Feds want control of all water - and land

* Clean Water Restoration Act would give limitless federal control over water and land use

By Daniel Webster

Pioneer Press

Fort Jones, CA

Wednesday, May 29, 2009

page 1, column 2

The Clean Water Restoration Act was introduced by Sen. Russell Feingold, D-WI, and several co-sponsors. It would change the Supreme Court's interpretation of federal law which affects navigable waters in the United States to add the language "all waters" and "the activities affecting these waters."

It creates essentially a limitless national land use control provision for the federal government, according to Chuck Cushman, president of the American Land Rights Association.

The new law would redefine the control the federal government has over water to be the following: "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."

"If our constitutional system of limited federal powers means anything, we have to win on this issue," said Jim Burling, senior attorney for the Pacific Legal Foundation.
The bill is being co-sponsored by Senators Barbara Boxer (D-CA), Jeff Merkley (D-OR) and Ron Wyden (D-OR).

The senate bill is number 787 in the 111th Congress.

(Permission to post this article from the publisher.)