Lawmakers interested in protecting private property rights in Utah
Salt Lake City, UT (June 3, 2015) — Libertas Institute has issued a new Public Policy Brief in the wake of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) finalizing its highly controversial rule, expanding their authority over intrastate bodies of water—including small streams—inside Utah.
The Public Policy Brief has been sent to lawmakers and other interested parties, with encouragement to begin planning opposition to the rule, and legal protection for property owners in Utah. Libertas Institute has spoken with several lawmakers interested in working on this issue in the coming months.
“The EPA needs to be put on notice that its unilateral expansion of bureaucratic authority will not be tolerated in Utah,” said Josh Daniels, policy analyst for Libertas Institute. “Several states have already begun pushing back, and Utah needs to join them; property owners throughout Utah need to be protected from burdensome regulations, bureaucratic hoops, and unreasonable compliance costs to peaceably and productively use their private property.”
The Brief contains analysis of the rule itself, the case law and legal issues surrounding EPA’s governance over the “waters of the United States,” an analysis of what other states are doing to resist the rule, and recommendations on what Utah legislators can and should do.
