blind government bureaucrats.

That is why the faceless henchmen of the EPA have come after Mr. Johnson and his family, charging them with violating federal law and threatening to bankrupt them. These EPA thugs ordered the Johnson's to destroy the pond they built and threatened to fine them $75,000 a day for being in violation of the Clean Water Act.

This alone is enough to choke any freedom-loving American and cause tremors for anyone concerned with tyranny of a sprawling, unanswerable federal government. But what makes this all so much worse is the utter hypocrisy of the EPA and its legion of power-drunk bureaucrats.

The lack of true Congressional oversight, and the continual gov't expansion permitted by unlimited gov't spending has resulted in a huge EPA bureaucratic monstrosity stepping on even the smallest people in the most local properties and communities!!  It's outrageous!  It's totally unconstitutional!

Individual rights are being shattered by the most stupid and outrageous claims.  Clearly the EPA's power has now run amok.  

Remember The Sacketts

This is not the first case of the EPA running roughshod and irrationally over individuals.  Remember the case of the Sacketts?   This Idaho couple bought some land worth $25K near a lake but in a developed housing area with sewer lines and other homes.  The EPA arbitrarily said that they violated "wetland" restrictions by building a home on THEIR OWN lot without an EPA permit!   After hugely expensive litigation, the US Supreme Court ruled in favor of the Sacketts that the EPA cannot arbitrarily impose HUGE fines of $75,000 per day without the homeowner being allowed to fight the action in court. The US Supreme Court also said that the EPA probably acted well outside of the Clean Water law's mandate.

Even now, it's still just the beginning for the Sacketts as they still face litigation against the all-powerful, unchecked and over-funded Federal bureaucracy.  How can any individual fight a Federal government that has unlimited financial and other resources that dwarf individual's?

More Examples Of EPA Overreach

The water issue is not the only are where the EPA is seriously out of control.  In my blogs Eco-Imperialism Thriving in Obama Administration and Reverse EPA's Carbon Regulation Power Grab and EPA's Carbon Regulation Power Grab all point to job-killing, counter-productive, unconstitutional and harmful administration action.  State's and Individual's Constitutional rights are being tossed aside with disregard.

Remember that Obama said that he was going to kill the coal business??  He's largely succeeded without any real challeng or checks and balances.  How can one man be allowed such power to kill those jobs and even kill an entire industry even though that industry is vital to the energy security of America??   How can one man hinder oil and gas development on US offshore land?   How can one man be allowed to hinder the nearly complete Keystone pipeline system?   Didn't we have a fight against the arbitrary rule of one man, King George III,  when we won the American Revolution?

We need a new American Revolution by scaling back the all-powerful Federal bureaucracy and blunting the power grabs at the Presidential and Agency levels.