American Government Run Amok

[Bapak2ja]

Anyone seen this? EPA can take your land without due process or review. Not a good thing.

EPA to property owner: 'Your land is our land'

 

[Birds Away]

As an American Citizen there are few, if any, rights that the government can't take away in one form or another. Very sad.

 

[spec4]

Herman Cain said he would get rid of the EPA as it is. I agree, they should be dismantled and the States can handle their own issues.

 

[Kirk Freeman]

Assumption of the risk of living out there. Your land is not your land is comes from Uncle Sam and he gets to tell you want to do with it.

Why can't we just sell off the West? Eliminate the BLM and raise money to pay down the national debt?

 

[jblomenberg16]

I think that is the point at which I'd say..."Come and take it from me"

 

[Expat]

I am not hopeful. Several justices should have been impeached when they said government could imminent domain your land on behalf of commercial interests.

 

[mrjarrell]

Herman Cain said he would get rid of the EPA as it is. I agree, they should be dismantled and the States can handle their own issues.

He's lying. Just as previous republicrats have lied about abolishing agencies. I seem to remember one gop prez who campaigned on getting rid of the dept. of education. He's gone. It's still here. Cain, like the others is not to be trusted. He also has no understanding of the 1st Amendment.

 

[armedindy]

reeeaally?....

Wow, the news just keeps getting worse and worse. I love this land and most of the poeple who occupy it, but isnt it partially our fault for letting the people who run this country step all over us? How can we stop the abuse?

 

[hornadylnl]

I am not hopeful. Several justices should have been impeached when they said government could imminent domain your land on behalf of commercial interests.

The masses are more than happy to use eminent domain for stadiums.

 

[CarmelHP]

Anyone seen this? EPA can take your land without due process or review. Not a good thing.

EPA to property owner: 'Your land is our land'

This is the problem, they're not actually "taking" the land, but regulating use. This is where it gets sticky, prior decisions have said that if the regulation has the result of totally depriving the land of any commercial value, it is the same as a "taking." I haven't read the briefs, but I would presume that the EPA would argue that since they haven't exhausted all administrative remedies that it is unresolved whether all commercial value is deprived. However, the result of making it exorbitantly expensive to do anything with the land is the same as depriving it of all value in my book. It will be interesting to see this ruling, the USSC is extremely deferential to administrative agencies and doesn't have a good track record on property takings.

 

[PaulJF]

I got chewed a new ass on here for suggesting that States sell all property in order to satisfy debts. I think the Federal Government should do the same.i

 

[John Galt]

I think that is the point at which I'd say..."Come and take it from me"

Agreed! There comes a point in which a Free Man must draw the line and take a stand, if freedom is to mean anything.
Molon Labe

 

[gunowner930]

This is ridiculous. The EPA is yet another useless federal bureaucracy.

I can think of couple GOP candidates that actually would at least call off the dogs at the EPA, or maybe even shut them down.

 

[gunowner930]

Agreed! There comes a point in which a Free Man must draw the line and take a stand, if freedom is to mean anything.
Molon Labe

Yeah, but the little pencil-necks at the EPA that are screwing this couple over won't come seize the property themselves, they'll send in the FBI.

 

[Garb]

He's lying. Just as previous republicrats have lied about abolishing agencies. I seem to remember one gop prez who campaigned on getting rid of the dept. of education. He's gone. It's still here. Cain, like the others is not to be trusted. He also has no understanding of the 1st Amendment.

I don't even see someone who wants to abolish the EPA being able to though. They still have to go through congress.

 

[cobber]

In administrative law, decisions like this are judicially-reviewable once you 'exhaust' your administrative remedies. If they get no satisfaction from EPA they probably have recourse in a federal court (DC Circuit?).

Now that is a pretty big burden for the average person to shoulder. It sounds like a taking, but not eminent domain. The EPA isn't trying to buy the land, just prevent the owner from using it in the way they intended when they purchased it?

The EPA should be required to purchase the land at reasonable market values and compensate the owners with damages and legal expenses.

 

[TRWXXA]

See what happens when you purchase a piece of property that some bureaucratic weenie had his eye on?

I would NEVER advocate citizens walking into local offices of the EPA and hosing the place with automatic weapons...

But I would sure applaud it.

 

[Constructionist]

Nudge. Nudge. Take it all at once, the people see it. Chip away at it a tiny bit at a time, they don't notice it.

This is nothing the majority of this forum doesn't already know, but it still sickens me every time I see an example of our freedoms being systemically eroded one by one.

 

[rambone]

EPA fines couple $40 Million for building a house on their own land

The EPA is fining an Idaho couple $37,500 PER DAY for the last 3 years until they return their parcel of land back to its original condition, which they allege is a protected wetland sanctuary. The couple is expected to rip out the utility lines, remove the dirt they had brought in, plant trees every 10 feet, fence in the property, and leave it sit for 3 years. The case is going to the U.S. Supreme Court with the Pacific Legal Foundation defending them.


EPA to property owner: 'Your land is our land'

Just imagine. You want to build a home, so you buy a $23,000 piece of land in a residential subdivision in your hometown and get started. The government then tells you to stop, threatens you with $40 million in fines and is not kidding.
That's the case now before the U.S. Supreme Court, with briefs being filed today by the Pacific Legal Foundation on behalf of a Priest Lake, Idaho, family, Chantell and Mike Sackett.
The case developed when the Sacketts bought a .63-acre parcel of land for $23,000 in a subdivision in their hometown of Priest Lake, Idaho. The land is 500 feet from a lake, had a city water and sewer tap assigned, had no running or standing water and was in the middle of other developed properties. The couple obtained all of the needed permits for their project and started work. Suddenly, the Environmental Protection Agency showed up on the building site, demanded that the work stop and issued a "compliance order" that the couple remove the fill they had brought in, restore the land to its native condition, plant trees every 10 feet, fence it off and let it sit for three years.
Then they would, for costs estimated at roughly a quarter of a million dollars, be allowed to "request" permission from the government to build on their own land.
Or else, warned the agency, there is the possibility of fines of $37,500 per day – with the total now surpassing $40 million.
Chantell reported she was told by the EPA that if "you're buying a piece of property you should know if it's in wetlands."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pe8TBXgwpnw

 

[revsaxon]

My question is did they check with the EPA before building? If not the fault really doesn't lie with the government. Sure its a crappy thing to happen, but its not like "protected wetlands" are exactly a new idea...