Want a

building permit? Apply to a federal bureaucrat at the

Building Permit Department of the local U.S. Government

Land Use office.

Want to rezone your

property? Fill out - in quadruplicate - the

request at the same local office, then be prepared to

appear before a hearing examiner at the regional office

of the U.S. Land Use Department in Atlanta. The hearing

date is at least two years from now.

Want to buy and use for

your own private enjoyment a sports utility vehicle?

Apply to be placed on the 5-year waiting list for the

next available slot allotted to Fayette County at the

Automobile Permitting section of the joint U.S.

Department of Transportation/Environmental Protection

Agency.

Sound ridiculous? Think

again.

While you sleep, drive,

channel-hop, surf the 'net, your ever-vigilant cadre of

federal bureaucrats is figuring out ways to regulate your

life down to the subdivision - even to the garage

- level.

As if we already didn't

have enough regulation from the county commission (limit,

three dogs to one household) and the city (in

Fayetteville, roofs and decorating features in new

commercial buildings must be some shade of green), enter

the powerful new handmaiden of the federal bureaucracy

- the Georgia Regional Transportation Authority,

chaired by Peachtree City's own Joel Cowan.

As outlined in Amy Riley's

column on this page, GRTA has notified local governments

that the superagency intends to "activate

jurisdiction" over matters involving land use and

transportation in so-called "transportation

corridors."

They delicately skirt the

issue - at least currently - of the

long-standing constitutional principle of home rule

- local citizens making choices about their own

communities. GRTA gives lip-service to the notion that

local governments still have control over land use,

zoning and decisions about road-building.

With even Al Gore taking a

presidential campaign stand against "sprawl,"

the feds are itching to take over the last bastion of

freedom in this country - local governments.

How do the feds control?

They dangle federal money in front of GRTA and dictate

the unelected federal bureaucrats' demands on the

superagency. GRTA dances to the federal tune, just

asking, "How high, massa?"

GRTA then "activates

jurisdiction" over local governments' historical

prerogatives and starts telling counties and cities how

land within their boundaries must be used - forget

what the local land use plan calls for.

The feds thus extend their

tentacles deep into local issues, cloaked behind pious

proclamations of "clean air" and

"elimination of sprawl" and even

"affordable housing."

Their willing dupes in this

massive theft of power are The Atlanta Constitution

editorial board and wacko environmentalists, some of whom

view agriculture - the people who grow our food

- as an air-fouling, water-dirtying

"industry" and tourists at national parks as

just another kind of pollution.

In fact, "automobile

exhaust pollution" has become the Satan of 21st

century environmentalism, earth's latest religion, and

"clean air, clean water" has become the altar

at which we will all be forced to worship if we want

those federal dollars - which, by the way, are our

own confiscated tax dollars being withheld from us until

we promise to be good little "Greens."

One small step for GRTA,

one giant step for federal control over city hall.