THE POWERS NOT DELAGATED TO THE UNITED STATES …

 

Every day we see multiple examples of the Federal Government ignoring the constitutional limitations on its authority. The Constitution grants certain authorities to the Federal Government and then in the precise wording of the tenth amendment restricts it from interfering in all other matters.

“The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.”

Today’s example taken from the headlines concerns a private property owner in Wyoming who wanted to build a “stock pond” on his own land. States have administered water rights and protected the rights of downstream citizens for centuries in this country. Water is and has always been a key to our prosperity and disputes over access to it are common. The Wyoming property owner is just an average guy who works as a welder to earn a living for his family of five. He was aware of the need to obtain a valid permit for his stock pond before building it and he worked with his state and was granted the permit. So far so good, Andy Johnson built his pond and stocked it with brook and brown trout. The problems for Johnson started when the federal government in the form of the EPA asserted that he had violated the “clean water act” by building a dam on a stream without a permit from the Army Corps of Engineers. It is important to note here that stock ponds are exempt from the “clean water act”. The EPA gave Johnson 30 days to hire a consultant to plan the restoration of the site and 60 days to have the work completed or face $75,000 / day fines. I do not wish to get into a discussion about the merits of the stock pond Johnson built to attract wildlife to his property, personally I think it is wonderful but my opinion on the subject and that of the federal government do not count. States administer water rights and have been doing so for far longer than the EPA has existed.

On the one hand we see a federal government agency imposing its authority in an extra-constitutional way violating the tenth amendment. On the other hand we have an agency extending the federal law to condemn a project which is specifically exempt from the law. In what may be the single most important and enlightening part of this example of government overreach, we now learn that the EPA has proposed a whole new set of rule changes to how it can administer the “clean water act”. The proposed changes would give the EPA authority over ponds, lakes, wetlands and any stream, natural or manmade, that would have an effect on downstream navigable waters on both public and private property. For the record people, that definition includes every drop of water that falls on your property or runs over or under it. The inclusion of the words “effect on downstream navigable waters” is a key inclusion because all water eventually gets to a navigable body of water downstream. The EPA is making a monumental power grab and Johnsons case is just one of the first skirmishes. Apartment dwellers in the big cities will not likely be bothered by the changes but the farmers who grow their food will.

The federal leviathan grows every day and little by little we become its serfs. I live in a state where the state government is trying to assert that it has the right to meter the water coming out of private wells and charge landowners for the water. The whole stinking concept of the metering of wells is a topic for another post but I will note here that at least it is the state government doing it and we have a chance to fight the tyranny at our state government level. Once the federal government grabs a hold of a citizens private property rights there is virtually no chance for redress of grievances.