Private Property Rights at Stake

The Clean Water Restoration Act (S.787) is a dangerous infringement on private property rights. It would require farmers and ranchers to obtain permits for common, everyday operations, like driving a tractor near an irrigation ditch or grazing cattle near a mud hole.

By The National Cattlemen's Beef Association
April 2009

What is the Clean Water Restoration Act?

Currently, waters under the jurisdiction of the federal Clean Water Act (CWA) are defined as "navigable waters of the United States." Other waters are subject to regulation by individual states, which are better equipped to manage their own unique geographical concerns.

The Clean Water Restoration Act would remove the word "navigable" from the definition, thereby drastically expanding federal regulatory control over all wet areas. In addition, it would grant sweeping authority to regulate all “activities” affecting those waters.

This would amount to a massive land-grab by the government, not to mention an infringement on Americans’ constitutional rights to own and manage property without undue interference from the government.

Unprecedented Expansion of Federal Authority

The Clean Water Restoration Act for the first time would give the federal government broad power to regulate all waters, including:

* Ponds
* Small and intermittent streams
* Creek beds
* Drainage ditches
* Mud holes

All would be subject to federal regulation, including areas that only contain water during snow melts or the rainy season.

Reduces our Ability to Keep Important Waters Clean

Cattlemen don’t oppose efforts to keep our waters clean—in fact, we rely on clean sources of water to feed our animals and nurture our land.

The Clean Water Restoration Act would actually hamper the government’s ability to maintain clean waters. They are already struggling to handle a backlog of 15,000 to 20,000 permit requests.

At a time when our resources are already stretched thin, it is ridiculous to expand the government’s responsibility to mud holes and other wet areas with little to no environmental value to the public.

Senate Approves Bill to Redefine the Power of the Clean Water Act

The White Mountain Independent Online
July 28, 2009

Rep. Ann Kirkpatrick is continuing her "Defending Arizona Values" campaign by fighting against big government, as she announced her opposition to a bill (S.787: The Clean Water Restoration Act) greatly expanding federal water regulation.

The bill would remove a critical limitation on the reach of the Federal Water Pollution Control Act (commonly known as the Clean Water Act), allowing Washington to infringe on property use by farmers, ranchers and small businesses across the district, Kirkpatrick's office said in a press release.

The bill eliminates the Clean Water Act's critical requirement that regulated waterways be "navigable," which would give the government the ability to police everything from creeks that run through farms to standing water in ditches, the press release said, adding that federal officials and courts would be able to hold up activities that do not affect any actual rivers or lakes.

Kirkpatrick feels this bill's goals can be accomplished by enforcing laws already on the books...

"In our communities we support clean water running through our creeks, streams and springs, but we do not support federal regulation that would make things tougher for folks in Greater Arizona... This sort of legislation is exactly why folks in Greater Arizona feel Washington is out of touch with our values. We understand the need to protect our water supply better than any Washington bureaucrat, and we know how to take care of ourselves. I am working hard to make sure that more of our leaders at the national level understand that."

"The Arizona Farm Bureau thanks Rep. Kirkpatrick for opposing this legislation. We all support clean water, but this legislation puts all water under federal control," said Kevin Rogers, president of the Arizona Farm Bureau. "It could require me to get a federal permit to clean out an irrigation ditch on my farm. It goes too far."

Fed Moves to Control All the Water in the U.S.

By Nancy Matthis, American Daughter
May 10, 2009

A bill to “clarify the jurisdiction of the United States over waters of the United States” has been introduced in the Senate — S.787, the Clean Water Restoration Act. To read the text of this bill, we recommend using the Open Congress version, which allows you to post citizen comments. Alternatively, the Library of Congress copy is here.

Draconian interpretation of government control of U.S. waters in the earlier Clean Water Act had been somewhat limited by Supreme Court decisions.

The bill was introduced by Sen. Russell Feingold (D-WI). His remarks before the Senate on the occasion of introducing the bill are here. In his opening statement, Feingold made it clear that his purpose was to recover the Orwellian power that had been impaired by the judiciary by means of legislation:

Mr. President, today I am introducing legislation to restore Clean Water Act protections for the same waters that were covered by the Act prior to two recent divisive U.S. Supreme Court decisions.

