Hi all,
This has came up in a couple threads:
The feds want to control your pond! August 8, 2002 by Cecil Baird
Congress Moves to Sieze Control of all US Waters October 29, 2007 by SnapperHead
I just received the following e-mail which thinks that HR 2421 might get shoved through in the coming session after labor day.
Copy of e-mail Some pieces of the e-mail;
Stop HR 2421, The Clean Water Restoration Act. HR 2421 is really a massive
Federal land and watershed power grab. It must be stopped. It will use
"wetlands," the Corps of Engineers and EPA to take control over every farm,
ranch, and piece of private property with any water on it or even if you
only engage in activities that might affect water.
It expands the authority of the Federal government under the Federal Water
Pollution Control Act of 1972 (Clean Water Act) to include all waters of the
U.S. and activities affecting these waters. It drops the limitation of the
original bill to just Navigable waters. It will give the Corps of Engineers
and EPA control over your land. You'll get tied up in a nightmare of red
tape and bureaucracy.
Help stop the Senate Omnibus Land Bill, S 3213 that is the giant new Omnibus
Public Land Management Act of 2008. It includes the BLM National Landscape
Conservation System (NLCS), new Wilderness areas, all BLM National Monuments
and many other Federal lands and parks bills.
Also;
The full Senate will vote after Labor Day on S 3213 (new Omnibus Federal
Lands Bill), the giant Public Land Management Act of 2008 which includes the
BLM National Landscape Conservation System (NLCS), numerous new Wilderness
areas and 90 other Federal lands and park bills put together as one giant
omnibus bill.
Think of it as the Omnibus Federal lands, BLM NLCS and Wilderness Bill, S
3213 or just Senate Omnibus Federal Lands Bill.
You must attend any meetings your Senators hold in the state and make it
clear that passing 90 bills in one Omnibus Public Lands Bill (S 3213) is not
the way to do business. Insist that they read each bill and that each bill
should be voted on separately.
The NLCS was created in 2000 by Bruce Babbitt. The NLCS has stayed quietly
in the weeds for eight years with advocates waiting until they could sneak
it through Congress and make it permanent.
The NLCS will lay a preservationist National Park type regulatory overlay
over 26,000,000 acres of BLM land including many National Monuments, Wild
and Scenic Rivers, Wilderness Study Areas and much more. It threatens
access and use by ranchers, miners, forestry advocates, recreationists and
many other Federal land users. Senator Diane Feinstein (D-CA) has said she
will add over 6,000,000 acres of the California Desert to it. So the total
will actually be 32,000,000 acres. And that is just one bill of 90 bills
included in S 3213.
Making all the Wilderness Study Areas into Wilderness is a particularly
troubling part of S 3213 because they have not gone through the regular
Congressional process and examined carefully each area carefully state by
state. The Senate Omnibus Federal Lands Bill (S 3213) appears to designate
many Wilderness Study Areas as Wilderness without due process.
Full copy of e-mail here;
Copy of e-mail
