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Showing results for tags 'eminent domain'.
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Wyoming welder faces $75,000 a day in EPA fines for building pond on his property
Phurfur posted a topic in The Geek Club
All Andy Johnson wanted to do was build a stock pond on his sprawling eight-acre Wyoming farm. He and his wife Katie spent hours constructing it, filling it with crystal-clear water, and bringing in brook and brown trout, ducks and geese. It was a place where his horses could drink and graze, and a private playground for his three children. But instead of enjoying the fruits of his labor, the Wyoming welder says he was harangued by the federal government, stuck in what he calls a petty power play by the Environmental Protection Agency. He claims the agency is now threatening him with civil and criminal penalties including the threat of a $75,000-a-day fine. I have not paid them a dime nor will I, a defiant Johnson told FoxNews.com. I will go bankrupt if I have to fighting it. My wife and I built [the pond] together. We put our blood, sweat and tears into it. It was our dream. But Johnson may be in for a rude awakening. The government says he violated the Clean Water Act by building a dam on a creek without a permit from the Army Corps of Engineers. Further, the EPA claims that material from his pond is being discharged into other waterways. Johnson says he built a stock pond -- a man-made pond meant to attract wildlife -- which is exempt from Clean Water Act regulations. The property owner says he followed the state rules for a stock pond when he built it in 2012 and has an April 4-dated letter from the Wyoming State Engineers Office to prove it. Said permit is in good standing and is entitled to be exercised exactly as permitted, the state agency letter to Johnson said. But the EPA isnt backing down and argues they have final say over the issue. They also say Johnson needs to restore the land or face the fines. http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2014/03/14/wyoming-welder-faces-fine-for-building-pond-on-his-own-property/# -
Land grab? Local officials blast move by Obama to set aside 500,000 acres in NM
Phurfur posted a topic in The Geek Club
WASHINGTON Local officials in New Mexico warn a move by the Obama administration to designate nearly a half-million acres as a national monument could open up a crime corridor making it easier for illegal immigrants to cross the border and for drug cartels to operate undetected. President Obama plans to make the announcement Wednesday afternoon, setting aside 498,815 acres of land as the Organ Mountains-Desert Peaks National Monument. Unlike national parks which must be approved by Congress, the president has the power to designate national monuments. But Dona Ana County Sheriff Tom Garrison told FoxNews.com the monument will likely hamper law enforcements ability to patrol the area. Thats because nearly half of the land will be set aside as wilderness. When that happens, the area will be largely closed off to vehicles, including police cars. Garrison said his concerns have fallen on deaf ears, and says hes been shut out of the process. They tell the media they have talked to law enforcement, but they havent talked to local law enforcement, he said. They havent talked to me. They talk to Border Patrol and Border Patrol tells [lawmakers and media] whatever Washington tells them to say. http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2014/05/21/new-national-monument-nm/ -
WASHINGTON Motel owner Russell Caswell wasnt expecting to find himself at the center of a national controversy when FBI agents came knocking on his door. They said they wanted his Tewksbury, Mass., business and the land it was on because they suspected it was a hotbed for drug-dealing and prostitution. The agents, who were working with state and local authorities, told a disbelieving Caswell they had the right to take the property, valued at as much as $1.5 million, through a legal process known as civil forfeiture. Caswell, 70, fought back, and the case turned into one of the nation's most contentious civil forfeiture fights ever and one that legal experts say sheds light on a little-known practice that, when abused, is tantamount to policing for profit. Civil forfeiture is when police and prosecutors seize property, cars or cash from someone they suspect of wrongdoing. It differs from criminal forfeiture cases, where prosecutors typically must prove a person is guilty or reach a settlement before freezing funds or selling property. In civil forfeiture, authorities dont have to prove guilt, file charges or obtain a conviction before seizing private property. Critics say it is a process ripe for abuse, and one which leaves citizens little means of fighting back. You breed a culture of 'take first, ask questions later,' Larry Salzman, an attorney with the Institute for Justice, told FoxNews.com. Its thuggish behavior. Law enforcement officials argue that civil forfeiture powers give them an effective tool against lawbreakers. Freezing funds and seizing assets allow them to hit alleged criminals, frequently suspected drug dealers, where it hurts the most their wallets. Alarmed civil rights groups and libertarians are rallying against the practice. Salzman's group defended Caswell and won case in federal court last year. But not every target of civil forfeiture can afford the fight. In 1985, the U.S. Department of Justice created its Asset Forfeiture Fund. One year later, the fund -- which holds the proceeds from seized property and is available to be divvied out to law enforcement agencies -- brought in $93.7 million. In 2008, the amount had ballooned to $1.6 billion. In 2013, it reached $6.3 billion. http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2014/05/09/policing-for-profit-lawmakers-advocates-raise-alarm-at-growing-govt-power-to/
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Republicans warn BLM eyeing land grab along Texas-Oklahoma border
Phurfur posted a topic in The Geek Club