Here is an enumeration of the waters included:

WATERS OF THE UNITED STATES - The term ‘waters of the United States’ means all waters subject to the ebb and flow of the tide, the territorial seas, and all interstate and intrastate waters and their tributaries, including lakes, rivers, streams (including intermittent streams), mudflats, sandflats, wetlands, sloughs, prairie potholes, wet meadows, playa lakes, natural ponds, and all impoundments of the foregoing, to the fullest extent that these waters, or activities affecting these waters, are subject to the legislative power of Congress under the Constitution.

Congress justifies its power to meddle in every aspect of American life through the “commerce clause” in the U.S. Constitution (Article 1, Section 8, Clause 3):

The Congress shall have Power … to regulate Commerce … among the several States….

The founding fathers only intended that Congress should provide a level playing field for interactions between and among the states. In stark contrast to this original intention stands the extension of “waters” to include “all … intrastate waters and their tributaries. The language of this bill enables Congress to come onto a private family farm and dictate what a farmer can do with his duck pond, or even with his cistern, which might conceivably be emptied into a ditch that might eventually flow into an intermittent stream!

In short, Congress has the power to prevent any citizen from relying on natural sources of drinking, cooking and bathing water, and water to sustain a home garden.

This legislation, combined with the Food Safety Modernization Act of 2009, means that every United States citizen may only eat and drink at the pleasure of the government. Of course, most “reasonable” folk will assume that, although the government has this stranglehold on our lives, it will not actually be used for such a purpose.

As German history shows, the extent of governmental social engineering depends on who is in power. Recall that Hitler was elected, and for a time, very popular.

The more fundamental question is whether we are willing to give government such power over us, in the naive expectation that a government proven incapable of protecting us against food-borne salmonella can provide us with adequate food and water safety.

Do we want to take responsibility for assuring our food and water safety ourselves, as informed consumers, or do we want to trust a failed bureaucracy to protect us, at the sacrifice of our fundamental freedom?

Oppose Federalization of All Waters of the U.S.

Public drinking water supplies, such as those in towns and cities, are governed by state and federal regulations designed to insure safe, clean water for consumers. Unlike those whose water quality is governed by the EPA’s Safe Drinking Water Act, rural residents must insure that their own water supplies are clean and safe. No regulations exist to govern the levels of contaminants allowable in private wells, nor are there requirements for testing to be done on a regular basis. - Water Testing for Private Well Owners

EPA regulates public water systems; it does not have the authority to regulate private drinking water wells. Approximately 15 percent of Americans rely on their own private drinking water supplies, and these supplies are not subject to EPA standards, although some state and local governments do set rules to protect users of these wells. Unlike public drinking water systems serving many people, they do not have experts regularly checking the water’s source and its quality before it is sent to the tap. These households must take special precautions to ensure the protection and maintenance of their drinking water supplies. - EPA, Private Drinking Water Wells

Pennsylvania Firearm Owners Association
June 25, 2009

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 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.

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.



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 virtually every water deposit (including private wells) in the nation, placing restrictions on landowners and, therefore, threatening both private property rights and states' rights.

Chilling New Law Gives U.S. Government Ownership of All Water in Nation

By Sorcha Faal
May 8, 2009

Russian Military Analysts are reporting in the Kremlin today that the United States is preparing to take over the ownership of all of the water within its borders away from its citizens and states and outlaw its use except as allowed by its Department of Homeland Security in a move these analysts say will have a ‘chilling effect’ upon these once free people.

