EPA "free reign"? GOP rips plan to give feds control of all waterways - Expert: EPA turning regulatory eyes to natural gas - FULL COVERAGE: Keystone pipeline battle

Shown here is a picture of a stock pond in Wyoming that led to the property owners being threatened with $75,000 a day in fines because they didn’t get a federal permit. (Credit: Andrew Johnson)

Jan. 30, 2015: Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Gina McCarthy listens to reporters’ questions during a meeting in Rome. (AP)

Republican lawmakers warned Wednesday that a complex EPA proposal in the works would give the federal government “free reign” to regulate virtually any waterway or wetland in the country. 

In a rare joint House-Senate hearing, EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy was called to explain the plan, which has prompted complaints from farmers and agriculture groups, as well as local environmental officials who worry the EPA is claiming authority that should be left to the states. 

House transportation committee chairman Rep. Bill Shuster, R-Pa., said that if the policy takes effect, “It will open the door for the federal government to regulate just about any place where water collects.” 

Shuster claimed the proposal would “trample the rights” of state governments and hurt the middle class by driving up prices through additional regulation. 

“This rule is an end-run around Congress and another example of overreach by the administration,” he said.   

Since 2013, the EPA has floated new rules that would define what kinds of waterways fall under its jurisdiction. The Clean Water Act already gives the EPA the ability to regulate “U.S. waters,” but Supreme Court rulings have left the specifics unclear when it comes to waters that flow only part of the year. 

To address that, the EPA and Army Corps of Engineers want to define that authority — and are eyeing waterways deemed to have some significant connection to major rivers, lakes and other systems. This would include, according to the EPA, “most seasonal and rain-dependent streams” as well as wetlands near rivers and streams. The EPA has assured, though, that most farming activity would not require a permit. 

The EPA is planning to release a final rule in the spring of this year. 

McCarthy said Wednesday that the point is to make the rules “easier to understand” and more “consistent.” She said the EPA is working to address the concerns of farmers and others, and stressed that the final rule “will not change in any way” those who are already exempted from the Clean Water Act. Speaking to farmers’ concerns, she said the new plan would even reduce the law’s jurisdiction over features like ditches. 

“We are in fact narrowing the jurisdiction of the Clean Water Act,” McCarthy said. EPA officials clarified at Wednesday’s hearing that groundwater would not be covered under the new rule, potentially allaying some concerns. 

But several GOP lawmakers were not convinced, worried that the new EPA language would be used to force people and businesses to obtain “costly permits” for their land. Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo. — citing the case of a Wyoming family that was threatened with $75,000 a day in fines over a stock pond built on their property without a federal permit — said he would introduce legislation along with Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., to “stop this bureaucratic overreach.”

Republicans, as well as farmers and other groups, say the plan could endanger private property rights by giving the EPA a say over temporary waterways like seasonal streams, under the Clean Water Act. Critics warn this could create more red tape for property owners and businesses if they happen to have even small streams on their land. 

The EPA claims, though, this does not expand its authority, and only clarifies it. 

“Let’s set aside fact from fiction,” Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., said at the hearing. She rejected the notion that the regulation might allow the government to claim jurisdiction over miniscule water bodies. 

“Puddles, swimming pools, stock ponds are not regulated,” she stressed.

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EPA "free reign"? GOP rips plan to give feds control of all waterways - Expert: EPA turning regulatory eyes to natural gas - FULL COVERAGE: Keystone pipeline battle

Ukraine rebels claim to control Donetsk airport

Jan. 15, 2015: Smoke rises over the new terminal of Donetsk airport. (AP Photo/Mstyslav Chernov)

DONETSK, Ukraine –  Russian-backed rebels in eastern Ukraine claimed Monday that they have seized control of the Donetsk airport after days of intense fighting. Ukrainian officials have not confirmed a retreat.

“All attempts of the Ukrainian army to take the airport and to get revenge for the defeat of the last year… have failed,” rebel leader Alexander Zakharchenko said at a press conference early Monday in Donetsk.

He accused Ukraine of using rocket and artillery fire with an intensity that rebel forces had “never experienced before.”

The city of Donetsk, the separatist stronghold, was shaken by heavy outgoing and incoming artillery fire over the weekend as a battle raged for the air terminal and surrounding areas. Sporadic explosions could still be heard from the direction of the airport early Monday.

