January 10, 2012

The EPA needs to be stopped. Nixon gave us this agency but Obama is giving them WAY TOO much power.

Constitutional right of due process at stake in EPA case

By: Examiner Editorial | 01/09/12 8:05 PM

Oral arguments were heard Monday by the U.S. Supreme Court in Sackett v. Environmental Protection Agency, a potentially landmark case. The justices will determine whether the bureaucratic convenience of a federal agency supercedes due process, the fundamental individual liberty guaranteed to every American citizen by the Constitution. The case presents such a clear-cut choice about what it means to be an American that it will be a deadly blow to political liberty if the justices decide for the bureaucrats against individual Americans.

Here are the basic facts of the case, as described in The Washington Examiner's Jan. 8 Sunday Reflection by Mark Hyman: "In 2005, Chantell and Michael Sackett purchased less than two-thirds of an acre of land near Priest Lake in northern Idaho for the modest sum of $23,000. They were nearby small-business owners and wanted to become homeowners. They planned to build a three-bedroom home. The property was located in a platted residential subdivision with water and sewer hookups and was bordered on either side by existing homes. There were community roads in both the front and back of the property.

"The couple was savvy enough to have conducted regulatory due diligence before they purchased the land. The previous owner informed them he had consulted the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers regarding any building restrictions. There were none. After buying the property, the Sacketts applied for and received all of the pertinent local permits to build a residential dwelling as local zoning ordinances permit. In the spring of 2007, they began preparing the lot for construction."

So far, so good, right? Wrong. Somebody at the EPA decided, incorrectly, that the Sacketts' private property was actually a wetland, so only the federal agency could decide what, if anything, would ever be done on the lot. The bureaucrats then ordered the Sacketts to remove foundation work that had been completed, plus much more. The EPA's decree, according to Hyman, directed the Sacketts "to plant new vegetation and specified what to plant ('native scrub-shrub, broad-leaved deciduous wetlands plants and seeded with native herbaceous plants') and how to plant ('approximately 10 feet apart'). Additionally, they were ordered to fence the property, monitor plant growth for three growing seasons and to permit unfettered access to the property by EPA agents."

Through it all, the EPA fined the Sacketts $37,500 daily for noncompliance with its order (the fines totaled nearly $40 million as the case was argued Monday). Worst of all, EPA claimed in federal district and appellate courts that respecting the couple's due process rights by granting them judicial review of the order would be a "disservice" to the agency.

If the court fails to stop EPA in its tracks for flagrantly violating the Constitution, it will free federal agencies to proceed at will to erect "a multitude of new offices" and send "hither swarms of officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance." The last time a government tried to do that to us, we had a revolution.