The Overreaching EPA

Also see Freedom Works Blog by Jon Gabriel

by

Dave Harbour 

Our hats are off to this perceptive, Fairbanks News-Miner opinion: An important policy call awaits Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Gina McCarthy, who just visited Alaska. Will she use a section of the federal Clean Water Act to pre-empt any further consideration of the Pebble mine?

Doing so would be an abuse of a questionable authority using incomplete information.

Last month and for some time we have lamented erosion of the rule of law in the United States that accompanies "Federal Overreaching Jurisdiction" (Review here).  

Nowhere is federal overreach better illustrated than with the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) latest stunt.  It has undertaken an process to determine whether or not to block a mining project on Alaska state lands before the project has even filed for a permit.  

Regardless of whether one supports or opposes that particular project, all of us should be supporting 'due process'–the constitutional right for citizens to petition their government.  In the case of a natural resources project, an applicant will file a permit and various regulatory agencies will make decisions on the application based on facts established in a legal record.  Even after a decision is rendered, an unhappy party may still petition the agency for reconsideration and then go on to challenge the regulatory outcome in state or federal courts.

Our fear is that if the EPA is allowed to preemptively block a project before a citizen — on his/her own or leased land — can even file for a permit, the EPA will have set a precedent for blocking any construction project it simply does not like.

The flimsiest of subjective excuses associated with the Endangered Species Act, Clean Water Act or Clean Air Act will provide cover for the EPA assault on jobs, the economy and our way of life.  Fairness and 'due process' will be relics of a formerly free country.

Our national security, which depends on a strong defense and balance of payments position, is already perilously weakened by this Administration.  With federal agencies blocking or stalling natural resource and construction efforts around the country, the end of freedom is palpable.

Was Paul Revere overreacting when he rode through the countryside shouting, "The British are coming".  

No.  The severity of Revere's situation justified severe action.  The severity of this present, internal assault on America's freedom would have Revere and his colleagues turning in their graves.

Ultimately, such internal assaults on freedom will cause loyal Americans serving in uniform to wonder what kind of America they are expected to defend with blood and ultimate sacrifice.

The recognition of that severity now justifies Americans everywhere to warn their fellow citizens, "Wake up!  We're under attack from enemies within!"