According to these reports, the top elite military-political and corporate classes currently ruling the United States ordered the introduction into the US Senate this past week on April 2nd a new law called the Clean Water Restoration Act (S.787 IS) to amend the Federal Water Pollution Control Act (Clean Water Act):

• by striking 'navigable waters' each place it appears and inserting 'waters of the United States'
  
  
• and then adding:
  
  WATERS OF THE UNITED STATES - The term 'waters of the United States' means all waters subject to the ebb and flow of the tide, the territorial seas, and all interstate and intrastate waters and their tributaries, including lakes, rivers, streams (including intermittent streams), mudflats, sandflats, wetlands, sloughs, prairie potholes, wet meadows, playa lakes, natural ponds, and all impoundments of the foregoing, to the fullest extent that these waters, or activities affecting these waters, are subject to the legislative power of Congress under the Constitution.'

Russian legal experts in these reports state that no other Nation or Empire, in all of modern history, has sought to impose such a draconian law upon its peoples without it being a part of a much larger plan intended to subjugate them into total submission to the State's will.

Russian military experts, however, point out that in a World where the most precious commodity for human life is growing more scarce by the year, water must be looked at as a national, not private, resource subject to the control of the state for the benefit of all and not just those owning its legal rights...

To how the American people will react to this new grab for power by their government it is not known, other than to point out the fact that these people are growing more desperate by the day with new reports from the US showing that in the first three months of 2009 alone, they have bought enough guns to equip the armies of both China and India combined, and are continuing to ‘run into gun shows’ in panic buying of weapons and ammunition.

But, to the most nefarious motives behind this latest move by the US Government to take all of its nations waters away from its citizens, it can be best understood by the US representatives to this past March’s World Water Forum in Turkey where they were ordered by the Obama Administration to “remove language declaring water as a human right,” and which begs the common sense question:

If these Americans don’t believe water, which a human being will die within days if deprived of, is a human right, what exactly do they believe is one?

The answer to that question is, and most sadly, that the only rights remaining to the once great American people are those robbing them of their wealth for the benefit of their government, military, propaganda news media and corporate masters to whom they will now have to beg on hands and knees for even the merest sip of water to sustain their lives.

Their forefathers must be turning over in their graves in utter shame of the slaves they have truly become.

Not So Private Property?: Clean Water Restoration Act Raises Fears of Land Grab

Fox News
December 14, 2009

Upwards of 40 percent of all land in the United States is already under some form of government control or ownership -- 800 million to 900 million acres out of America's total 2.2 billion acres.

The government now appears poised to wield greater control over private property on a number of fronts. The battle over private property rights has intensified since 2005, when the Supreme Court ruled in the Kelo v. City of New London case that the government could take property from one group of private landowners and give it to another.

Outraged over that ruling and a series of recent efforts by government to wield greater control over private property, citizens are fighting back. Fox News' Shannon Bream takes a fair and balanced look at the controversy in a three-part series.

The Clean Water Restoration Act currently pending in the U.S. Senate could reach to control even a "seasonal puddle" on private property.

Eleven senators and 17 representatives in the U.S. House have sent a letter to Majority Leader Harry Reid and Speaker Nancy Pelosi blasting the measure as one of the boldest property grab attempts of all time.

This bill is described by opponents as a sweeping overhaul of the Clean Water Act that could threaten both physical land and jobs by wiping out some farmers entirely.

"Right now, the law says that the Environmental Protection Agency is in charge of all navigable water," said Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo., chairman of the Senate Western Caucus and an opponent of the bill.

"Well, this bill removes the word 'navigable,' so for ranchers and farmers who have mud puddles, prairie potholes -- anything from snow melting on their land -- all of that water will now come under the regulation of the Army Corps of Engineers and the Environmental Protection Agency," he said. Barrasso said the federal government's one-size-fits-all approach doesn't work in the west where the Rocky Mountain states have gone even further than Washington to protect land, water and the environment.

"The government wants control of all water -- that also means that they want control over all of our land including the private property rights of people from the Rocky Mountain west, the western caucus and the entire United States," he said.

But Jan Goldman-Carter of the National Wildlife Foundation said fears by ranchers and farmers are unfounded.

"That amended language is very clear that it preserves long standing exemptions for ongoing agricultural practices, forest roads. There are a number of very generous exemptions in there particularly for ranchers and farmers that I know have been worried about the effect of this legislation, but in fact those worries are largely unfounded," she said.