Reduced to rubble, the airport is of limited strategic importance in the short term, but has great symbolic value. In the longer term, the government fears that the separatists could use the airport to expand their control over eastern Ukraine and create an air supply route with Russia.

Ukrainian officials did not confirm a retreat. Military spokesman Andriy Lysenko would say only that the situation remained tense.

Yuriy Biryukov, an adviser to Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, wrote on his official Facebook account early Monday that wounded soldiers had been evacuated from the air terminal overnight, but did not say how many troops had remained.

“We will not abandon our own, nobody has forgotten them,” he wrote. “Everything will be (ours), but just not right away. We are learning.”

Three Ukrainian servicemen were killed and 66 wounded in the previous 24 hours, Lysenko said. He would not say how many of those casualties occurred at the airport.

The U.N. estimates that more than 4,700 people have been killed in eastern Ukraine since April.

The separatists increased the stakes last week by successfully taking over large sections of the airport, where Ukrainian troops had remained despite coming under rocket attacks for months on end. The Ukrainians then unleashed a counter-offensive, supported by a hasty reinforcement of troops and heavy armor.

Lysenko said that according to a cease-fire agreement reached in September, the airport was to be left under Ukrainian control. Russia and the separatists dispute this.

Russia and Ukraine both expressed willingness on Monday to work toward implementation of the cease-fire agreement, including a provision to pull back heavy weapons. But each side put the onus on the other for the lack of progress.

The resumption of fighting and the inability of the warring sides to find common ground scuttled plans for the leaders of Ukraine, Russia, France and Germany to meet last week.

German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said ahead of a meeting of European Union foreign ministers in Brussels on Monday they would discuss how preparations for such a summit were developing. “But in any case we must decide this week whether we are on the path toward preparing for a summit or not,” he said.

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Ukraine rebels claim to control Donetsk airport

Administration lawyers argue Hobby Lobby ruling on birth control doesn’t apply to religious groups

FILE: May 22, 2013: Customers are seen at a Hobby Lobby store in Denver. (AP)

The Obama administration says faith-based nonprofits should comply with ObamaCare’s birth-control mandate because they have more leeway than the corporations that won a Supreme Court ruling on the issue last year.

Government attorneys made the argument on Thursday to the Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, after pro-life ministry Priests for Life asked the court to reconsider a ruling it made last fall that requires religious nonprofits to object in writing to regulations that require employer health care plans to insure contraceptives, as reported by The Washington Times.

The group says the court’s decision contradicted the Supreme Court’s ruling in the Hobby Lobby case, which stated closely held corporations did not have to insure contraceptives that conflicted with their owners’ beliefs, particularly morning-after pills that some equate with abortion.

The justices cited the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993, which requires the government to achieve its aims in the least restrictive way.

But the administration says nonprofits should not expect the Hobby Lobby case to bail them out, considering “the linchpin” of the high court’s ruling was the “opt-out alternative afforded to organizations such as the plaintiffs in this case.”

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Administration lawyers argue Hobby Lobby ruling on birth control doesn’t apply to religious groups

Continuous birth control safe?

Menstruation is a healthy and normal part of being a woman. The arrival of one’s first period marks the change from girlhood to womanhood and is what makes it possible for women to become pregnant.

However, today, more and more women are choosing to avoid this rite of passage.
We recently got this question from a viewer:

Dear Dr. Manny,
I recently started taking my birth control pills continuously to suppress my monthly periods, but is it really safe to keep skipping my period indefinitely or until I’m ready to get pregnant?
Thank you,
Lori

Women have used birth control pills to occasionally skip a period or two, for years. Only recently has it become known as ‘continuous contraception’– a method to suppress your period altogether.

Most birth control pill packages contain 21 hormone pills followed by 7 non-hormone pills, called the placebo pills. To eliminate monthly periods, women skip taking the last week of placebo pills and immediately start a new pill pack of the hormone pills.

While never having another period again might sound appealing, some experts are concerned that the treatment is not entirely safe.

“The problem that I worry about is really your breast health. Even when you’re on birth control pills, there’s supposed to be the hormone-free week and that’s a week that your breasts aren’t getting stimulation from hormones,” Dr. Jennifer Landa, gynecologist, hormone specialist and chief medical officer of BodyLogicMD told FoxNews.com.

