Sounding the alarm on behalf of all landowners in Minnesota, 8th District Congressional candidate Rod Grams publicly announced his opposition to a Jim Oberstar bill that would put all "waters of the United States" under Congressional control. The bill, HR-1356, was introduced by Oberstar in March 2006.
This bill would give the federal government wide latitude to tread on individual property rights in the name of clean water, said Grams. "It has massive implications, yet Jim did not hold any public hearings or town hall meetings in Minnesota to get public opinion or input. If the Democrats gain control of Congress, this becomes Oberstar's first priority as he will be chair of the committee that hears it."
Called the Clean Water Restoration Act, the bill would legislatively reverse two 5-4 Supreme Court rulings limiting federal jurisdiction over non-navigable waters. The bill would expand the federal government's jurisdiction from "navigable" waters to "waters of the United States."
Included in the new definition would be not only lakes, rivers and streams but mudflats, sandflats, sloughs, playa lakes, wetlands, bogs, prairie potholes, natural ponds and ditches.
Almost one-third (31.7 percent) of the 8th district alone is designated as wetlands. Plus the term "all waters" means all lakes in Minnesota would now fall under federal control. Giving the federal government this kind of authority could also mean you'd have to get federal government permission just to remove standing water from your own property, or landscape a pond in your backyard.
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Many prominent national organizations are on record opposing the Oberstar bill. One is the American Farm Bureau Federation. Don Parrish, its senior director of regulatory reform, said, "This bill would extend federal regulation to every ditch, field and bog in every backyard and on every farm across the country. That would be a dangerous expansion of federal control over what people can do with their land."
The more Washington takes over, the less we have to say about our "pond."
J. Roald Fuglestad, MD
Park Rapids