Goldman-Carter added that the United States has long regulated streams and other waterways that aren't 'navigable' by boat because to do otherwise would be to allow dumping into smaller water sources that lead to the larger ones used for drinking water and other purposes.

"I can't imagine anyone wanting to walk down to the stream and dump their oil or paint," she said. "Even if they did they're not going to be enforced against now and they never were, there simply isn't the ability to do that."

Aside from striking "navigable," the bill defines U.S. water as "all waters subject to the ebb and flow of the tide, the territorial seas and all interstate and intrastate waters and their tributaries, including lakes, rivers, streams (including intermittent streams), mudflats, sandflats, wetlands, sloughs, prairie potholes, wet meadows, playa lakes, natural ponds and all impoundments of the foregoing, to the fullest extent that these waters."

It adds that any "activities affecting these waters are subject to the legislative power of Congress under the Constitution."

The legislation, introduced by Wisconsin Democratic Sen Russ Feingold, has the support of 24 senators. It passed the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee in June but has not been scheduled for a floor vote, though it could be tacked onto other legislation as an amendment.

Click here to read the bill.

National Ocean Council

The new National Ocean Council’s goals are based on its 32-page report... The stated goals of the Council include regulating investments, collaborating with unidentified international agencies, controlling public access to oceans and “protecting” ecosystems. This means that commerce and trade will be controlled by the Council, the UN will gain power over American oceans and the Great Lakes through UN subagencies, public access will be limited and the Endangered Species Act will be unleashed with heavy regulations... The targeted areas for Endangered Species Act regulations are the the Great Lakes, the Gulf Coast, Chesapeake Bay, Puget Sound, South Florida and the San Francisco Bay (the Bay Delta is where the irrigation water for farmers was was cut off using the Endangered Species Act, causing food shortages, an increase in food imports and massive economic devastation). While this report does not clearly outline how the National Ocean Council’s schemes will be financed, regulatory permits for all activity on the water and mining (oil) leases will play a part, along with tax increases. The report does indicate that grants and assistance programs will be available so that state, local and tribal authorities will support the Council’s “efforts.” In other words, the Council will try to buy off the state and local governments to “collectively use” them for a base of support and influence.

By Cassandra Anderson, Infowars.com
July 28, 2010

Thirty states will be encroached upon by Obama’s Executive Order establishing the National Ocean Council for control over America’s oceans, coastlines and the Great Lakes. Under this new council, states’ coastal jurisdictions will be subject to the United Nations’ Law Of Sea Treaty (LOST) in this UN Agenda 21 program. America’a oceans and coastlines will be broken into 9 regions that include the North East, Mid-Atlantic, South Atlantic, the Gulf Coast, West Coast, the Great Lakes, Alaska, the Pacific Islands (including Hawaii) and the Caribbean.

Because of the decades of difficulty that the collectivists have had trying to ratify the Law Of Sea Treaty (LOST), Obama is sneaking it in through the back door, by way of this Executive Order establishing the Council. Because LOST is a treaty, Obama’s Executive Order is not Constitutional as treaty ratification requires 2/3 approval from the Senate. Michael Shaw said that the Agenda 21 Convention on Biodiversity treaty of 1992 failed to pass Congress so it was executed through soft law and administratively on local levels, and Obama’s Executive Order is a similar soft law tactic to enact the LOST treaty.

In fact, our Constitutional form of government is being completely destroyed because buried in the CLEAR Act (HR 3534) there is a provision for a new council to oversee the outer continental shelf- it appears that this Regional Outer Shelf Council will be part of the National Ocean Council. This means that if Congress makes the CLEAR Act into law, then the implementation of the UN Law Of Sea Treaty, as part of the National Ocean Council’s agenda, will be “ratified” in a convoluted and stealth manner, in full opposition to the Constitution and its intent.(1)

The excuse for this extreme action is because of the emergency in the Gulf of Mexico. Obama and Congress have always had the legal and military power to force BP Oil to take all necessary action to stop the gusher and clean the oil spew. While there is evidence that the problems in the Gulf have been a result of collusion and planned incompetence, it begs the question, why in world should America’s oceans and resources be controlled by Obama appointees? ...

