Posted on 04/27/2004 3:15:00 PM PDT by Tailgunner Joe
In April, the New Jersey Builders Association finally managed to muster an attack on legislation whose purpose it is said is to “conserve” a wide swath of northern New Jersey called the Highlands.
In Congress, there’s also a Highlands Conservation Act (H.R. 1964 & S.999) that would give more than a $100 million to the governors of Connecticut, Pennsylvania, New York and New Jersey for the same purpose. States are invited to identify land in the two million acre Highlands region that would be put under the control of government, thus effectively destroying the rights of private property owners in those States. This naked land grab hides behind claims of preserving clean drinking water, wildlife habitat, and endangered species.
There is a parallel piece of legislation in Congress designed to conserve and “protect” what are called “National Heritage Areas.” It would give the federal government, in cooperation with various environmental groups, power over privately owned lands by designating vaguely defined National Heritage Areas (NHA’s). Though the NPS denies it would affect the rights of the private property owners, at any time in the future they could find themselves subject to intense pressure to sell.
The New Jersey Highlands plan would create a “regional council” with veto power over large-scale development in about half the region that stretches across seven northwestern counties and contains the water supply for half the State’s residents. What no one will admit, however, is that the regional council will be composed of handpicked tree-huggers.
“From Day 1, this administration has had a policy of no growth, anti-housing and regulations intended to deny modest and middle-income families a place to live,” said Patrick O’Keefe, the builder’s chief executive office. This legislation will be the scene of a now-classic battle between environmentalists and many, if not, all of the mayors and other elected offices across the region. The latter will argue that, without development, their local economies will be affected, driving up their need to impose higher property taxes, and the former will say that the water supply must be protected.
O’Keefe answers the Greens, saying that water argument is specious because new environmental regulations already protect the water supply. Anyone who has ever tried to buy or sell a home in New Jersey knows that environmental regulations and concerns play a large role in that transaction.
In mid-April, alerted to the danger, more than six hundred people from Morris County, New Jersey, showed up at legislative hearing, some wearing t-shirts saying, “Don’t Steal My Land” and “Where Will The Families Live?” This is at the heart of what is happening. John Barba, president of the New Jersey Builders Association said, “There are 100,000 young adults living in the Highlands, the grown children of Highlands families. Where will they work and live? They’ll have two choices, live in their parent’s homes or leave the area.”
Governor James E. McGreevey, a Democrat, is already one of the least popular governors ever elected with the exception of James Florio, also a Democrat, who was voted out of office after one term for imposing a huge tax increase on everyone and embracing every environmental restriction imaginable.
At the federal level, the National Park Service, already acknowledged as doing a poor job managing vast tracks of federal land, is advocating the passage of the National Heritage Act that would partner the NPS with state and local entities. Already twenty-four NHA’s encompassing 160,000 square miles of mostly privately owned lands have been created since 1984.
As Cheryl Chumley of the American Policy Center, an activist think tank, points out, the entire State of Tennessee has been designated a NHA. “Since November 12, 1996, taxpayers from every other State help preserve the ‘national significance’ of Tennessee to the tune of $10 million, spread over a 13-year period.” It’s that term, “national significance” on which the entire NHA scheme hangs and it literally means anything anyone at the NPS or any environmentalist wants it to mean.
As the General Accounting Office warns, “No systematic process is in place to identify qualified candidate sites and designate them as National Heritage Areas.” So, for the sake of argument, let’s say your home or farm is in one. Will the US Constitution’s Fifth Amendment actually protect you when someone from the government or a private environmental group shows up and tells you that they want to buy it in order to provide “a viewshed”, i.e., a nice view from the highway minus your home and everybody else’s?
The so-called private property owner’s protections in the proposed NHA legislation may look good on paper, but there is no provision for even telling people a NHA is proposed where they live. As Chumley notes, “The Founders did not intend that property rights be traded among special interest and government groups at whim, but are rather to be protected by the Constitution against the grasp of radical Greens and pandering politicians.”
That is the problem with the NHAs and with the proposed regional council in New Jersey which would, for all practical purposes, control the fate of all existing privately owned property in the Highlands area and insure that no new homes, apartment complexes, or business enterprises be built.
The Fifth Amendment says “nor shall private property be taken for public use without just compensation.” By designating large tracts of land as “protected” for whatever reason, the rights of the private property owners and the value of their land falls into the hands of people who want to return their property to a state of wilderness to be enjoyed by wild life.
The Highlands Conservation Act and the National Heritage Areas Act are nothing more than government confiscation in the name of so-called conservation. The Federal government owns more than forty percent of the landmass of the nation. States also own large portions. The population, however, is growing and they have to live somewhere. If it were up to the Greens, everyone would be squeezed into cities. They hate suburbs because they hate cars, but mostly they hate private property.