“It comes down to worrying about your breast health, and if this is really just for convenience, because there really isn’t any evidence that shows us that it is safe,” she said.

No long-term studies have looked at the health risks of taking continuous birth control hormone pills for more than a year and taking pills to skip all your periods has not been approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

“It’s all a risk-benefit thing: If you’re on continuous birth control  because you bleed so heavily with your periods that you can’t function, you can’t go out, you get anemic and that’s why you want to do continuous contraception, then that might be an option. But really, I think that women have a natural cycle for a reason,” Landa said.

If you’re considering modifying your birth control or are trying to avoid your period, consult with your doctor first.

Do you have a health question for Dr. Manny? Please send it to DrManny@FoxNews.com.

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Continuous birth control safe?

Fires under control in St. Andrew hills as air quality becomes a concern

There’s concern this morning about the environmental impact of  the bush fires which have razed large acreages of  farmland and other hilly sections of Jacks Hill in St. Andrew over the past 24 hours. One environmentalist is warning that there will be implications for air quality in the Corporate Area.

Chief  Executive Officer of  the Jamaica Environment Trust, Diana McCauley, says the fires in a wide section of  the hills overlooking Kingston have made a bad situation worse:    There were several anxious moments last night for residents of  Jacks Hill and surrounding areas in St. Andrew as massive bush fires spread uncomfortably close to houses and other properties.

A house in an informal settlement near Tavistock was destroyed. The fire is believed to have started at that location. Fire personnel along with Jamaica Defence Force helicopters transporting water battled the fires in other communities including Ivor, Cassia Ridge and Westphalia.

Three units responded to the fires which started about 10 o’clock in the morning and later spread due to heavy winds.

And up to early this morning some of  the fires were still burning along Jacks Hill Road and in Cassia Ridge. Fire personnel said others had been extinguished.

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Fires under control in St. Andrew hills as air quality becomes a concern

Push for border control worries Haitian vendors

JIMANI, Dominican Republic – IN swirling dust and sweltering sun, hordes of Haitian merchants impatient for the official opening squeezed through the battered border gate and swarmed to the myriad rickety stalls and shipping containers where Dominican wholesalers bartered off crates of juice, pasta, cooking oil and other goods.

