-----Original Message-----
From: Ryan Balis
[mailto:rbalis@nationalcenter.org]
Sent: Thursday, September
29, 2005 11:07 AM
To: Ryan Balis
Subject: Environmental Activists
Target Small Property Owners While Calling the Fifth Amendment a łNew
Entitlement˛
Contact: Ryan Balis or
David Almasi at (202) 543-4110
For Release: September 29,
2005
Environmental Activists Target Small Property Owners While Calling the Fifth Amendment a “New Entitlement”
Washington, D.C. - The
environmental community is in an uproar this week over a proposed measure that
would reform the Endangered Species Act by including within it modest property
rights protections for small landowners.
The "Threatened and Endangered Species Reform Act" (TESRA) is being
debated now and is expected to face a vote today in the House of
Representatives.
If green lobbyists and their congressional allies get their way, American
property owners will continue to have their rights trampled by the Endangered
Species Act.
"In light of the enormous outcry over the dreadful Kelo v. New
London ruling, it's hard to believe that anyone would so
vehemently oppose protecting the property rights of American landowners,"
said Peyton Knight, Director of the John P. McGovern MD Center for
Environmental and Regulatory Affairs of the National Center for
Public Policy Research. "Indifference to the suffering of small
property owners would be bad enough, but actively seeking to harm them is
beyond the pale."
Knight refers to the onslaught of anti-property rights rhetoric that has poured
out of the environmental community this week as a result of the proposal that
landowners should receive compensation when the government takes their property
under the Endangered Species Act.
Under current law, the ESA takes private property without paying the owner a
dime.
One provision in TESRA would help resolve this problem by providing fair
compensation to landowners who lose the use of their property as a result of
the ESA. Environmentalists have made gutting this protection a top
priority.
A "Dear Colleague" letter being circulated by Representatives Raul
Grijalva (D-AZ) and John Conyers (D-MI) vilifies the compensation provision as
a "sweeping new entitlement program."
"The Fifth Amendment to the Constitution mandates that the federal
government pay just compensation to American landowners when the government
takes their property, so in that sense, yes, constitutional rights are a
'sweeping entitlement,'" notes National Center Vice President David
Ridenour. "As for the 'new' part, I suppose that depends on your
definition of the word 'new.' My personal definition happens to exclude
anything over 200 years old."
Environmental groups such as the Sierra Club and Defenders of Wildlife are also
decrying the notion of compensating small landowners when government takes
their property. The Endangered Species Act has been especially
devastating to small landowners, farmers, and ranchers, as many cannot survive
financially without the use of their property.
The current ESA has failed to recover over 99 percent of the species it lists
as threatened or endangered. Many attribute this failure to the fact that
the Act punishes landowners that harbor endangered species and their habitat on
their property.
"The true colors of elitists within the environmental community are
shining through," said Ridenour. "They would rather destroy
small property owners than save species."
The National Center notes
that without the crucial provisions within TESRA that provide protection for
private property owners, both Americans and species will continue to suffer.
"Future generations of Americans should be secure in the right to their
homes and their property," said Knight. "Green ideologues are
promoting the extinction of this essential right, and with it, the extinction
of countless endangered species."
For more information, contact Ryan Balis or David
Almasi at (202) 543-4110.
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