Sunday, May 20, 2012
Note: This column was coauthored by the ACRU Legal Team.
Just in case anyone needs any more surprises – liberal
hypocrisy has again been unearthed in – of all places – Washington D.C.!
Last August, the Army Corps of Engineers denied the
District of Columbia a permit as part of a $1.5- billion Southwest Waterfront
redevelopment project to begin constructing high-rise, luxury townhouses, a
yacht club and other buildings on piers in and on the Washington Channel – a
congressionally-designated navigable water of the United States.
The Corps stated that under existing law, including the
Clean Water Act (CWA), it was required “to regulate construction activities and
discharges of dredged and/or fill material in navigable waters.”
Based on its CWA concerns and adverse impact on marine
navigation, the Corps stated that: “At this time, the Corps does not have the
administrative authority to approve the project as proposed without specific
Congressional action to dissolve the federal interest.”
Not to fear, Senate Committee Chairman Joseph Lieberman
(I-Conn.) quickly sailed to D.C.’s rescue. He reported H.R. 2297 (a bill
originally sponsored by Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton [D-D.C.] in the House) out
of his committee and amended it on the Senate floor without objection to remove
the Corps’ authority over the Washington Channel. Like a shot, the Senate then
passed the bill by voice vote and sent it back to the House as amended to
rescue D.C.’s $1.5-billion project.
Interestingly, all of this occurred quietly on a single
day, March 29, 2012 – just eight days after the Supreme Court released its
opinion in Sackett v. EPA, a case epitomizing arrogant exertion of police power
by federal bureaucrats against innocent American citizens. Here's what happened
to the Sacketts – in contrast to how Congress is treating D.C.
Several years ago, Michael and Chantell Sackett purchased
a half-acre lot in a built-out residential development near Priest Lake, Idaho
to build a three-bedroom retirement home. Local authorities had zoned their lot
for residential construction and provided a sewer hookup.
Having obtained all required local building permits, the
Sacketts in the spring of 2007 employed contractors who began moving earth and
putting down gravel to prepare the site. However, the Sacketts quickly received
a Compliance Order from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) demanding
that they stop construction. The EPA ruled, without prior notice,that the
homebuilding site was a wetland and that the Sacketts violated section 402 of
the Clean Water Act (CWA) by illegally dumping “fill materials” into wetlands
under the EPA’s jurisdiction.
Somehow, the EPA had found that moving earth around in a
residential neighborhood on dry land remote from any “navigable waters” involved
“the discharge of a pollutant” (i.e. clean fill dirt and gravel) into the
“navigable waters” of the United States.
It got worse. The Sacketts soon discovered that there was
nowhere they could go to challenge the EPA’s Compliance Order without incurring
costs and delays suited to a major industrial enterprise, or inviting
bankrupting fines and even criminal penalties of up to $75,000 a day.
Not only did the EPA demand that the Sacketts immediately
cease construction of their home, but that they finance costly restoration
work; remove all fill material, replant, and do anything else required to
restore the property to its prior condition. After that, they would have to
endure a three-year monitoring period during which they had to leave their
residential land entirely untouched.
The Sacketts first sought a hearing before the EPA, but
the agency ignored them. The couple then filed suit in federal court – only to
have the District Court grant the EPA’s motion to dismiss the case. The
Sacketts ultimately had to take their case all the way to the U.S. Supreme
Court. There, they won when the Supreme Court ruled on March 21 that they were
entitled to at least challenge the EPA’s Compliance Order by returning to the
federal District Court in Idaho, where they can point out that building a home
on dry land in a built-out residential subdivision does not involve any
discharge into the navigable waters of the United States.
Back in D.C., the EPA has the authority to apply the same
aggressive CWA enforcement powers against the $1.5-billion waterfront
development project, but it has not raised a whimper even though that project
involves building townhouses, not near or beside, but actually out over
Congressionally-designated navigable waters. D.C.’s government also raises
millions of dollars each year by charging shoppers five cents for every plastic
shopping bag -- ostensibly to keep the bags from entering nearby rivers and
waters, including the Washington Channel itself.
So, on the one hand, we have D.C. wanting to build luxury
high-rise residences, a yacht club and multi-purpose buildings on piers out
over the waters of an 80-year-old congressionally authorized Federal Navigation
Project and the U.S. Congress speeds to the rescue to strip the Army Corps of
Engineers of its authority to delay the project – despite the real potential
for water pollution.
On the other hand, when average private citizens such as
the Sacketts want to build a modest, single-family house on dry land that does
not border navigable waters, they have to go all the way to the Supreme Court
to claim their right as Americans to have their day in court just to challenge
the EPA’s absurd contention that their homebuilding effort will pollute the
navigable waters of the United States.
Congress may have wised up last week when it pulled this
D.C. rescue bill from the Suspension Calendar, which is used to pass
“non-controversial” legislation. Unfortunately, it was not pulled because of
the hypocrisy in how the federal government enforces the Clean Water Act
against Americans trying to build a family home compared to the government’s
treatment of large corporations and cities trying to build luxury high-rise
townhouse on piers actually out over the water, but because Congress is
concerned that the bill as modified by the Senate may constitute an “earmark”
for D.C. in violation of the House’s ban on earmarks.
Earmark or not, doesn’t every American who has been or
will be bullied by the EPA and the federal government as the Sacketts have been
deserve to have Congress ride to their rescue as well?
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