State laws trump county or local laws, and federal laws trump state and local laws and the EPA apparently trumps everything, Fedaral laws, God's laws and the laws of physics.
That's certainly a very common view...unfortunately. Bad old EPA.
When I was growing up lake Eire was a sewer. Rivers near me were catching fire. I lived 5 miles from Lake Ontario and loved to fish but no one ever considered ever fishing in Lake Ontario. It was pretty much just a dead hole in the ground with water. All the pristine lakes in the Adirondack mountains had great fishing but in the matter of just a few years the fish were all gone thanks to acid rain.
Say that today and people think you're crazy. Lake Eire and Ontario are very much alive, great natural resources, great fishing. Magic? Nature just decided to clean up the environment? Hand of God?
Of course not. People got mad. We elected people to represent us and start passing laws like "hey dude, you don't own the Great Lakes, the people do. It's ours and you're not going to kill it just so you can make a few extra dollars." The EPA is part of that.
In the past 15 years, thanks to big business convincing people the EPA is evil by making up wild and crazy stories that people eat up with a spoon, the EPA has been weakened a great deal. Now water coming out of peoples' taps can be lit on fire. Right now it's just a few thousand people effected. As time passes many more people may be effected. If enough people lose the entire value of their property thanks to flammable ground water we will once gain start electing people to protect our rights.
Apparently flammable water is some kind of tipping point for people.
Then the exact same people who complained about the EPA's power will start whining about how the EPA didn't do enough to protect their properties.
However, I disagree with your analogy of the "renter" giving his "neighbor" permission to erect a fence over the property line. These two people are good ole boys and they get along so very well, so there is no trouble with this plan from their viewpoint.
Except that neither one has the authority to offer such authority to the other and both of them should have realized that fact and no matter what, they both should have known that the one erecting the fence was required to obtain a legal permit to do so. Asking the neighbor if it was alright with them was great and proper, a good neighbor thing to do. But it was only the first step. Then the two should have gone to the landlord and then to the city or county.
Since this was my story I get to make up the rules. Most cities do not require a permit for certain fences. Here in Phoenix for example a fence 3' high and less don't require any permit. You still have to follow lots of laws, but no permit is required.
And that's really my point. A permit is only permission to perform a specific task. It is not some kind of general edict that covers all aspects of a project. I can get a permit to build a shed in my back yard and pass all inspections. That only means I'm cool with the city of Phoenix. If I live in an HOA I can certainly be in big trouble with them for building the shed. I can't show the permit to the HOA and say "I have permission". That "permission" was only my imgination. I can then get the HOA's permission and have Fish & Game knock on my door telling me the shed was build within the boundaries of some endangered critter. EPA can come and say run off from the construction trashed a wetland. The telephone company and tear down my shed because I built it on their easement. On and on and on.
It is my responsibility to follow all the rules and laws that I have agreed to by living in a certain spot on the planet. If I don't like a HOA's rules I can choose not to live there or try to get the rules changed. Don't like a city's rules, I can move or change the laws. Don't like state laws, Federal, my wife's laws.
We're lucky, there are still places you can go to live in almost complete freedom. Afghanistan for example. There are places in Afghanistan you can do whatever you want. Of course everyone else there has that same freedom. They're free to chop off you head and no one is going say anything.
When people in the US whine about freedom what they always seem to mean is they should have the freedom to do whatever they like, but want everyone else controlled by laws and expect the government to protect them from everyone else. Since the beginning of human history that has never been true because it doesn't work. Never has. Though people like Idi Amin keep testing the theory. Personal responsibility is hard to avoid.
Now the two neighbors do not have any authority over such legal issues. They should understand that such laws exist, but they are not required to KNOW the law or the specifics. That is what they pay tax money for, to hire a person down at the courthouse or in the state capital building to do for them. When it comes to a city, county or state official who is responsible for issuing such permits, they are or should be required to KNOW the law or at least know when they need to conduct more research to ensure that they have the authority to issue a permit because they are OUR PAID REPRESENTATIVES and SERVANTS.
No, no and no. I'm sorry, I mean NO, NO and NO.
Ignorantia juris non excusat is a corner stone of US law.
We in the US hate government. Because of that we give government officials very little actual power. The President of the US could sign an executive order giving Bob permission to build the fence on Fred's property and it wouldn't mean squat.
We pay government officials to follow laws our elected officials pass. That's it. There is absolutely no government agency in the US that has the ability to protect you from all laws. It's NOT THEIR JOB. In China maybe. Maybe in a country ruled by a dictator. But not in the US. We setup up this system specifically this way. Personal responsibility and personal freedom are the same thing. It's what America is about. It's the entire basis of our system.
The unfortunate situation in the Wyoming case we are discussing is that the EPA stepped in. And they believe that a $12 lamp constructed with mercury, lead other heavy metals and toxic gases and compounds and requires a HAZMAT team or HAZMAT instruction set and PPE to dispose of (by EPA regulation) is better for the environment than a tungsten filament inside a vacuumed glass envelope with an aluminum base.
Why does that upset you? Would you be happier if your neighbor could start a mercury scraping business with no rules? You think mercury poisoning is a something tree hugers made up? When you start losing your sight, have trouble walking, etc., you'll become a believer. What then? Should your neighbor be allowed to sprinkle some kitty litter around and say "yep, all cleaned up"? Or are you going to demand the best possible clean up knowing full well, even with all HAZMAT teams it will be impossible to remove all the mercury? That your property value will be way less and your disabilities, and your family's, will be forever.
That's the thing that makes no sense to me. People whine about the government's power right up until they're the one being harmed by some a-hole. Then they want the government to protect them and whine the government isn't doing enough. People just like to whine imo. Easier than following rules or getting rules changed.
If you're one of the top 1% of the top 1% who own most of the US and control media and public opinion I totally get why you'd be anti-government. You wouldn't want any laws because you'd have the resources to implement your own rules. But for the 99.9% of the rest of us it makes no sense. We banned together to create the government we have to protected ourselves from the 0.1%, starting with protection from the King of England. Why are we now pushing to give the country back to these people? What was the point of the fighting and dying in all these wars if we are just going to turn it all back over to the 0.1% again? Trouble is we're too fat and dumb to know any different.
I have recently read and heard so many stories regarding the EPA attempting to poise itself to be the top of the legal food chain in the US that it disturbs me considerably. The EPA and the UN are very scary entities.
Stop reading propaganda. It'll just upset you and waste your time. Read a few other sources to see propaganda for what it is.
because they had to completely shut down the science lab it went everywhere all differing sizes of metalic blobs rolling over the floor so it could be cleaned by a specialist cleaners.
