It’s not enough that Barack Obama and the Democrats want complete control of health care, the financial system and the air above, now they are advancing a bill that will control the land beneath our feet.

You can forget the property provision of the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution and tear up any deeds you may now possess.   If this bill passes, that property you own won’t be worth more than the paper those deeds are written on unless you have the blessing of Big Brother’s bureaucrats. Continue reading “Not another Federal Power Grab!” →

What is a “wetland”?

This is not a trick question, but it is important that we get it right.

It is the key to an issue that goes to the very core of what constitutes a free country:  the right to own and control property. Continue reading “A Tricky Question” →

When most people think of wetlands they think of swamps, marshes, and bogs, places where ducks, geese and waterfowl swim and build their nests.

That’s what President Bush was thinking about back in 1988 when he promised that under his Administration there would be “no net loss of wetlands.”   Environmentalists used that innocent line like a club, and they beat him with it his entire four years in office.   Mr. Bush thought that he was talking about wet lands, but “wetlands” is a term, manufactured by bureaucrats at no less that five governmental agencies, that now includes, yes, that pothole in your back yard. Continue reading “Reform of the Clean Water Act” →

Steve Lathrop decided to take matters into his own hands and do what his city, his county and the state of Illinois had not been able to do — clean up a local eyesore, a low area at the end of his street know as Doubrey Slough.  The 14 acres at the edge of Granite City was filed with water and mosquitoes and a lot of other things.  For 30 years it had served as a dump.  Heavy rains were a constant problem to local residents because this area backed up.  There was no drainage.  According to one study the average annual damage was over $300,000.

Hundreds of thousands of tax dollars had been spent over the years studying the problem to no avail.   The governor proposed a $4.2 million project in the early 70s.  A 1984 study done by the Corps of Engineers recommended a $4.8 million channel be dug to a nearby lake, but that didn’t work out either. Continue reading “Portrait of a Polluter” →

He won’t be home for Christmas.  On Monday, Bill Ellen, a law abiding, mild-mannered marine engineer from Mathews, Virginia, was locked away in a cell in the Petersburg Federal Penitentiary after being caught up in the tangled bureaucratic maze of our wetlands regulations.

In 1987, Ellen was hired by a private owner to convert part of his Maryland estate into a 103-acre wildlife sanctuary.  That job cost Ellen his life-savings and his freedom.    Continue reading “He Won’t be Home for Christmas” →

Have you ever had a mud puddle in your yard?  Mud puddles are common in places where it rains a lot, but even in dry states like California they do occur.  If you’ve got a low spot you can have a mud puddle from just watering your lawn.

If this occurs you’d better go out in the dead of night when no one is looking and fill in that low spot, because your property rights are in jeopardy. Continue reading “That Mud Puddle Could Be Hazardous to Your Property Rights” →

Earlier in the week an assorted group of Hollywood actors joined a coalition of 70 environmental groups who held a press conference at Playa del Rey to warn us that California is in danger of losing 60% of its wetlands.

The essence of their message, and similar messages being delivered all across this land, is that developers are going to build Hiltons in the swamps, marshes and bogs, and birds will have no place to land.  “Say it isn’t so!”  Well, it isn’t. Continue reading “The Great Environmental Land-Grab” →