By SUZANNE DOWNING
At the end of December, in a holiday news dump, the Biden Administration suddenly announced it would return to the old Obama-era interpretation of “Waters of the United States” — which drops of water can be regulated by the federal government.
The ruling, published in the Federal Register in January, means the government will have oversight not only of waters on federal lands, but waters that might someday flow into any waters. In other words, if it’s any significant amount of water, the federal government can choose to regulate it under the Clean Water Act.
The ruling means that the less-than 1 percent of privately held land in Alaska, in addition to that private land held by Native corporations, will be subject to EPA permits for something as minor as building a 10×10 hunting cabin or even a fish-drying shack.
Alaskans are mystified that Democrat Rep. Mary Peltola, their only member in the U.S. House, voted to return to colonialism. The EPA rule takes away the rights of Native corporations to use their lands for the betterment of their shareholders – the Natives of Alaska who were deeded these lands under the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act of 1971, which awarded Alaska Native corporations 45.5 million acres of land to create better economic conditions for Alaska’s indigenous people.
That’s not all the EPA rule does. A small neighborhood containment pond that occasionally slops over into a stormwater drain will come under EPA control, even if it’s on private land. Water that drains from rooftops and makes its way to that pond will be subject to at-whim permit requirements by the EPA. Golf course water hazards, already significantly regulated, would find themselves even further under the command of the Clean Water Act. A farm or ranch pond that occasionally overfills and spills over its swale will be subject to the Obama-era WOTUS interpretation.
It’s not theoretical. At the U.S. Supreme Court, a pending case from Idaho, Sackett vs. EPA, shows how just one American can be prevented from building a home if the federal government decides, as it did in 2008, that the property owner’s half-acre land was once upon a time a wetlands, until a road nearby changed the hydrology of the area. The case was the first to be heard by the court this session and a decision is expected within weeks.
Alaska’s Gov. Mike Dunleavy is not happy about the return to the Obama-era rule, and neither are two members of the Alaska delegation – Senators Dan Sullivan and Lisa Murkowski.
That is because Alaska, with its unique geographic and geologic characteristics, is disproportionately affected by the Obama-era EPA rule.
Alaska has a diverse climate, with some places getting less than five inches of rain per year, and other places getting 200 inches. Some land is permanently frozen, and other land, which drains into waterways, is suitable for farming. Alaska has more water – liquid and frozen – than all other states combined. It’s crisscrossed by 900,000 miles of navigable rivers and streams. The state has 22,000 square miles of lakes, 27,000 miles of coastline, and about 43% of the state is considered wetlands, compared to other states, which average 5%.
For Alaskans, this is a taking of the state’s land and the economy by the federal government. If it looks like colonialism, and walks like colonialism, it’s not going to be popular in the 49th state.
For these reasons, if the Biden Administration goes through with its expansion of federal authority over all ponds, streams, wetlands, and more – whether on federal, state, or private land – it will effectively finish off Alaska’s economy.
Alaska has struggled under the thumb of President Biden, who has made at least 45 executive orders shutting down various parts of the Alaska economy. The state is now near the bottom of the list for economic recovery from the Covid pandemic policies. The new WOTUS rule is the death blow.
Alaskans are disappointed that Rep. Mary Peltola, their only House member, voted to return to colonialism.
Peltola betrayed her state last week, putting partisan allegiance to Biden over the well-being of her fellow Alaskans.
Suzanne Downing is publisher of Must Read Alaska.
Again I hope the bush suffers greatly for this nonsense. They voted for her and they should be first in line to receive the results. No water rights no fossil fuels no no no.
Mary Peltola ……..WRONG for Alaska, and for Alaskans. Brought to you by:
.
Sarah Palin.
Spot on
??
Funny how ya boy,Nick has disappeared when it comes to the repeal effort that got hisBFF Lisa RankChoiced into another term even though it cost him the election!! The dog that didn’t bark, as the saying goes. He is such a real conservative,. Though!!
He has done nothing for the repeal RCV effort unlike your hate-obsession object, Palin
Chuck,
If you could only take my word for it…….Sarah is a POS. I fell for it for nearly 30 years. Then, I liberated myself and voted for NB3. FREEDOM!!!!!
Nb3 is more of the same that the Alaska RINO Party has been trying to push, yet another Murkowski wannabe!
And Nick Begich
It’s worth mentioning that the first Sackett vs. EPA heard by SCOTUS was a unanimous decision. Sackett vs. EPA II will likely be another unanimous decision, this ruling will completely invalidate the Obama/Biden interpretation of WOTUS.
Peltola has no autonomy in the way she votes. She checked the right boxes for the Democrats (basically a Deb Haaland mini me) and with enough money plus RCV, in she went. She is bought and paid for and will vote as she is told. Great financial reward will be bestowed upon her and her latest husband for compliance.