After making their purchases, the shoppers headed back across the border into Haiti — an impoverished nation that produces little to meet the needs of its people. Haitian women carried boxes of pasta on their heads, men pushed wheelbarrows piled with bags of rice and cereal boxes, and smoke-belching trucks roared down the road crammed with food and consumer goods.This may be the Western Hemisphere’s most open border, and it’s been that way for years along the little-policed line between the two nations that share the Caribbean island of Hispaniola. But officials in both Haiti and the Dominican Republic want to control the chaotic flow of commerce and people, and their proposals are straining bilateral relations.Tensions flared in June when Haiti banned imports of Dominican poultry and eggs, saying avian flu existed on the other side. The Dominican Republic, along with the World Health Organization, has vehemently denied any avian flu problem, while critics say Haiti was in fact trying to protect a local producer.Dominican merchants closed the border markets one day in June to protest the avian flu declaration, while the country’s president, Danilo Medina, threatened retaliation, saying, “We might have to take drastic measures.”Haiti’s government now wants to cut the number of days that Dominican tax-free border markets operate from two a week to one so that it can better handle the flow of commerce. Haiti also wants to boost revenue by getting tougher on collecting import duties on goods from the markets, which the country still charges even on market days.Medina, for his part, wants to negotiate a free trade agreement that would eliminate tariffs and better regulate trade with Haiti. That would primarily benefit the Dominican Republic, which exports far more goods.Haiti’s efforts to control the border worry both Haitians and Dominicans whose meagre livelihoods depend on the border markets. Vendors fear any restrictions will only heap more hardship on some of the hemisphere’s poorest people.So far, Haiti has increased inspections of cars and trucks passing near the border, looking for contraband.“If the street merchants don’t come here we can’t survive,” said Enel Floristal, a 45-year-old Haitian merchant who sells Dominican eggs to vendors from his homeland. “We can’t sell anything to the buyers and so we can’t feed our children.”Merchants say Haiti’s moves to collect more taxes will drive up prices for consumer goods, making it harder to sell to Haiti’s overwhelmingly poor residents.Although such customs duties are low, they can still make up to 20 per cent of an item’s value. And some goods aren’t supposed to be brought into Haiti at all, such as pornography, military equipment and narcotics, but they still make it in.The northern Dominican town of Dajabon is home to the biggest border market, attracting some 30,000 visitors on market days, and its merchants worry that their families will suffer if the number of those days is reduced.“We quite simply can’t get by, much less our families,” said Wilbert Contreras, who with his wife, Belkis, sells sandals to Haitian vendors. He said he earns only 15 pesos, or 37 cents, for each pair of sandals that he sells for 130 pesos, or US$3.25.The Dominican government’s Centre for Export and Investment estimates the 14 border markets host more than 50,000 vendors and says Haiti’s informal merchants earn about US$165 million a year reselling the goods back home. That’s in addition to the country’s US$1.1 billion in formal exports to Haiti.A meagre US$10 million in goods from Haiti goes the other way, the Dominican government says. Dominican traders sell a wide range of products, while Haitian merchants export only a limited amount of used clothing, perfumes and liquors.The Dominican government opened the markets in the early 1990s, when a military regime ruled Haiti and the UN imposed an embargo. The markets have since bustled because Haiti’s ports are notoriously expensive and rife with red tape and poor infrastructure. Meanwhile, Haitian import tariffs, the lowest in the Caribbean, ensure imports flow across the border into Haiti.Officials in both countries acknowledge that controlling cross-border trade is one of their biggest challenges.“The significant problems that we have to address clearly, and looking into each other’s eyes, are immigration and trade,” said Fritz Cineas, Haiti’s ambassador to the Dominican Republic in July. “And we have to sit down and face them and discuss them with an open heart.”The winding, 227-mile (366-kilometre) border between Haiti and the Dominican Republic has long seen food, consumer goods and contraband pass freely with little official interference. A US State Department report earlier this year said Haitian authorities maintain only “loose control over the principal land border crossing points.”On a recent market day, Associated Press journalists watched dozens of people climb over the concrete walls on the Haitian side of the border in Malpasse to get to the Dominican market. Once back on Haiti’s side, young men openly discarded cardboard boxes as they shifted newly bought goods into unmarked bags to elude customs agents who are empowered to confiscate items that aren’t declared at the border.Rose-Marie Jean, a 39-year-old street vendor and mother of one, said increased inspections are making her work tougher. Haitian customs agents busted her in June as she tried to sneak in boxes of spaghetti without paying duty. She had to borrow 2,500 gourdes, or about US$60, from friends to retrieve the pasta.“Everybody is complaining that the taxes are too high,” said Jean, a merchant who’s among the thousands of Haitians who take the bus to the border each week to buy Dominican goods in bulk to sell in Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince.The crackdown on the market imports has also raised complaints that the government is unfairly targeting the poor in its tax collection attempts while it gives generous tax breaks to hotel owners so they can build lodging and attract tourists.“The only people paying taxes are the street merchants. The big shots aren’t paying them,” said Mario Joseph, a lawyer whose clients have been critical of the Martelly government.Haitian Commerce Ministry spokeswoman Axelle St Cyr referred the AP to two government officials who didn’t respond to phone calls seeking comment about the tax issue, or about tensions between Haiti and the Dominican Republic over border commerce.After Haiti banned Dominican poultry and eggs, travel operators in the Dominican Republic responded by cancelling a meeting with Haiti’s tourism minister, who is trying to attract more visitors to her country.Haitian President Michel Martelly has defended the avian flu declaration.“There will always be problems,” Martelly said, according to Haitian daily Le Nouvelliste. “Here, it’s a health issue, protect the population, to understand and to have good information.”Still, the trade in poultry and eggs doesn’t seem to have slowed at the border. In both Dajabon and Jimani, hundreds of Haitian merchants line up on market days to buy eggs from Dominican wholesalers despite the threat of confiscation by Haitian officials.People will keep looking for ways to get around any government prohibition or restriction, Haitian vendor Sese Chery said with a smile.“If there’s a way to bring the goods here, they will,” she said.Workers sell chayotes to Haitian merchants at a market in the border town Dajabon, Dominican Republic.

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Push for border control worries Haitian vendors