The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is one of those agencies that are deemed absolutely critical by most environmentalists. These tree huggers claim that the environment would be totally destroyed by evil corporations if it wasn’t for the EPA stepping in and protecting our fragile planet. What most environmentalists never do is actually look at what the EPA does because if they did they would see that the EPA isn’t in the business of protecting the environment, they’re in the business of extortion. Case in point a couple purchased a piece of land and started construction on a home until the EPA stepped in and threatened the couple with absurdly high fines unless they paid a fee to ask permission to build on the land:
Just imagine. You want to build a home, so you buy a $23,000 piece of land in a residential subdivision in your hometown and get started. The government then tells you to stop, threatens you with $40 million in fines and is not kidding.
That’s the case now before the U.S. Supreme Court, with briefs being filed today by the Pacific Legal Foundation on behalf of a Priest Lake, Idaho, family, Chantell and Mike Sackett.
See the couple made the mistake of buying an unassuming piece of land in a development that wasn’t located in any wetland registry. The EPA decided all of this was irrelevant and are treating the property as protected wetland:
The case developed when the Sacketts bought a .63-acre parcel of land for $23,000 in a subdivision in their hometown of Priest Lake, Idaho. The land is 500 feet from a lake, had a city water and sewer tap assigned, had no running or standing water and was in the middle of other developed properties.
[…]
Chantell reported she was told by the EPA that if “you’re buying a piece of property you should know if it’s in wetlands.”
“I started to do research. I said, ‘So how do I find this piece of property in the wetlands [registry]’? And she said, ‘Here’s the coordinates.’ When I actually pulled up the coordinates, it’s not there.”
Apparently you’re just supposed to know that a piece of land is protected even if it’s not listed in any registry of protected lands. If this piece of property is protected then the government should have noted as such by placing it in their registry. Remember how people say that ignorance of the law is no excuse for breaking it? How the fuck are you supposed to know you’re violating the law when there is no information available that would alert you to such?
Either way when you look a bit more into the story you’ll see that this move by the EPA has nothing to do with protecting a piece of wetland but instead it has everything to do with demanding the peasants pay their tribute to the ruling king:
So the Sacketts went to court, only to be told the courts can’t address a decision like this, as it’s an administrative decision. The couple would have to meet the demands of the “compliance order” and pay the $250,000 to apply for a building permit, then challenge the eventual decision.
Or they could expose themselves to $37,500 per day in fines by refusing to cooperate.
If the couple pays $250,000 for a permit I’m sure the EPA will suddenly see that it’s OK for the couple to build there. That’s usually how these government extortion schemes work. First the government waits for you to take an apparently legal action, then they step in and threaten you with fines for violating some obscure law, and finally they tell you if you pay them for a permit (which is always cheaper than the fines you’re facing) the entire mess will go away.
You know what the most sickening part about this story is? Tax dollars stolen from you and me are being used to steal even more money from other people.