Have you had enough yet?
The Republican party hierarchy is responsible for this whole mess. They did not do their homework on Mary and Buzzy Peltola before the election.
We the people vote, the RNC was pretty busy its up to us too. And far too many morons read the adn and believe the lies.
The left doesn’t give a damn about natives, poor people, or minorities in general.
Neither does Mary, or Lisa or Dan, who both voted in Deb Haaland.
Peltola is a sellout traitor. Anyone who voted for her is a Fool. Pull your heads out!!!
Come on! Most Alaskans are incapable of operating a hotdog stand. I don’t give a rat’s a– about what they think about colonialism! If they’d show up for work and can say “yeah, sir” and “no, sir,” they’d be in the running for employee-the-month!
Agreed. Step and fetch for president!
You got it, bud: “employee-of-the-month!”
Any good come from peltola, voters won’t make race, age and gender a determining factor again before which candidate would make better policy.
Let’s face it, if the Biden Administration had its way we would all just shut-up and bow our heads and say “yes sir” to all their stupid policies like good tax slaves. The trouble with democrats generally appears to be that they are undemocratic and can’t tolerate other’s opinions. As for Peltola, she is simply another democrat robot. Why did anyone expect anything else? Old time democrats used to think and build This crowd only destroys. It will be a miracle if this country and Alaska in particular survives two more years of this horror.
As if we needed yet another reason to be rid of Peltola (and RCV.)
Lesson to all voters, it it has a D it means woke and socialist.
I hate to point out that at one time the earth was covered in water and in fact water covers the majority of the surface now. Water will always find an intersection with other bodies of water. It is the nature of hydrology in concert with topography. Here’s the real problem; Alaska is being disproportionately singled out by the Biden administration and democrat agendas in general for any quasi environmental, hot button topic they can dream up, all to exert a mounting control effort to run us out and return the land to its former self, before even natives occupied it. They don’t seem to want anything to do with exploiting the resources available here because of their socio-enviro-mental illness. What we are witnessing is an all out assault on humanity. A segment of the population willingly sabotaging everything that makes Alaskans function, thrive and sustain themselves is being undermined; educational indoctrination in schools, to economic asphyxiation through taxation, willful commercial depletion of fisheries to shutdown commerce, and the coup de grat; manufacture an epidemic to put the population in a strangle hold and prevent them from being productive. And if you think that re-injecting carbon into the ground won’t have a downstream effect, so to speak, in regards to water tables and hydrology, you’re diluted.
Under colonialism permits were not required to fill wetlands and you had slaves to do the filling, so you had no labor costs. BTW a Republican pushed through the Clean Water Act, my how times have changed.
“BTW a Republican pushed through the Clean Water Act” yeah Democrats have a long and storied history of misapproriating good ideas and twisting them into unrecognizable bad ideas.
Doesn’t snow melting from one’s property fall into this category?
The EPA does not protect the environment, the FDA does not insure secure food and drug quality,
as essentially all federal agencies fail whatever sector they were formed to regulate. Most recent Exhibit “A” is the EPA response to the chemical spill disaster in East Palestine, OH. These agencies were created to concentrate power and control of nationwide resources for colonial style exploitation for the benefit of whichever special interests control Washington DC. Alaska has always been a colony. Replacing the primitive method of simply exterminating the Native people here, a more modern woke and “humane” system of outsourcing minimal power to achieve compliant population control to amenable Native “leaders” to keep the population in passive acceptance, to sit still while the wealth is exfiltrated south. Exhibit “A” is fisheries management. There is nothing conservative or even competent about the Alaska Republican Party as a viable opposition entity. It limits itself to WWE style play fighting its’ Democrat sibling over the crumbs left as the outside colonial masters take their spoils. Peltola was brought to us due to the incompetence of the Alaska GOP.
A possible 300,000 barrels of oil might flow down the pipeline thanks to the work of our congressional delegation. Great idea, ideologues that can’t add or subtract, lets put them in charge instead of our delegation. $80 a barrel of oil and 300,000 more oil flowing down the pipeline creates opportunities to improve our state. I thank our entire delegation for delivering on a key element to our economic future. The successful completion of the Willow Oil Field project and the adjacent fields close to it.
Ranked Choice Voting designed by Lisa gave us Mary……Lisa needs to take credit for her actions. She threw the entire state under the bus to save her seat. If we’d had a primary, the two Republicans would have fought it out before the general…. hence Mary, who the Ketchikan Daily News lauded as having good character and ‘would have won no matter what the election process’, would have been still in Alaska causing smaller problems here.
Joe miller comes to mind
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