(CNSNews.com) - As legislation moves through Congress
guaranteeing the transfer of billions of dollars worth of private land
to the federal government, opponents complain they were barred from
testifying against the bill.
They also question claims that the new legislation would provide more
protection for private property rights than existing legislation does.
Of the nine witnesses heard at the June 20 House Resources Committee
hearing on the Conservation and Reinvestment Act (CARA), only one
witness was invited to testify against the act, which would guarantee
$47 billion in federal funds over the next 15 years for the acquisition
of private land and other government projects.
Private property rights advocates refer to CARA as the "Land Grab
Bill." They believe it is the biggest threat to private property
rights since the Endangered Species Act.
Committee spokesperson Marnie Funk said the only person whose request to
speak at last week's hearing was turned down was Charles Cushman,
executive director of the American Land Rights Association.
According to Funk, Cushman was turned down because he had testified in
2000 and his views were well known to the committee. Funk said that the
intent of the hearing was to gather new points of view from people who
have not testified before.
But at least two witnesses heard last week, Utah's Emery County
Commissioner Randy Johnson and Louisiana Department of Natural Resources
Secretary Jack C. Caldwell, said that they, like Cushman, testified
during last year's CARA hearings.
In addition, Robert J. Smith, a private property rights expert with the
conservative Washington, D.C.-based Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI),
said his group wrote to request that he and another CEI representative
be allowed to testify.
Smith said CEI received a "thanks, but no thanks" reply from
the Committee Chairman James Hansen (R-Utah). Smith speculated that
other organizations were also turned down.
Smith called the hearing a "Star Chamber" proceeding. He
criticized Hansen and CARA's author, Rep. Don Young (R-Alaska) for
calling witnesses that Smith claimed were carefully selected to stack
the deck in favor of the legislation.
According to Smith, the government currently owns more than 42% of the
nation's land, raising questions about whether government should own
more.
"Where is the pressing need for additional government land
acquisition?" he asked during a Senate committee hearing in 1999.
"How much land do you intend ultimately for the government to own?
How much is enough?"
The lone witness who was permitted to testify against the CARA bill last
Wednesday was Patricia Callahan, president of the American Association
of Small Property Owners.
Callahan spoke against the
growing trend of the federal government taking more and more land out of
the hands of private landowners.
She noted that the U.S. Constitution does not give the government the
right to enter the real estate business, and she argued that that was
the net result of CARA.
Callahan claimed that CARA would let "ideologues" decide what
the owners' land should be used for rather than the owners of that land.
"This is an outrage," Callahan said.
As a "textbook example" of her claim, Callahan cited the case
of Klamath Basin, a region of the western U.S. that straddles the
California-Oregon border.
Environmental activists and federal agencies have used the Endangered
Species Act to prevent some 1,400 family farmers in the area from using
their land to grow crops by cutting off the supply of irrigation water
that's been used by local farmers for nearly a century.
Once the Klamath Basin farm land has lost its value, Callahan
said farmers essentially will be forced to become "willing
sellers" of their property, allowing groups like The Nature
Conservancy to "save the day" by using CARA funds to purchase
the land, often at below market rates.
Activist organizations already
have proposed a buyout program in which hundreds of billions of taxpayer
dollars would be spent to purchase farmland and essentially eliminate
farming in Klamath Basin.
Callahan had barely finished her testimony when she was challenged by
Rep. W. J. Tauzin (R-La.), whose state stands to gain almost $5 billion
if CARA becomes law.
"Do you know the current average yearly expenditure of the
government to purchase private property?" Tauzin demanded.
Callahan responded that her point was not how much money was spent, but
whether the government should be in the business of buying up private
property.
Tauzin cut off her response. "Current law allows agencies to take
land when they want it," said Tauzin. "Under CARA, they must
have a willing seller, or else come to Congress for approval."
Tauzin also said CARA contains far more private property protections
than current law.
Most of those protections are contained not in CARA itself, but in a
companion bill called the Constitutional Land Acquisition Act. Rep.
William Thornberry (R-Texas), who authored the accompanying bill,
suggested that those protections could be added to existing law without
passing CARA.
Questions were also raised about the amount of money dedicated to the
government land purchase program.
Tauzin stated that the government currently spends an average of $540
million per year on private property purchases, and that CARA would cap
the yearly expenditures at $450 million.
But those figures are somewhat misleading, according to the government's
own data. The $450 million cited by Tauzin includes only money
guaranteed for land purchases by the federal government.
According to data supplied by the U.S. Department of the Interior, an
additional $450 million in federal money is guaranteed as a subsidy for
states to also purchase private land.
Those states, in turn, contribute an additional $450 million to match
their federal subsidy, making a grand total of $1.3 billion in combined
state and federal tax money, according to the legislation.
Rep. C.L. "Butch" Otter (R-Idaho) suggested that instead of
spending so much money to purchase more private property, Congress
should use some of the money to take care of the at least $12 billion
dollars in maintenance backlog that already exists on current public
lands.
Some analysts have criticized government stewardship of land and accused
it of mismanagement, claiming federally owned land often is not as well
maintained as land owned by private citizens.
The pork barrel issue also surfaced, with some lawmakers questioning the
value of projects paid for with CARA funding.
"CARA is so popular with so many groups because it has a little bit
of something for everyone," said Rep. Barbara Cubin (R-Wyo.).
In addition to the land acquisition funds, $33.5 billion is earmarked
for states to finance various wildlife conservation programs, urban
parks, historic preservation, and "funding for landowner incentives
to aid in the recovery of endangered and threatened species on private
lands," according to the provisions of the bill.
What rankles many in Congress is the fact that except for the $6.75
billion guaranteed for federal land acquisitions, none of the funds
would be subject to congressional oversight. The funds would go directly
to the individual states, which could spend the funds as they please.
In addition, the money would be locked into a trust fund. This means
that if some of the funds are not spent in a particular year, they will
carry over and be added to the next year's allocation instead of going
into the general fund, as is currently the case.
More than 220 House members have already signed onto CARA as
co-sponsors. Young predicted that he will have 300 co-sponsors by the
time the legislation comes to the floor of the House. The bill is
expected to be voted out of the Resources Committee and sent to the
House some time next month. Last year, CARA passed the House by a
315-102 vote, but it got bogged down in the Senate.
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