Quote:
Originally Posted by Duck Butter
Oh you mean when we FINALLY found out the real importance of wetlands and people had to actually apply for permits (what you call 'jump through hoops', I call permits, thank goodness this came about). Before this came around, a person could just do anything they wanted to with a wetland - develop it, dam it up, drain it, etc. This affects other people downstream. If you had property downstream of someone who altered their waterway, you could have been flooded downstream
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Actually, a person had to OWN the wetland to do anything with it. After DU, they needed the federal government's permission to do what they wanted with their OWN property.
One can pass laws that reasonably restrict uses of land that might adversely impact neighbors without requiring landowners to obtain federal permission for just about any development or improvement. And how the congressional authority to "regulate interstate commerce" got twisted into the authority to require landowners in a given state to get permission from the federal government to develop their own property is beyond me. The regulation of private land to minimize negative impact on neighboring properties should have remained a state issue rather than a federal power grab.
Regarding lead shot, the science showed that ducks ingesting the lead shot in certain types of habitat was killing the ducks. Reasonable, science based regulation would have banned the use of lead shot for hunting in those kinds of habitat. Banning use of lead shot in midwestern corn fields was an overreach that did not have scientific support.
Criminalizing previously enjoyed liberties should be narrowly tailored to meet the scientific requirements that demonstrate the need without overreaching infringements that restrict liberties in ways that are not demonstrated with the scientific data.