Government over stepping its bounds has been of interest to me for many years. I take notice when something comes past that is especially egregious. We talk about how long we’ve been fighting for our rights, this is the story of a couple that has been fighting the EPA since 2004.
Some of this is from memory, some is prompted by some of the cited sources in this case.
In 2004, the Sacketts purchased a 1/2 acre of land near Priest Lake in Idaho. This was their dream property, they were going to build their dream home there. Thier property was set back from the lake, with a road between them and the lake.
They got all the required permits and started construction. Part of that was site preparation. This included flinging in some areas that got boggy when it rained. There was no running water from their property to the lake. There was no standing water on their property.
They got big puddles when it rained.
Along came the EPA, who told them that they needed to get a permit from the EPA because they were erasing a federally protected wetland
—Oliver Milman, US supreme court shrinks clean water protections in ruling siding with Idaho couple, The Guardian (May 2023). Since they had not gotten a permit before starting the site preparation, the EPA found them in violation.
They were told to put the property back the way it was. If they did not, then they would be fined something like $10,000 per day. When they attempted to get a hearing to challenge the ruling, they were told “yes, but if you are found in violation, you will be held liable for the $10,000 per day fine.”
In other words, to challenge the ruling, the Sacketts would need to be prepared to pay all the outstanding fines.
They decided to fight this. The Pacific Legal Foundation took up their case.
Earlier this week, the Supreme Court found in their favor.
More coming tomorrow now that I have a better idea of why my citation engine is/was failing.
Meanwhile, feel free to read the article that irritated me enough to start another of my short articles on legal stuff:
Interesting headlines. Very interesting. Telling, in fact.
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Personally, I tend to be inclined to celebrate when “the little guy” wins over a big faceless agency; and I am also increasingly skeptical at every attempt the government makes to impose more regulations. Once I started to learn a little about guns, and saw firsthand how blind and stupidly ignorant, if not outright hostile, many politicians and bureaucrats are on that subject, it made me start to question their intent and process on other things as well.
I find it interesting the EPA got involved in 2004. Not because they were not interested in doing so, but that predated the 0bama era expansion of “Waters of the US” definition to include everything down to a wet kitchen sponge.
Then again, maybe it was this situation that prompted that expansion.