Texas officials are raising alarm that the Bureau of Land Management, on the heels of its dust-up with Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy, might be eyeing a massive land grab in northern Texas. The under-the-radar issue has caught the attention of Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott, who fired off a letter on Tuesday to BLM Director Neil Kornze saying the agency appears to be threatening the private property rights of hard-working Texans. Decisions of this magnitude must not be made inside a bureaucratic black box, wrote Abbott, also a Republican gubernatorial candidate. At issue are thousands of acres of land on the Texas side of the Red River, along the border between Texas and Oklahoma. Officials recently have raised concern that the BLM might be looking at claiming 90,000 acres of land as part of the public domain. The agency, though, argues that any land in question was long ago determined to be public property. The BLM is categorically not expanding Federal holdings along the Red River, a BLM spokeswoman said in a written statement late Tuesday afternoon. The spokeswoman referred to a 140-acre plot determined to be public land in 1986 an apparent reference to a 1986 federal court case. Breitbart.com, which reported Monday on the Texas land dispute, reported that a Texas landowner lost 140 acres to BLM in that case, and the agency is now using that decision as precedent to pursue more property. Tommy Henderson, the rancher involved in that case, told Fox News' Greta Van Susteren on "On the Record" Tuesday that the BLM was "talking about taking another 90,000 acres by using my court case as the precedent to seize the other land... "They won't talk to us or be straight with us as to what their plans are," Henderson said. "...So I have continued to pay for this land or the federal government would seize everything else I had." -
County seeks Colo. couple's land through eminent domain to preserve open space
Phurfur posted a topic in The Geek Club
The view from the deck of the small, century-old cabin was a dream come true for Andy and Ceil Barrie -- a sweeping panorama of 13,000 and 14,000-foot peaks towering above the forest of centuries-old bristlecone pines. It convinced the couple to buy a 3-bedroom home in a subdivision below, where they could live year-round, and the 10-acre parcel surrounding the cabin in the midst the White River National Forest. Now the county government, alarmed that the couple drives their ATV up a 1.2-mile old mining road to the cabin, wants to take the Barrie's land and it's doing so by claiming eminent domain. Rather than using the practice of government seizure of private property to promote economic development, the county is using it to preserve open space. http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2014/02/18/county-seeks-colo-couple-land-through-eminent-domain-to-preserve-open-space/ -
EPA land grab? Agency claims authority over more streams, wetlands
Phurfur posted a topic in The Geek Club
In what critics are describing as a government land grab, the Environmental Protection Agency proposed a change Tuesday to the Clean Water Act that would give it regulatory authority over temporary wetlands and waterways. The proposal immediately sparked concerns that the regulatory power could extend into seasonal ponds, streams and ditches, including those on private property. "The ... rule may be one of the most significant private property grabs in U.S. history," said Louisiana Sen. David Vitter, the top Republican on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. The EPA proposal would apply pollution regulations to the country's so-called "intermittent and ephemeral streams and wetlands" -- which are created during wet seasons, or simply after it rains, but are temporary. At issue is whether the smaller streams and wetlands are indeed part of the "waters of the United States." The Supreme Court ruled on the issue in 2001 and 2006. The second ruling restricted the federal government's authority by stating such waters must be "relatively" permanent or continuously flowing and sizeable, like "oceans, rivers, streams and lakes." http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2014/03/25/epa-land-grab-agency-claims-authority-over-more-streams-wetlands/# Ah, Socialism! -
Seized property sits vacant nine years after landmark Kelo eminent domain case
Phurfur posted a topic in The Geek Club
The controversial Supreme Court ruling that expanded eminent domain to give government the right to take private property to allow economic development may have been all for nothing, according to a report. Nine years after the high court sided with a Connecticut municipality in Kelo v. City of New London, a ruling Associate Justice Antonin Scalia has likened to the court's disastrous Dred Scott decision, the 90-acre plot once earmarked for office buildings, luxury apartments and a new marina, remains vacant. Seven residents who fought all the way to the Supreme Court to keep their working-class homes in the city's Fort Trumbull section have only their memories and whatever remains of the money they were forced to accept. See that pole with the transformer hanging from it? Michael Cristofaro, a 52-year-old computer network engineer, told The Weekly Standard, which recently visited the town. That was where my familys home was. In the landmark 5-4 ruling, named for the lead plaintiff, a nurse named Susette Kelo, the Supreme Court upheld a state Supreme Court ruling that the city of 27,000 and a nonprofit entity called the New London Development Corp. were entitled to seize those properties in the name of economic development. Previously, eminent domain had been seen as limited to cases involving projects deemed as benefiting the public, but not a private economic interest. http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2014/03/20/seized-property-sits-vacant-nine-years-after-landmark-eminent-domain-case/?intcmp=latestnews -
Seattle seizes elderly woman's parking lot to turn it into -- a parking lot
Phurfur posted a topic in The Geek Club
This not as bad as the use of eminent domain to build the Barclays Center but the use of eminent domain in this country is out of control and is being misinterpreted by power hungry politicians.