All this is going on in various guises at the federal to the state level, cooperating with land hungry environmental organizations, many of which have millions of dollars at their disposal. Should the government match their funds with public dollars? No. Should regional councils or National Heritage Areas determine the use of private property? No. Should government be able to abrogate the rights of private property owners? No. Should you be paying more attention to what’s going on? Yes.
Assemblyman Laird and Assemblyman Leslie both have bills pending that authorize this monstrosity! Laird at the behest of the militant GANG-GREEN EnvironMental Communutty and Leslie, in an ill-advised attempt to gain stature with the Governor of his Party and limit some of the damage to a limited extent.
It's not going to be pretty folks. If you had invested your life and your life savings in property in the only conservative region in CA, only to have your Governor support something Davis couldn't done without being lynched... This is what we get for signing the great CA Recall Petition!!!
It really hurts to see this crappola being supported by a "Republican" Governor, thereby raising it's propects in a quantum leap of political capital. This will be worse than what they did to the Cuyahoga Valley in northern Ohio that was so bad, even PBS mourned the treatment of residents and small business owners in their "For The Good Of All" Frontline program a decade ago!!!
I know... I'm just John the Baptist... out here "crying in the wilderness..."
"This naked land grab hides behind claims of preserving clean drinking water, wildlife habitat, and endangered species."
Article VI, Section 2,
the laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof; and all treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States shall be the supreme law of the land; and the judges in every state shall be bound thereby, any thing in the constitution or laws of any state to the contrary notwithstanding.
If you check, which I have, you will find that all the laws dealing with clean water and wildlife are based on treaties.
So, our federal government does have constitutionally granted legislative jurisdiction.
"In Congress, there’s also a Highlands Conservation Act (H.R. 1964 & S.999) that would give more than a $100 million to the governors of Connecticut, Pennsylvania, New York and New Jersey"
Amendment V,
...nor shall private property be taken for public use without just compensation.
It appears that Congress is performing it's constitutional duty making sure there is "just compensation" available to private property owners whose property will be taken by the NHA.
So, from a constitutional perspective, there is no violation of the action by our federal government to call in question.
The only thing that can be done to stop the constitutional land grab is for the rest of the U.S. citizens to lobby their Congressmen to rescind the appropriation that is required to satisfy the Fifth Amendment property rights protection.
He said that "tact" is necessary in this situation, especially since Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger himself has fueled the bills.
Like I said though, tact would NOT be required and would NOT be used, were Davis still Governor!!! It's actually harder to get the idea out of a Governor's head whose friends and family think the entire Sierra Range should become like Vail Colorado, or the Tahoe Basin... Good GRIEF!!!
Good on the Plumas County Supervisors! Now I wonder if we'll hear from Siskayou too, or maybe even the entire Regional Council of Rural Counties (RCRC)?!?
The sky may not be falling, but one of the core values of American Citizenship... Private Ownership & Control of Property sure is!!! These values used to be "self-evident" expecially to people calling themselves Conservatives, or Republicans!
But judging by some of the mindless replies I've seen on this subject, I'm certainly beginning to wonder how people with a left brain, could engage in such right-brain thinking and taunting without thinking of the ultimate outcome!!!
What a steaming load that was. Your original post was intended to pin the blame for anything Arnold does on those who voted for him. That being the case, why not ping Jim Robinson? He not only voted for Arnold, he urged everyone here to do the same.
How do you know I didn't? You don't know... Do You!?!
I proudly voted for someone who I had every right and reason to vote for, knowing I wouldn't get stabbed in the back by a consistent conservative, as opposed to a pseudo celebrity kinda conservative.
It's a secret ballot, so who or what I voted for, or against, ain't nobody's business but my own. Never forget that!!!
Stop pinging me with your mindless rants.
I posted the article to the earlier Sierra Umbrella thread, for reference.
Until you succeed in that, I'm sorry. I sure hope I don't slip and call your attention to anymore inconsistencies in the governing of OUR state due to someone trying to maintain celebrity status, rather than maintain good conservative public policy without forming more unnecessary layers of wasteful government!
Sorry if that annoys you because it annoys me a lot!!! Just like you did me during the Recall election, remember???
Laird's bill refers to "watersheds!" Well heck, they can be deemed to extend all the way to the danged sea!!! Somebody's got their head so far up their own EnvironMental agenda that they need a glass bellybutton in order to have any vision. Actually... They need a tunnel to match their vision!!!
The powers those treaties require for enforcement exceed the Constitutional powers of the Federal government. The administrative "rules and regulations" thereunder are written, enacted, enforced, and adjudicated by the executive branch in clear violation of the separation of powers principle. Those regulations devalue that land and socialize the associated resources. The feds will end up paying a vastly discounted price simply by virtue of the threat of the conservancy.
You call that Constitutional. You are either clueless or a spin artist, take your pick.
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