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Category: Investment, Water
Hydrocommerce Corner-Where Water & Money Meet; America's Clean Water Act 2010-Happy Earth Day!
Hydrocommerce Corner-Where Water & Money Meet
Brought to Investors by www.investorideas.com and its water investing portal, www.water-stocks.com
April 22, 2010 Edition
By William S. Brennan
Bio and more info: http://www.water-stocks.com/Bill_Brennan/
April 22, 2010 (Investorideas.com water stocks newswire) www.investorideas.com and its water investing portal, www.water-stocks.com present this weeks water investment commentary with William S. Brennan, "America's Clean Water Act 2010-Happy Earth Day!"
America's Clean Water Act 2010-Happy Earth Day!
By William S. Brennan: Hydrocommerce Corner-Where Water & Money Meet
Bio and more info: http://www.water-stocks.com/Bill_Brennan/
Yesterday, Congressman Jim Oberstar introduced a bill, America's Commitment to Clean Water Act (H.R. 5088), that would supposedly restore the authority of the Clean Water Act after the several U.S. Supreme Court decisions in 2001 and 2006 left our nations water programs in what some consider, a state of limbo at best and utter confusion at its worst. The rulings scaled back the authority of the Clean Water Act to regulate lakes, rivers, streams and wetlands across the U.S. Now Oberstar, who in 1972 personally worked on the Clean Water Act while a staff assistant to Minnesota Congressman John Blatnik, one of the chief authors of the Clean Water Act, has once again initiated legislation that could become a landmark issue regarding the Federal government's total control over all forms of water and possibly lands in the U.S.
In 2007, Oberstar attempted to pass the Clean Water Restoration Act which ultimately died in committee. Now Chairman Oberstar indicated that his desire is to move clean water regulations back to where they were in 2001, saying "Simply put, if it was not regulated before 2001, it will not be regulated with the enactment of this legislation." According to a release, the decisions of the U.S. Supreme Court "threw the nation's clean water programs into turmoil, creating confusion and uncertainty for communities, developers, and agricultural interests, and placed at risk the nation's ability to restore, protect, and maintain water quality and the water-related environment. The Supreme Court overruled 30 years of regulatory policy and limited the scope of the waters protected by the Clean Water Act." [Solid Waste Agency of Northern Cook County v. Army Corps of Engineers in 2001 and Rapanos v. United States in 2006]. Oberstar believes his bill will restore the Clean Water Act to its pre-2001 status. In turn, the EPA and Corp of Engineers would return to the power of authority before January 8, 2001, the day prior to the Supreme Court decision in Solid Waste Agency of Northern Cook County.
"There was never any doubt that the Clean Water Act was to have broad authority," said Oberstar. "There were no limits on the number of streams, lakes or shorelines to be protected; it just said ‘the waters of the United States.' The Supreme Court has greatly limited the scope of the act and greatly confused the application of existing law."
Excuse me Congressman...Why are you deleting the word "navigable" from the new legislation?
H.R. 5088 deletes the term "navigable waters" and replaces it with its statutory definition "waters of the United States." The Supreme Court unanimously agreed that "navigable" never required navigation-in-fact, but created confusion when no majority of the Court could agree what "navigable" means. While Oberstar and his supporters will say the bill does not create new federal jurisdiction over groundwater, diminish States' rights over water quality or quantity or impact normal farming and ranching activities, others believe the legislation's removal of the word "navigable" from the current definition of the Clean Water Act would effectively allow all waters (and possibly land too) to be subject to new and sweeping federal regulations and permitting. Sound too farfetched? The bill expands regulatory authority to "activities affecting these waters," an over reach by any means and an extremely broad provision to regulate land hidden inside a water bill.
So, to sum it up, H.R.5088 will create an expansive ability to regulate any land that can affect any water—however small and isolated—thereby creating federal jurisdiction over all the land and all the water in the United States!
Let's see... In the past year, the federal government has taken control over our banks, cars and healthcare. Control your finances, what you drive and who will be eligible to receive proper and appropriate medical treatment. Now, the play appears to handcuff the farmer and every other industry that is a major water user (and in some cases, abuser) by taking the first steps under the proposed legislation and the term "waters of the United States". If the Court could not make a decision on navigable after 30 years, how are they going to do with Oberstar's catch phrase? I wonder if the drought in the Central Valley of California which, if you take the time to investigate the Federal government's water policy and how it contributed to that fiasco, can be replicated throughout our breadbasket in the Mid-West and perhaps Hawaii for that matter? I apologize for my tone but your basic freedoms are further under attack and this legislation's grab for life's most precious commodity is another "control mechanism" that the Federal government seems dead bent on pursuing in an unabashed attempt to seize power of various aspects of our lives – in a growing filed that consists of healthcare, financial, and now your water. The new legislation does nothing to take corrective action against water pollution but takes a monumental step forward in "federalizing" what should remain at the state and local government level. As it looks now, the EPA could quickly emerge as one of the most powerful departments within the Federal government if such water legislation passes.
By William S. Brennan
Bio and more info: http://www.water-stocks.com/Bill_Brennan/
Brought to Investors by www.investorideas.com and its water investing portal, www.water-stocks.com
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