[Congressional Record Volume 147, Number 85 (Tuesday, June 19, 2001)]
[House]
[Pages H3237-H3238]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




         WE CANNOT HAVE A FREE SOCIETY WITHOUT PRIVATE PROPERTY

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Duncan) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. DUNCAN. Mr. Speaker, John A. Rapanos owned a 175-acre tract of 
land a few miles west of Bay City, Michigan. He cut some timber, 
removed the stumps, and brought in a considerable quantity of sand as 
fill.
  Now, this was on his own private property. However, the Michigan 
State government ruled that 29 acres contained wetlands, and a federal 
permit should have been obtained first. Mr. Rapanos was indicted, 
convicted, and the judge reluctantly imposed a $185,000 fine, put him 
on probation for 3 years, and required 200 hours of community service.

                              {time}  1930

  Then a few months ago, the 6th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals reversed 
the judge, because incredibly they said he had given Mr. Rapanos too 
lenient a sentence.
  Mr. Speaker, when something like this can take place, I wonder if we 
really live in a free country any more. The judge whom the 6th Circuit 
unbelievably found to be too lenient said at one point, ``I don't know 
if it's just a coincidence that I just sentenced Mr. Gonzales, a person 
selling dope on the streets of the United States. He is an illegal 
person here. He's not an American citizen. He has a prior criminal 
record. So here we have a person who comes to the United States and 
commits crimes of selling dope, and the government asks me to put him 
in prison for 10 months. And then we have an American citizen who buys 
land, pays for it with his own money, and he moves some sand from one 
end to the other and the government wants me to give him 63 months in 
prison.''
  And the judge said, ``Now, if that isn't our system gone crazy, I 
don't know what is. And I am not going to do it.''
  Of course, he was reversed. This story was told in a recent column by 
nationally syndicated columnist James J. Kilpatrick entitled, 
``Wetlands Case Shows Government Run Amok.''
  Mr. Speaker, we can never satisfy government's appetite for money or 
land. If we gave every Department or agency up here twice what they are 
getting, they might be happy for a short time; but they would very soon 
be back to us crying about a shortfall of funds.
  Now, the Federal Government owns slightly over 30 percent of the land 
in this country and State and local governments and quasigovernmental 
entities own another 20 percent, half the land in some type of public 
ownership; but they always want more.
  And the two most disturbing things are, one, the rapid rate at which 
government has increased its taking in the last 30 years or 40 years; 
and, two, the growing number of restrictions, rules, regulations, and 
red tape the government is applying to the land that is left in private 
hands.
  And some very left-wing environmental extremists are even promoting 
something called the Wildlands Project with the goal of taking half the 
land that is left in private hands and making it public. No one seems 
to get concerned until it is their land that is being taken or their 
home.
  Talk about urban sprawl, if you feel overcrowded now, wait until the 
government takes half the private land that is left.
  Already, there is so little private land that is still developable in 
many areas that builders are forced to build houses on postage-stamp 
size lots.
  Fairfax County, Virginia, recently had a man placed in jail for about 
3 months because he had the audacity to put a golf driving range on his 
own land in competition with a county government driving range.
  He even spent huge money, I believe it was over $100,000, placing 
trees and complying with all sorts of ridiculous requirements; but when 
they told him he was going to have to spend many more thousands more to 
move trees they had ordered him to put in in the first place and 
basically undo what they ordered him to do, he fought back.
  I ask again, Mr. Speaker, is this still a free country?
  The Nobel Prize winning economist Milton Friedman said, ``You cannot 
have a free society without private property.''
  Linda Bowles, a national syndicated columnist, a few days ago in a 
column entitled, ``Endangered Species versus Farmers,'' wrote this, 
``In his 1992 best

