H.R. 2421 and S. 1870
These
designations refer to The Clean Water Restoration Act, which is being
introduced into the House and Senate of the United States and will authorize
federal jurisdiction over every drop of water in the country.
Why should
you care? Do you own property or do you live on property owned by someone else?
The answer is most likely yes. What these bills do is give the federal
government the ability to regulate anything you do on your own or your rented
property that might have an impact on any type of water, whether it is a mud
puddle, a tire track filled by water briefly during a rain storm, or a
navigable river.
So what is
different or unusual about these two bills? It is an attempt by the federal government
to wrest control of water away from the states the water is located in and put
it under their own control. Up until now, the power to make decisions about
water use and rules pertaining to how it is treated has been the exclusive
domain of the states. Putting water rules under federal control means, for
those of us in the West, that people on the other side
of the country will be able to make determinations that do not necessarily take
into account the reality on the ground, scientifically referred to as “ground-truthing.”
I was
concerned to hear the other day on the news an anchorwoman asking a reporter on
the ground at one of the California fires whether rain was expected to help put
the fire out. Most television companies are headquartered in New York and it
follows that their primary personnel are also from that area. This means that
those people do not know what weather in California, particularly Southern
California, is like this time of year. If they did, such questions would not be
asked. Likewise, we cannot afford to have legislators who are equally ignorant
about our state having control of our water supplies. Please call, email or
write your legislators if you, too, are concerned.
Our Environment
Or is it?
Every day articles are printed in magazines and newspapers touting this new
environmental success or that. We’ve defeated a project that would put a wind
farm off the coast of Martha’s Vineyard right in front of the Kennedy compound.
We’ve made sure that we won’t be looking at more oil platforms in the Santa
Barbara Channel. And, most recently, we’ve made sure that U.S. supplies of
liquefied natural gas will not be brought to our local shores, thereby
requiring us to use gas not produced in this country. Huh? What kind of madness
is this?
The companion
stories should be about how San Francisco is going to turn off all of their
lights for 24 hours to “save” electricity. Los Angeles has periodic
“brown-outs” due to electrical overloads and development companies are all
building communities which depend on people walking or bicycling wherever they
go -- eliminating
as potential residents anyone who cannot walk or bicycle. Sounds kind of
discriminatory to me, doesn’t it to you? What happened to all of our
anti-discrimination laws?
So
we haven’t been able to drill for oil anywhere, we can’t build new refineries
and nuclear power isn’t acceptable either because it’s too dangerous. And why, you might ask, is all of
this happening? One answer pretty much covers all in this case. Environmental
organizations have systematically sued public agencies to stop these
activities, claiming that they are all harmful to the environment.
Even though
the population has continued to grow, for the past thirty years we have been
unable to keep up with the needed infrastructure of power for electricity and
fuel. Recently in Los Angeles, a city councilwoman has stopped the oil drilling
for a year on a site which was established at the turn of the century
(1899-1900) because neighborhood activists surrounding the area built long
after the oil field was developed complained that it was noisy and stank. Does
this sound like the homeowners who bought houses around LAX and then complained
about the noise? So how can the lawmakers justify this extreme lack of
responsible planning? Do they really think the public has been fooled into
thinking it is “good” for them to sacrifice their comfort needlessly? Or have
they?
I have a
theory, and it perhaps shows that I am a bit jaded. I am seriously beginning to
wonder if this is a purposeful exercise on the part of an elite group of people
who want to know just how far they can go in depriving people of their creature
comforts, such as electricity, before people will begin to complain.
Or is this a
way to make the United States a less powerful nation, one more Third World
country with intermittent power and water, one where citizens are not as
independent as they are today. Independent people, after all, are not as easy
to control as those who are dependent on their government for everything.
Granted this theory is perhaps a bit “out there,” but, depending on
how long this scenario goes on, it has the possibility of becoming real.
I don’t know
how long people will continue to allow their “representatives” to behave in
such an irresponsible fashion, but it will, hopefully, not last much longer.
Californians have been at the forefront of this environmental mess, which, at
this point, is not, to my mind, something to be proud of. Why do we have to be
at the mercy of people who want nothing more than to kill or convert us all to
their way of thinking for our energy, when we have a huge reservoir on our
doorstep?
What possible
sense is there in importing all of our food from countries where we cannot
control how it is produced? Why can we not make our own toys for our children
free of harmful chemicals? Why have we become dependent on the government to
provide for us when we are quite capable of taking care of ourselves with the
proper opportunities? How long will we allow ourselves to be at the mercy of
the environmental organizations that are bleeding this country dry? And why are
we allowing the various unions to make us unable to compete in the world
market? When will we take back control so we can produce and do what we know we
can do better than most of the rest of the world because we champion the
ability and opportunity of the individual?
Agriculture Preserve Committee
You may have
noticed a news brief last week that mentioned that the board of supervisors has
made some changes in how members of the APC are chosen. Because the BOS usually
accepts the recommendations of this committee, charges were made that members
on it could somehow benefit illegally from the decisions they made, and it
would appear, because of the consistency, that it was somehow more than
advisory. It was argued that people who had Williamson Act contracts would be
allowed as advisors but not as members in the future.
This seems
really absurd to me. Just like the architectural advisory committees of the
County have architects on them, as they are the ones who understand best the
issues, so, too, Williamson Act contract holders are about the only people who
actually know what that means and how it works. It is hard for me to understand
how a contract holder could directly “profit” from a contract holder next door,
at least not in the same direct way that an architect on a county committee
could. Where is the common sense here? Could you advise the BOS on Ag preserve
contract issues?
Repeat It
It seems to
me that the more often something is repeated, the more it is taken as fact. I
am distressed with the amount of misinformation and disinformation spread by
certain segments of our society through the mainstream media that is completely
and utterly false, either on its face or because of what is left unreported.
A major
network last week had a program on re-telling the story of a so-called
undercover agent of the United States government. This story has been told
numerous times with numerous different spins on it, and I think the only reason
it is being rehashed again is to try to make one of their versions stick. What
this network never tells you are the actual facts, only that individual’s
version of it. As it turns out, this was essentially a book publication
promotion by a sister company publisher. Pathetic to pass
this off as news.
I believe
that not only is the American public being deceived by this tactic, but that
locally people with the same agenda are doing precisely the same thing. Some in
our community feel that it is all right to continue to promote falsehoods in
order to convince us of their truth. Calling people names and playing on guilt
feelings seems to be the modus operandi of the day. I would suggest that
pitting one part of the community against the other, or at least trying to, is
not going to be successful.
In the
meantime, efforts are systematically being made to radically change our valley
and our county to look just like areas many of us have come from. Government is
supposed to be transparent, so that anyone who wishes to understand a process
or know what is being planned can do so. Instead, what do we find? Usually
nothing, ever-changing plans, hidden documents or secret deals in which even
those sworn to uphold the law are participants in. It is pretty shocking when
you discover that people you thought were making decisions with your
community’s interests at heart have, in fact, been doing deals which only
benefited themselves and their partners. Additionally, these efforts are
directly in contradiction to the express desire of the community involved.
Exposure of these schemes is something that I am dedicated to doing in a timely
fashion. Stay tuned!
HAPPY HALLOWEEN!