Attempt to Federalize all U.S. Waters

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There's a bill in the house to Federalize all waters. Not sure how this would affect boating yet, but the meat of the matter appears to be:

SEC. 4. DEFINITION OF WATERS OF THE UNITED STATES.

Section 502 of the Federal Water Pollution Control Act (33 U.S.C. 1362) is amended--

(1) by striking paragraph (7);
(2) by redesignating paragraphs (8) through (24) as paragraphs (7) through (23), respectively; and
(3) by adding at the end the following:

(24) WATERS OF THE UNITED STATES- The term `waters of the United States' means all waters subject to the ebb and flow of the tide, the territorial seas, and all interstate and intrastate waters and their tributaries, including lakes, rivers, streams (including intermittent streams), mudflats, sandflats, wetlands, sloughs, prairie potholes, wet meadows, playa lakes, natural ponds, and all impoundments of the foregoing, to the fullest extent that these waters, or activities affecting these waters, are subject to the legislative power of Congress under the Constitution.'.

SEC. 5. CONFORMING AMENDMENTS.

The Federal Water Pollution Control Act (33 U.S.C. 1251 et seq.) is amended--
(1) by striking `navigable waters of the United States' each place it appears and inserting `waters of the United States';
(2) in section 304(l)(1) by striking `NAVIGABLE WATERS' in the heading and inserting `WATERS OF THE UNITED STATES'; and
(3) by striking `navigable waters' each place it appears and inserting `waters of the United States'.

Entire bill:

http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c110:H.R.2421:
 
Wow!

What a power grab!

This enlarges control over navigable waters (fomerly for regulating interstate commerce) to virtually everthing back from the territorial limits at sea to anything with water covering it!

This means Congress (and the Executive Branch) will control all water/ wet areas through their pollution laws. This will give them virtual control over all activities that can be construed to affect enviornmental outcomes through anything that can be linked to human activities and pollution.

I'm not against the control of pollution, and very much in favor of rational environmental regulations while reasonably accomodating the necessary activities of our existence, but this reaks of a power grab to use the powers of the Federal Government to expand the influce of the enviornemental radicals.

Joe.:amgry
 
Would this prevent states, or other jurisdictions, from having more stringent regulations (or more lax), i.e. no old 2 strokes on Lake Tahoe? Plus God knows what the feds may come up with next, or not. Does sound like a power grab, with unclear implications. Is this about energy exploration, i.e. Santa Barbara drilling??
 
The intent of the bill is control of water quality--mostly bilge discharge. There are multiple facets, including the ballest water which has brought Zebra Muscles to the Great Lakes, and similar shell fish to the Western Lakes.

There has been a lot of comment on various boating threads, but my take on it, is that it will eventually exclude small recreational boats, and that there is no major threat to our use of the waterways.

There already is a lot of federalization--Corp of Engineers, Coast Guard, and Water quality act of 1972.
 
Heres one thing that would change.
In Washington state I think you can operate a powerboat less than
16 feet and less than 10.0 hp motor but not on federal water. So
you don't have to go through the registration process and title for
that rowboat with the 2hp motor on the back. Sometimes the title
and registration costs more than what the boat and motor is worth.
With all waters federal thats over with. I am building up a 12 foot
row boat and want to use my 4hp motor on it but having registration
surely would take the fun out of it. Just my 2 cents worth.
Bob Heselberg Eatonville Wa..
 
The federal government has given the states power over registration of vessels, unless federally documented. There is a clear difination of the extent of state's waters--in Florida it is 3 miles on the Atlantic Coast, and 9 miles on the Gulf coast--further out are federal waters. There is a clear cut defination in Washington State that for Water quallity, it includes waters out 3 miles, into territorial waters.

I am quite sure that Washington state laws would apply as you are launching in Washington Waters.
 
Just more and more power centered out of Washington DC and out of local control is the way I see things going. You really don't know what will happen when DC gets control, as things under their control tend to quickly spiral out of control and usually not in the people's favor. Remember the wacky C.G. registration they required about 10 years ago that people simply ignored? Might not be able to ignore it this time.

