Property Rights

Can strengthening private property rights help protect our streams, rivers and endangered species? Well if the Upper Colorado River Basin is any example, the answer is “yes.”

By Charles Battig, M.D. The editors of the American Planning Association published a paper refuting many of the unfounded claims for “smart growth.” The APA has its own trademarked version: “Growing Smart.” It is to the credit of the APA that it published a paper that refutes a number of the un-proved tenets of this [...]

A new small business near Virginia’s picturesque Shenandoah Valley is threatened with extinction at the hands of county officials who are determined to twist the law in order to snuff out a local agricultural enterprise.

For over half a century, picturesque Lake Tschida in southwestern North Dakota has been the destination of choice for residents of nearby communities to spend warm summer weekends with friends and family.  In this semiarid part of the Northern Plains, where recreational lakes are few and far between, the reservoir has attracted cabins and mobile [...]

By Dr. Jeff Edgens Property rights in America are sinking to the bottom of a regulatory swamp. The biggest threat to property rights is unchallenged bureaucratic decisions that command property owners to do the bidding of the EPA while not allowing those citizens the opportunity to be heard. One couple caught in this legal quagmire [...]

Determined to concentrate power in the hands of largely unaccountable bureaucrats in Washington, Obama administration officials have devised a new scheme to justify expanding the regulatory reach of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).  At the request of EPA, the National Research Council (NRC) issued a report last August laying out an “operational framework for integrating [...]

A friend of CFACT, Karen Moreau—president of the Foundation for Land & Liberty—appeared on Fox Business recently to discuss the how the ban on natural gas production is hurting land owners and farmers in the state.

By Duggan Flanakin (reviewer) The central theme of Deep Green Resistance, written by Aric McBay, Lierre Keith, and Derrick Jensen (author of Endgame), is simple. To save the planet, its wildlife and some of its people, the enlightened few must rise up in resistance – not to reform, but rather to totally tear down the [...]

In one of the most closely watched wetlands cases to come before the U.S. Supreme Court in decades, Mike and Chantell Sackett are facing off against the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) over whether the couple has been denied due process by the agency. The Sacketts’ efforts to build a home in a residential neighborhood near [...]

A frequent refrain during budget and debt ceiling debates is that we need revenue enhancement: higher tax rates, reduced deductions, eliminated credits. But doing this, especially amid today’s massively expanding regulations, will kill more jobs and further reduce government revenues. There is a better way. Huge revenue sources are literally under our noses, or more [...]

Six years after the U.S. Supreme Court handed down its highly controversial Kelo v. City of New London decision, efforts to reign in the power of eminent domain continue to roll across the nation. In February, a Senate panel in Virginia narrowly approved a proposal to amend the state Constitution to redefine what is considered [...]

This article was featured on Fox News’ website! _____________________________________ Interior Secretary Ken Salazar’s Dec. 22 announcement directing the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) to survey its vast holdings with a view towards determining which should be designated as “wild lands” has sent shock waves across the West. Salazar’s move is widely seen as the Obama [...]

Fearful that the federal government’s already pervasive presence in their state could expand dramatically, Montanans are rising up against another looming Washington land grab. Over 200 angry citizens recently gathered in a high school gymnasium in Lewiston, where Rep. Denny Rehberg (R) told them, according to the Great Falls Tribune (Aug. 21): “Fool me once, [...]

Descendants of black property owners in Georgia whose land was seized by the federal government at the beginning of World War II are locking horns with the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service (FWS).  The black landowners want the government to give back what it took, and bureaucrats at FWS want to hold on to what [...]

  Two Democratic lawmakers – one from the East, the other from the West – have introduced a bill to create a vast network of wildlife corridors crisscrossing the entire country. Introduced by Rep. Rush Holt (D-N.J.) and Jared Polis (D-Colo.) to commemorate Earth Day 2010, the legislation would “protect” wildlife corridors through grants, management [...]

  Not long ago, Congressman Paul Broun, M.D., (R-GA) celebrated Constitution Day (September 18) by introducing H. Res. 748, a resolution upholding the property rights of all Americans. Broun’s initiative came on the 222ndanniversary of the signing of the U.S. Constitution by the Founding Fathers.  While celebrating the anniversary of the Constitution, Broun was quick [...]

Environmentalists and their congressional allies are renewing legislative efforts to have over 9 million acres in Utah designated as wilderness.   Sponsored by Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin (D) and New York Congressman Maurise Hinchey (D), “America’s Red Rock Wilderness Act” (S. 799 and H.R. 1925) would establish 9.4 million acres of wilderness in the Grand [...]

In his 1990 film Mo’ Better Blues, director Spike Lee dissects the life of fictional trumpeter Bleek Gilliam as he struggles to find, as described by reviewers Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat, a proper balance between work and love. “Work,” according to psychiatrist Jay Rohrlich (as cited in their review), “is oriented to the future, [...]

Was it really just 20 years ago that the United States “solved” its illegal immigration problem with the Simpson-Mazzoli Act? Then why do we now have 12 million new “extralegal” immigrants in this country? And what are we going to do about it?