Water, Water Everywhere and Obama Controls it All?

by Maggie at Maggie's Notebook

I was doing a post on the plight of Israel in 1967 when surrounding Arab countries were attempting to divert Israel's irrigation water. That water was a key player in the start of the 1967 War. No country can survive healthily without crop water. Along comes an email with a link to American Daughter's post on the Obama administration's move to control ALL American water. That's ALL American water.

Water - Your Pond?

WATERS OF THE UNITED STATES- The term ‘waters of the United States’ means all waters subject to the ebb and flow of the tide, the territorial seas, and all interstate and intrastate waters and their tributaries, including lakes, rivers, streams (including intermittent streams), mudflats, sandflats, wetlands, sloughs, prairie potholes, wet meadows, playa lakes, natural ponds, and all impoundments of the foregoing, to the fullest extent that these waters, or activities affecting these waters, are subject to the legislative power of Congress under the Constitution.

Senate Bill 787 is known as the Clean Water Restoration Act. OpenCongress.org says it seeks to amend the Federal Water Pollution Control Act to clarify the jurisdiction of the United States over the waters of the United States - which is a change from jurisdiction over only the "navigable waters" of the United States.

GovTrack has introductory statement about s.787 from Senator Feingold, who says that this bill exempts agriculture. Senator Wyden (D-OR) says he is "no supporter of Federal water grabs." Well, that got my attention...I mean he put it right out there. He says he would not have co-sponsored this bill if he thought it would affect Oregon farmers. Both Feingold and Wyden say that the intent of the legislation is to restore the Clean Water Act "to what it had been before these Supreme Court decisions."

So what about "those" Supreme Court decisions? There's this from Wyden:

Some people do not like the pre-2001 Clean Water Act regulatory system. Some believe that the Supreme Court did the right thing by removing many wetlands and intermittent streams and lakes from the protections of the Clean Water Act.

By now, you know that California farmers in the Central Valley are losing their farmland and their livelihood due to a two-inch minnow, the Delta Smelt. The government has taken the water from the farmers and given it to the minnow. What do you do when the gov'mt owns your pond - the pond your cattle drinks from and cools-off in, or the water in the fish-hatchery you own, or....

Senate Bill s.787 is not about the Delta Smelt, but the Delta Smelt is just one current and critical bit of evidence that proves what the government can do to us, if we allow it. Yes, you can put this off on the environmental "greenies" but, the governing body is "the government."

As usual, we do not know the intent behind the bill, but changing the designation of the original waters as set out in the original Clean Water Act of numerous years ago, from "navigable waters," to "water of the United States," which includes ALL waters, is a bit of a jump, and I just wonder why the government feels it necessary to control ALL of America's waters.

Before you go to American Daughter to read about Senate Bill s.787, innocuously named the Clean Water Restoration Act, watch this important video about a government-made drought.

Hat tip to Allan Erickson.