It took Mike and Chantell Sackett five years and a unanimous Supreme Court decision just to gain a fighting chance against a thuggishEnvironmental Protection Agency.
Officials appeared at their Idahoproperty in 2007 threatening them with fines of $37,500 per day unless they immediately stopped construction on their dream home on land they owned near a lake.
The agency cited the Clean Water Act after a neighbor complained, perhaps upset at the prospect of another home being built in the well-developed neighborhood.
There are dozens of adjacent homes, multiple piers on the lake and even a well-trafficked marina close at hand. The Sacketts' property already had a sewer hookup.The agency not only threatened to ruin the Sacketts, but also insisted they could nothing to contest the agency's actions.
So, the couple took their case to court, battling EPA efforts to deny them due process of law at every step all the way to the Supreme Court.
But after losing that case unanimously in 2012, the EPA now wants to strengthen its hand for future confrontations with individual citizens who, like the Sacketts use their private land in ordinary ways with little or no significant consequences to the environment.
The agency announced July 2 that it plans new regulations claiming the power to garnish workers' wages in order to collect fines and other money owed the agency without so much as a court order.
No comments:
Post a Comment