THE SMOKING GUN:

Agenda 21 Sustainable Development is the overarching blueprint for depopulation and total control, and the National Ocean Council is clearly an Agenda 21 program:

The National Ocean Council is headed by John Holdren, an avowed eugenicist which is selective breeding through brutal means like forced abortion.

The National Ocean Council’s own report (Coastal and Marine Spatial Planning) incorporates a section of the 1992 Rio Declaration which is an original Agenda 21 document!

In fact, the report says that it will be guided by the Rio Declaration in cases “Where there are threats of serious or irreversible damage, lack of full scientific certainty shall not be used as a reason for postponing cost-effective measures to prevent environmental degradation.” This means that regulations will be imposed even if the science is not understood or if the science is based on global warming manipulated data.(6)

The 3 primary tools of Agenda 21’s phony environmentalism are global warming, water shortages and the Endangered Species Act; the National Ocean Council intends to exploit all of these tools to their full extent.

The National Ocean Council’s main objective is to sink American sovereignty through the United Nations Law Of Sea Treaty (LOST) with the intended result of domination by the UN over our coasts and the Great Lakes. LOST originated in the 1970s as a wealth redistribution plan to benefit Third World countries. LOST sets rules for commercial activity beneath the high seas and establishes new international bureaucracies and a tribunal to interpret and apply rules to sea activity. And LOST can proceed with those rules, even against US objections! LOST threatens to complicate deep sea mining. LOST sets a precedent that US rights are dependent upon the approval of international entities. LOST also extends to ocean flowing rivers. (7)

REGIONALISM:

Michael Shaw pointed out that non-elected councils are increasingly expanding their jurisdiction through air quality boards, water quality boards, sewer systems, transportation districts, metropolitan planning, etc. to gain control over resources. Often, large corporations and financial interests form Public- Private Partnerships with the government within these councils.

Breaking areas into regions and placing authority with non-elected councils is a Communist trick used to hijack resources, thereby usurping local and state power by re-zoning the areas that do have Constitutional authority. Appointed bureaucrats are untouchable because their jobs are not dependent upon serving the voting population. And they are usually inaccessible to the public and do not have to face those who are affected by their “insider” decisions. When state and local governments become corrupt, the public is able to confront them eye to eye, but distant bureaucrats can avoid accountability. Regionalism is used as a psychological tactic to intimidate state legislatures into creating the system for a new political and economic order. (8)

Obama’s Executive Order that has created the 9 new regions amounts to re-zoning, and his appointed bureaucrats are answerable only to him. In David Horton’s testimony in 1978 on regionalism, he said that the State of Indiana made this declaration, “Neither the states nor Congress have ever granted authority to any branch or agency of the federal government to exercise regional control over the states.” Horton further stated that Congress holds all legislative power that is granted in the Constitution, as opposed to Executive Orders that are not legislative. Therefore, Obama’s Executive Order for re-zoning and appointing a governing body to usurp state and local power is Constitutionally invalid. (9)

The public must become aware of state sovereignty and the Tenth Amendment to demand that state and local governments assert these Constitutional laws and principles.

COASTAL AND MARINE SPATIAL PLANNING REPORT:

This is a general overview of the new National Ocean Council’s goals based on its 32-page report that uses indirect language and acronyms in order to confuse the public and local lawmakers. Depopulation advocates, globalists and collectivists, like John Holdren, faced opposition a few decades ago when they clearly expressed their objectives, so now documents are written in complicated and clouded language to fool those they wish to control. (10)

This report states that the Council’s jurisdiction will extend from the continental shelf to the coast AND additional inland areas will be involved. The National Ocean Council identifies “partners” as members of each regional planning body that will include federal, state, local and tribal authorities, with a top-down hierarchy of control.

