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Water act wording at issue
Published 08:38 a.m., June 29, 2007
Lobbyist Don Parmeter of the American Property Coalition (APC) was in Fergus Falls Wednesday night with some harsh words for Rep. Jim Oberstar (D-Minn.) and his Clean Water Restoration Act.
“The issue here is money, power and control,” Parmeter said. “This bill isn’t about clean water, it’s about taking away private property rights.”
Parmeter, along with Linda Runbeck, a former state senator from Circle Pines and the campaign manager for Rod Grams, when he ran against Oberstar in 2006, are trying to raise a grassroots defense against a bill they call the most dangerous piece of legislation to residents of Minnesota.
“Local people need to get involved because they are the ones who will suffer,” Parmeter said.
The controversy over the bill centers around removing the word “navigable” from the definition of “waters of the United States” in the current Clean Water Act of 1972. Runbeck claims removing navigable changes everything.
“He (Oberstar) asserts his bill restores and clarifies the Clean Water Act, but that is a serious misrepresentation,” she said.
John Schadl, Communications Director for Oberstar, says the legislation is straightforward enough for the public to decide from themselves. Schadl has called comments from the APC mischaracterizations of the legislation.
“The Congressman is not interested in engaging them (APC) on a personal level like this,” he said. “The bill is only 10 pages long. We invite the public to read it for themselves.”
But Parmeter, who characterizes himself as a recovering environmentalist, says Oberstar’s bill is part of an environmental movement, which has become a corporate entity more concerned with money than clean land, air and water.
“This is a smokescreen,” he said. “Corporate foundations need to wake up.”
The bill can be viewed in its entirety by visiting the website of the Library of Congress at http://thomas.loc.gov/ and searching for bill number 2421.
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