[[Page H3238]]

seller, `The Way Things Ought To Be,' Rush Limbaugh wrote, `With the 
collapse of Marxism, environmentalism has become the new refuge of 
socialist thinking. The environment is a great way to advance a 
political agenda that favors central planning and an intrusive 
government. What better way to control someone's property than to 
subordinate one's private property rights to environmental concerns.' 
''
  Ms. Bowles said at the time, this sounded like hyperbole, but it was 
not. Limbaugh's warning was worthy and prophetic. I realized this a few 
years ago when I came across a story concerning a farmer in Kern 
County, California, who was arrested for allegedly running over an 
endangered kangaroo rat while tilling his own land. His tractor was 
seized and held for 4 months, and he faced a year in jail and a 
$200,000 fine.
  As time has passed, it is now clear, Ms. Bowles said, what happened 
to the farmer in Kern County was not an anomaly, but part of a 
developing pattern of government invasion of private rights.
  On April 7, 2001, the federal government's Bureau of Reclamation cut 
off irrigation water to 1,500 family farms in the Klamath Basin on the 
Oregon-California border. Based on ``citizen lawsuits'' filed by 
environmental activists, all the available water will go to save fish, 
primarily the sucker fish. A federal judge denied an appeal by the 
farmers saying, ``Congress has spoken in the plainest of words, making 
it abundantly clear that the balance has been struck in favor of 
affording endangered species the highest of priorities.''
  While the farmers are going bankrupt, the legal bills of the 
environmentalists are paid for by the American taxpayers under the 
``citizen lawsuit'' provisions of the Endangered Species Act.
  Mr. Speaker if we don't soon start putting people and private 
property before sucker fish and kangaroo rats, it is us who will be the 
suckers and we will lose our freedom and prosperity.
  Meanwhile, based on a successful lawsuit filed by the Earth, Justice 
Legal Defense Fund, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has just 
designated 4.1 million acres as critical habitats for the endangered 
California red-legged frog. Nearly 70 percent of the acres are private 
property.
  The protected habitats hopscotch across 28 California counties, 
including key agricultural counties, adding layers of new regulations 
on already over-regulated private land. No activity of any kind on this 
land will be permitted until it has been proven that such activity will 
in no way affect the well-being of the beloved red-legged frog.

  Another endangered critter wreaking damage in California is the fairy 
shrimp, which thrives in what environmentalists call ``vernal pools'' 
and what ordinary folk call standing water or mud puddles. Anyway, when 
these puddles evaporate, the fairy shrimp eggs nest in the mud until 
the next seasonal rains hatch them.
  Apparently the deal is this: if you drain or spray standing water, 
you get an award from the mosquito control people and a summons from 
the fairy shrimp police.
  The protection of these ``vernal pools'' is a nightmare to California 
farmers, developers, and even local governments. For example, 
environmental concerns for the shrimp cost Fresno County a six-month, 
$250,000 delay in the construction of an important freeway. However, 
that's cheap compared to the undisclosed cost of moving the site of a 
major new University of California campus in Merced, Calif., because 
there are too many vernal pools on it.
  California is the nation's largest producer of food crops and 
commodities, including fruits, nuts, vegetables, melons, livestock and 
dairy products. This massive agricultural industry depends entirely on 
irrigation for water. In California, rainfall is slight or non-existent 
from early May to mid-October.
  Land regulations, fuel costs and electrical shortages are disastrous 
to farmers. But the most critical issue for them and for all 
Californians is water. The eco-inspired ban on the construction of dams 
and water storage facilities to catch the runoff from winter rains and 
spring snow melts is limiting the supply of water even as demand for it 
is surging. It is a disaster in the making. Deja vu!
  While there is local outrage in California and elsewhere over these 
abuses, there is little national outrage. One hopes this is due to a 
lack of coverage by the mainstream media, rather than a fatalistic 
American submission to state socialism. One fears that only in 
retrospect, when it is too late to resist, will it be understood that 
freedoms have been irretrievably forfeited and the Constitution 
irreversibly abandoned.

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