I'm not for federalizing all waters.
 
Hi Folks,

Just maybe, this might solve the problems of state and local control that is putting a dent in boating. BoatUS is following a story of a guy who anchored in waters off Marco Island for more than twelve hours. He is got arrested and then will have a chance to run it through the State and Federal Courts.

Then there was the Gorgia Lay that made it illegal for house boats in the rivers.

In Massachusetts, on the Island of Martha's Vinyard, you can not anchor over night in Katama Bay. Local law brought on by either local clammers scared that anchors will hurt their crop. Most likely NIMBY's who don't want to have their view hurt by looking at cruising boats at anchor. Pollution might be the answer, but there are laws already on the books. Just enforce them and the problem will go away.

It will be interesting watching how this plays out.

Fred
 
I know of no state that has removed it's laws from the books when feds added regulatory power. The state (and city) laws are a revenue stream and will be enforced, until someone gets arrested, challenges them, and pays the ransom necessary to win (or lose) a court case. The feds simply add another layer of laws, regulations, and bureaucrats.
 
This whole question gets back to the question of states rights vs. federal supremacy and Constitutional Law.

The federal laws superceed and are superior to states laws.

Federal laws must be made within the scope allowed by the Constitution and Constitutional Law as defined by the Federal (Supreme) Courts.

Congress usually makes laws within those defined scopes, but some laws may be on or over the boundaries and be challenged by the states, local governments, or individuals.

Congress has used its powers to regulate interstate commerce broadly over the past two hundred years.

If Congress is allowed to regulate activities affecting pollution, the interrelatedness of enviornmental issues could give them powers as broad as those controlling interstate commerce, depending on decisions of the Supreme Court to define those powers specifically.

Wheather you choose to believe they want to do this to simply regulate pollution and the invasion of foreign species of plants and animals, or if you think that this is a part of a much larger and continuing scheme or conspiracy to gain more federal power over local and state government, take our individual rights and property away, etc., is a matter of opinion and up to you.

The states and local governments can make and enforce laws of their own as long as they are not in conflict with federal laws, and often have more stringent and specific regulations.

Joe.
 
This is really about giving enviro-nuts the power to regulate farming and other activities somewhere near the water, far beyond any legitimate Constitutional power of Congress. The Supreme Court recently declined to hold that "water" means "land", hence the additional of "wet meadows", etc.
 
The Marco Island anchoring incident is completely separate from the federalization or even Clean Water's acts. See:

http://www.cruisersnet.net/index.php?categoryid=78

"On May 1, 2006 the Marco Island City Council passed a Waterways Ordinance that limits anchoring of visiting vessels to 72 hours and 300 feet from any man made structure or shoreline. There is a slight possibility of a onetime 72 hour extension if the Captain can prove to authorities that the vessel has been pumped out legally at a local facility. The 300 foot restriction in effect prohibits anchoring in any Marco Island waters except Factory Bay."

This local ordinace is contray to state law passed last year. The problem is that multiple cities have resticted the rights of cruisers to anchor. The State law should prevail.

Mr. Dumas, a Marco Island Resident pruposefully anchored his vesel (Kadey Krogen 42) withing 300 feet of a causeway to test the ordinance. He had been issued a warning by the local police department the previious day. This is a test case, hopefully to assert the rights of all cruisers to anchor in navigable waters. There are many more ramifications of this--I suspect it will be resolved on the local level--the next hearing is set for August 14th 2007.
The city prosicution was deliquant at the first hearing on June 7th and didn't have all of their case prepared, despite the arrest having taken place on January 18, 2004.

Although there are a number of federal issues, the major thrust of this case is a local anchoring ordinance. To my knowlege this is the one best tested. There have also been cases in the Stuart Fl and Miami Beach area, with local restrictive laws. Fort Lauderdale has had restrictive laws for many years. In 1996, zero boats from the Seven Seas Cruising association came to their annual GAM because of the difficulty finding free or cheap moorage. In 1997 the Gam was moved to a cruiser friendly city: Melbourne and now there close to 500 boats for the meeting.+
 
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