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File Your Testimony Against the Clean Water Restoration Act Now! Billings, Mont. (April 29, 2008) – On the recommendation of its private property rights committee, the R-CALF USA Board of Directors agreed that the organization should oppose the Clean Water Restoration Act (CWRA). The 1972 Clean Water Act gives the federal government authority over “navigable waters” of the United States. However, CWRA (H.R. 2421, S1870) would expand the scope of the law to include the following: “all interstate and intrastate waters, including all non-navigable waters…activities affecting these waters…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.” “The Clean Water Restoration Act would give federal agencies virtually limitless regulatory power over one’s private property, and the bill’s reference to ‘activities affecting these waters’ could give federal agencies the ability to assume expansive authority over not only water, but land and the air, as well,” said R-CALF USA Private Property Rights Committee Chair Kimmi Lewis. “Passage of this law would expand the scope of the Clean Water Act far beyond its original intent and increase confusion over what is and isn’t to be protected.” For instance, the Clean Water Act – after Supreme Court intervention – limits the government’s previously wide latitude to define “navigable” and exert federal authority. Isolated, non-navigable waters are no longer subject to regulation. Isolated drainage ditches with insignificant, intermittent flows also are no longer subject to federal authority under the Clean Water Act. “The property of these water rights was created by permission of the federal government, and the federal government cannot later come back and take or extinguish that property,” explained R-CALF USA Member Maxine Korman, who volunteers on the group’s private property rights committee. “That’s a denial of due process. It is a matter of constitutional law. Anything that retroactively impairs or destroys the vested right is a denial of due process, and that is unconstitutional.” “We urge all R-CALF members to submit testimony in opposition to the Clean Water Restoration Act,” said Lewis. “Everybody wants clean water, but CWRA is really about land use control and has little or nothing to do with clean water. It is no more than a huge land grab, both urban and rural, so we need everybody to call, fax and e-mail your Representative and the others on the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee.” Testimony opposing CWRA is due by close of business on Wednesday, April 30. To file testimony electronically or by fax, visit the “Property Rights” link at www.r-calfusa.com to get a list of each Representative’s contact information for this particular issue. Member-established policy states that because vested and/or riparian water rights are being threatened and compromised by a variety of methods, R-CALF USA will make every effort to educate members as to their ownership of vested and/or riparian water rights and will help whenever possible in defending and protecting those rights, and that because U.S. citizens have a constitutional right to keep and own property and make decisions determining its use, R-CALF USA will work aggressively to protect those constitutional rights. # # # R-CALF USA (Ranchers-Cattlemen Action Legal Fund, United Stockgrowers of America) is a national, non-profit organization dedicated to ensuring the continued profitability and viability of the U.S. cattle industry. R-CALF USA represents thousands of U.S. cattle producers on trade and marketing issues. Members are located across 47 states and are primarily cow/calf operators, cattle backgrounders, and/or feedlot owners. R-CALF USA has dozens of affiliate organizations and various main-street businesses are associate members. For more information, visit www.r-calfusa.com or, call 406-252-2516. |
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This page was last updated on Friday, June 06, 2008. |
