Property Rights Archives - Page 4 of 4

Idaho wetlands case before the Supreme Court

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 Bonners Ferry, Idaho have been thwarted by EPA, which demands the couple apply for a federal wetlands-development permit under the Clean Water Act (CWA).The half-acre lot the Sacketts purchased for their home in 2007 is located near, but not adjacent to, picturesque Priest Lake in northern [...]

By Bonner Cohen, Ph. D. |2011-10-04T00:00:00-04:00October 4th, 2011|Comments Off

American resources – for American jobs, revenue and prosperity

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 precisely our feet.America is blessed with vast oil, gas, coal, uranium, rare earth and other natural resource riches – to compliment our ultimate resource: the creative, competitive, innovative spirit of our people.Finding and developing these resources would generate millions of jobs and billions, even trillions, in new [...]

By Paul Driessen |2012-10-25T12:15:32-04:00August 15th, 2011|Comments Off

Virginia eyes eminent domain reform

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 public use of private property. The measure, sponsored by Delegate Johnny Joannou (D-Portsmouth) would also compensate home and business owners at a level near market value for the loss of their property through eminent domain.Joannou told the Virginia Statehouse News (Feb. 15) that his bill would protect [...]

By Bonner Cohen, Ph. D. |2011-04-05T00:00:00-04:00April 5th, 2011|Comments Off

Salazar’s wild lands policy sends shockwaves across the West

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 administration’s way of dealing with a new Congress that is unlikely to create new wilderness areas legislatively. The administration is rebranding wilderness as wild lands so it can make millions of acres of public land off-limits to development through regulatory fiat. Salazar unveiled the plan after Congress [...]

By Bonner Cohen, Ph. D. |2011-01-18T13:50:35-05:00January 18th, 2011|Comments Off

Federal government’s land grab faces growing resistance

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, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. I don’t trust ‘em.”The “’em” Rehberg referred to are officials at the Interior Department’s Bureau of Land Management (BLM). Earlier this year, a 21-page “treasured landscape” memorandum prepared by top BLM officials was leaked to members of the [...]

By Bonner Cohen, Ph. D. |2010-09-27T08:59:35-04:00September 27th, 2010|Comments Off

Rural Georgia blacks demand feds return expropriated land

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 they have.At issue is the Harris Neck National Wildlife Refuge, a 2,800-acre preserve in coastal Georgia, about 40 miles south of Savannah. In 1865, a plantation owner deeded the property, known as Harris Neck, to a former slave. Over the years, other former slaves settled in [...]

By Bonner Cohen, Ph. D. |2010-07-19T15:54:16-04:00July 19th, 2010|Comments Off

New Congressional initiative to create ‘wildlife corridors’

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 plans, and a new federal information program within the Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS). The bill’s sponsors say their legislation will give wildlife the necessary freedom to roam, contribute to the hunting, fishing, and outdoor recreation economy, and combat “threats” from urban sprawl and climate change. [...]

By Bonner Cohen, Ph. D. |2010-06-11T08:43:05-04:00June 11th, 2010|Comments Off

Private property resolution picks up steam in the House

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 to point out the mounting threats to one of the document’s most cherished provisions. “Unfortunately, government has grown out of control, and it’s far different today from what our Founders established, he pointed out. “As an original-intent constitutionalist, I believe the federal government was not established [...]

By Bonner Cohen, Ph. D. |2009-11-12T12:26:22-05:00November 12th, 2009|Comments Off

Red Rock Wilderness Bill

Environmentalists and their congressional allies are renewing legislative efforts to have over 9 million acres in Utah designated as wilderness.

By Bonner Cohen, Ph. D. |2014-04-08T17:31:41-04:00July 13th, 2009|Comments Off

More and better (without the) blues

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, to goals; love demands the present." Bill McKibben, in his brand-new book, Deep Economy, hits on this same theme - that more (the result of work) and better (the result of love) may not always be congruent. The Vermont Sunday school teacher (and Middlebury scholar) spent [...]

By Christina Norman |2012-09-16T22:34:42-04:00May 20th, 2007|Comments Off

Addressing the root causes of illegal immigration

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?

By Duggan Flanakin |2012-11-13T15:13:16-05:00June 29th, 2006|Comments Off

Reaffirming the cornerstone of freedom

Freedom 21, of which CFACT was a co-founding organization, is a coalition of groups that came together, quite literally, in the waning days of the last century, to build a domestic and international movement that could promote freedom as the guiding principle for the 21st Century and beyond.

By CFACT |2013-10-17T09:58:38-04:00August 1st, 2004|Comments Off