The Environmental Protection Agency is approaching Karl Marx levels on the communist scale, according to a former Texas lawmaker.
What makes former Republican Rep. Larry Combest say this? The contentious Waters of the United States rule, which he views as executive overreach.
The EPA regulation “may not be the abolishment of private property rights that Marx had in mind, but it’s one heck of a start,” Combest wrote in a Wednesday op-ed published by the The Hill.
Combest knows it sounds like hyperbole to link a federal agency to the granddaddy of modern communist thought. But he takes some pains to explain why he would make such a comparison.
“Before chalking this off as an exaggeration, let’s rehash the breadth of EPA’s rule,” Combest wrote. He makes the point that the rule leads to the abolition of private land rights to the government, which he equates to founding tenets of communist doctrine.
“Karl Marx wrote that, ‘The theory of the communists may be summed up in the single sentence: Abolition of private property,’ ” Combest wrote.
The water rule, which was stayed by a federal court as it reviews state challenges against it, makes private landowners’ ditches, gullies and creeks subject to federal enforcement authority by defining them as navigable waterways.
“Therefore, any land except that which is perfectly flat can easily fall under the EPA’s rule and therefore the civil and criminal penalties sanctioned under that statute,” he wrote. “In short, the EPA’s process was underhanded, its actions are illegal and the consequences for private property rights are serious.”
He raises questions about whether the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals, which is reviewing the merits of state lawsuits, will be able to stop the EPA here. Combest is urging Capitol Hill to fight the water rule through the appropriations process.
“This means that the appropriations process may well be the only way to ensure that the EPA’s federal land grab is successfully blocked,” he said.
A House energy and water spending bill is being debated on the House floor this week, which includes a policy rider to roll back the regulation. Democrats and the White House strongly oppose the rider, along with several other policy measures added to the appropriations bill.
Combest worries that in the final stages of voting for the appropriations package, those that oppose the rule will be forced to compromise with those who support EPA, and protection of private landowners’ rights “is thrown overboard.”
Combest is a principal at the law firm Combest Sell & Associates.
