Game for the ages: GOP vs. EPA
This is a call to unite the various factions of the Republican Party residing in Kootenai County. Nothing brings together a community quicker than a common foe. Not the Democrats. I'm talking about the Environmental Protection Agency.
A little over a year ago Len Crosby, Suzanna Spencer, Todd Christiansen and I started a citizens action group to expose what they felt were the corrupt, blatantly illegal and ecologically devastating actions conducted by the EPA.
The recent Supreme Court verdict seems to agree. Mike and Chantell Sackett of Bonner County challenged the EPA's order to restore their property to its original state. The order carries a $75,000 a day fine for non-compliance. The lawsuit wasn't just about whether or not the order was legal. Instead the lawsuit was to decide whether or not it was legal for a private citizen to even challenge the EPA in court. The EPA lost that case.
The Court made a few rare statements criticizing the EPA. Justice Alito implored Congress to fix the "notoriously unclear" scope of the Clean Water Act. He went on to write that, "If property owners begin to construct a home on a lot that the agency thinks possesses the requisite, the property owners are at the agency's mercy."
Essentially, Justice Alito was saying that under the current structure of the Clean Water Act, the EPA can do whatever they want so long as they see fit.
Justice Scalia wrote, "There's no reason to think that the Clean Water Act was uniquely designed to enable the strong-arming of regulated parties into 'voluntary compliance.'"
The point of Justice Scalia's statement was that the Clean Water Act does do just that. We are seeing this exact strong-arming behavior continue with our current water discharge permits being force fed to Kootenai County by the EPA.
Soon, the EPA will issue their final draft of clean water permits to our cities. Once that happens we will have 30 days to publicly refute those permits. These forced permits will cost our community approximately $100 million yet will have little effect on Washington state's environment. I'm asking our political bodies to coordinate with the various local engineering firms to prepare a counterattack for this 30 day period.
After that 30 day period is over, we will have no recourse. We believe the EPA has the motive and means to siphon money, growth and political power out of Idaho and into Washington.
For the permits to be legal, requirements for Washington and Idaho must be the same. The requirements for Washington are blatantly more lenient.
The most obvious motive for this is to make living in Idaho so expensive and unattractive that Spokane finally looks good.
The permits will likely create a growth moratorium for most of Kootenai County due to the extreme discharge limitations.
Banning new homes or business buildings will leave few opportunities for future generations. Though we have a period of nine years to spend around $100 million county wide, if we aren't able to comply, which is entirely possible, we could be charged a $32,000 a day.
Our regional EPA office is in Seattle, an hour drive from Olympia. Rarely do EPA administrators communicate with Idaho.
I challenge our political parties to wrangle in our engineers and investigate the relationships between Washington state politics, Dennis McLaren (EPA Region 10 Administrator), Kelly Susewind (Washington Department of Ecology) and a utility company owning the dam at Long Lake.
These regulations do little to solve any environmental problem but show every notion of being economically and monetarily motivated. Republicans, forget about McEuen Park and city council members. Put your efforts into a cause that will truly affect generations of residents in North Idaho. When you're done with this, we need to rewrite the Clean Water Act.
Craig Wilcox is a 29-year-old Coeur d'Alene resident who was named Post Falls Volunteer of the Year in 2011.