The intentions of the Council are stated on page 8 of the report that include implementing LOST and other international treaties. The report also states that the Council’s plans shall be implemented by Executive Orders, in addition to federal and state laws. This section mentions ‘global climate change’ which is a new term substituted for ‘man made global warming’ after manipulated data and lies were exposed in numerous global warming scandals. ‘Climate change’ is blamed for sea level rise and acidification of oceans; evidence exists that these are global warming deceptions. (11)

The stated goals of the Council include regulating investments, collaborating with unidentified international agencies, controlling public access to oceans and “protecting” ecosystems. This means that commerce and trade will be controlled by the Council, the UN will gain power over American oceans and the Great Lakes through UN subagencies, public access will be limited and the Endangered Species Act will be unleashed, with heavy regulations. Incidentally, the Endangered Species Act is based on 5 international treaties. It has never had a successful result: of the 60 species that have been de-listed, not a single species was saved as a result of any restrictions stemming from the Endangered Species Act! (12)

The targeted areas for Endangered Species Act regulations are the the Great Lakes, the Gulf Coast, Chesapeake Bay, Puget Sound, South Florida and the San Francisco Bay (the Bay Delta is where the irrigation water for farmers was was cut off using the Endangered Species Act, causing food shortages, an increase in food imports and massive economic devastation).

While this report does not clearly outline how the National Ocean Council’s schemes will be financed, regulatory permits for all activity on the water and mining (oil) leases will play a part, along with tax increases. The report does indicate that grants and assistance programs will be available so that state, local and tribal authorities will support the Council’s “efforts”. In other words, the Council will try to buy off the state and local governments to “collectively use” them for a base of support and influence.(pg. 28) Strings are always attached to federal money. The federal government and the Council are reliant on state and local governments for implementation through state and local legal authority, which means that state and local authorities hold the power to implement or refuse the Council’s directives, especially under the Tenth Amendment.

However, the report does state that disputes will be settled by consensus, if consensus fails, then the decisions will ultimately be made by the President. He is Commander in Chief of the Navy and has the power of the military behind him. Further, the report indicates that legislative changes and more Executive Orders may be necessary to achieve control.

An important point is made on page 5, which states, “Strong partnerships among Federal, State, tribal and local authorities, and regional governance structures would be essential to a truly forward-looking, comprehensive CMSP effort.” This means that the states, local governments and tribes have power. Our collectivist government needs the consent of the state, local and tribal authorities, to implement this scheme, otherwise, the feds wouldn’t bother to include these Constitutional authorities. If the state, local and tribal authorities are aware of, and willing to act on their Constitutional authority, then they can limit this federal power grab through the Tenth Amendment.

The report further states that signing onto the Council’s plan would be an “express commitment by the partners to act in accordance with the plan…” (pg. 20) Therefore, it is imperative that all of the states be aware of the Council’s intended usurpation and carefully protect their Constitutional jurisdictions and sovereignty. There are 30 states that will be affected by this new council. (pg. 12)

The Council’s strategy plan will go into effect immediately, fully developing Agenda 21 objectives and undue UN influence within 5 years. Interestingly, one article said that if state, local and tribal authorities choose not to participate in in writing the plans, the plans would be written without them. Therefore, it bears repeating that state and local governments must protect their Constitutional authority when dealing with the Council. The Constitutional authority that states and local governments have can only be taken if the power is given away.

SAVING OUR COUNTRY:

If your freedom is important to you, the most effective action that you can take is to e-mail this article and Michael Shaw’s “Understanding Agenda 21 Sustainable Development” booklet to all of your State Legislators, County Commissioners/ Superintendents and City Council members.

Here is the the link for the Agenda 21 downloadable booklet:

http://www.freedomadvocates.org/option,com_docman/task,doc_download/gid,127/Itemid,81/

Tell all of your friends, co-workers and neighbors about Agenda 21 Sustainable Development and how it is destroying our country. The National Ocean Council is detrimental on so many levels and the time to act is now. If state and local officials refuse to stand up against this federal incursion, they must be thrown out of office in favor of representatives who support the Constitution and the Tenth Amendment.

For more information about local action, visit www.FreedomAdvocates.org.

Visit www.MorphCity.com for a special video presentation on July 30th for an interview with a local official who upheld the Constitution against encroachment by the federal government.