Commentary by James Shott
For four years, an organic farmer in Indiana was harassed when he supplied raw milk to the local organic co-ops. What prompted this action was what the Goshen News reported in 2010 as an outbreak of campylobacter bacterial infections “that might be traceable to the Forest Grove Dairy.”
For four years, an organic farmer in Indiana was harassed when he supplied raw milk to the local organic co-ops. What prompted this action was what the Goshen News reported in 2010 as an outbreak of campylobacter bacterial infections “that might be traceable to the Forest Grove Dairy.”
Obviously, if bad
milk makes people sick, health departments need to be involved, however, farm
owner David Hochstetler told the paper at the time that health departments had
not visited the farm to investigate, and he was never found to have sold bad
milk.
Despite never having his product tied to the outbreak,
Hochstetler’s farm was subjected to frequent inspections and harassment by two federal
agencies, the Food and Drug Administration and the Department of Justice, actions
believed to be aimed at closing down the dairy farm. And then Elkhart County
Sheriff David Rogers responded to Hochstetler’s complaint, realized there was
no justification for such harassment, and stepped in and blocked this
over-reach from the federal government.
Rogers wrote to the DOJ telling
them he would take action, including “removal or arrest” of federal agents, if
the inspectors came without a signed warrant specifying probable cause and
giving a clear reason justifying their invasive searches.
Rogers explained in the local
newspaper, “My research concluded that no one was getting sick from this
distribution of this raw milk. It appeared to be harassment by the FDA and the
DOJ, and making unconstitutional searches, in my opinion. The farmer told me
that he no longer wished to cooperate with the inspections of his property.”
You may be wondering why federal
agencies were involved in what clearly was a local/state issue. This is
not unusual.
The Daily Caller reported a year ago on the Environmental Protection
Agency’s (EPA) Waters of the United States rule that critics say “would allow
the agency to regulate waterways previously not under federal jurisdiction,
including puddles, ditches and isolated wetlands.”
The EPA may be the agency that has done the most damage to
the U.S. economy and business operations with its over-zealous and intrusive mandates,
concerning such things as incandescent light bulbs, toilets that use “too much”
water, limiting wood burning and charcoal use, and now extending its tentacles
to regulating temporary water collections on private property.
Many states are growing tired of these overreaches. A
bill introduced in the Indiana State Legislature reflects that state’s
frustration. The bill nullifies all of the EPA’s regulations and places all
environmental protection authority with the state’s Department of Environmental
Management. And 24 states, including Indiana, have filed
a lawsuit in federal court to strike down the new source performance standards
affecting new coal burning power plants.
The EPA’s costly excesses and other
excessive behaviors by administrative agencies trample all over the plain
language the Founders deliberately wrote into the U.S. Constitution through the
Tenth Amendment, which states: “The Powers not delegated to the United
States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to
the States respectively, or to the people.”
However, it is the wont of federal bureaucracies
to grow like weeds, often with the tacit approval of our elected
representatives in Congress, and not infrequently at their behest. Bureaucrats
isolate themselves into protected enclaves extending their reach beyond that
which is appropriate. They often do serious harm to their bosses, the American
people, usually without accountability for their misdeeds.
Having escaped the heavy hand of King
George only a few years before, the Framers of the U.S. Constitution sought to
create a document establishing a new government for the United States that could
not evolve to be as oppressive as Mother England had been; a government “of the
people, by the people and for the people.” It was no accident that the
phrase “the people” is mentioned five times in the Bill of Rights.
The Legal Information Institute of the Cornell University
Law School explains: “The U.S. Constitution grants the federal government with
power over issues of national concern, while the state governments, generally,
have jurisdiction over issues of domestic concern. While the federal government
can enact laws governing the entire country, its powers are enumerated, or
limited; it only has the specific powers allotted to it in the Constitution.”
Some constitutional scholars and experts have described the
Tenth Amendment as the Bill of Rights’ “catch-all” amendment, a strong
reminder to federal lawmakers and officials that the federal government has
strict limits, and everything outside those limits is under the control of the
states.
The checks and balances of our governmental system give
Congress the duty and the authority to oppose excessive behavior by the
executive branch. The federal budget is an excellent tool for this purpose. It
is shameful that these elected representatives have so often and for so long
failed to protect their own Constitutional authority and, more importantly, the
best interests of the people they were elected and sworn to represent.
The failure of Congress to oppose over-zealous federal
agencies means the states have no other choice but to strongly oppose the
unconstitutional federal intrusions, either through legal action, or by actions
like that of Sheriff Rogers.
Cross-posted from Observations.
Cross-posted from Observations.
