[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 153 (2007), Part 4]
[House]
[Pages 5459-5460]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                        FEDERAL GOVERNMENT LAND

  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, today the Federal Government owns over 30 
percent of the land in this country. State and local governments and 
quasi-governmental agencies are controlling the other 20 percent. Half 
the land, 50 percent, is in some type of government or public ownership 
or control.
  We could probably live with this, but the problem is that government 
at all levels keeps taking over more and more property at a faster rate 
than ever before.
  People don't get upset unless or until their property gets taken. And 
it sounds great for a politician to create a park, but now we have so 
many parks, recreation areas, nature preserves, national forests, and 
on and on that we can't take care of all of them.
  We are constantly being told we have a mega-billion-dollar 
maintenance backlog for the national parks and all these other public 
areas; yet we keep taking over more land. You really can never satisfy 
government's appetite for money or land.
  We just do not teach our young people how important private property 
is to both our freedom and our prosperity. We see this most clearly in 
the fact that counties that have high percentages of public land are 
almost always poverty areas or at least counties with incomes far below 
the national average. Also, because we keep taking so much land off the 
tax rolls, we keep shrinking our tax base at the same time that all of 
the schools and government agencies tell us they need more money.
  Now almost every State has gone to lotteries, casinos, or some type 
of gambling in a desperate attempt to get more revenue because property 
taxes just don't raise enough money since so much land has been taken 
off the tax rolls. Because of this, I believe gambling addiction is 
going to become a real problem in this country in the years ahead.
  Another part of this problem is that government at all levels keeps 
putting more and more restrictions on the land that remains in private 
hands. The Washington Post had a headline a few months ago that said: 
``Judge Saves Land From Development.'' It might also have said: ``Judge 
Preserves Land for Wealthy'' or ``Judge Keeps Young People From Buying 
Homes.''
  Preventing more land from development is driving up the cost of 
homeownership and putting it out of reach for many young families. It 
is also forcing more people into apartments or townhouses or homes on 
postage-stamp-size lots, leading to new problems from congestion.
  The Washington Times pointed out that more than five times as much 
land, more than five times as much land, has been set aside as national 
parks, wilderness areas, Federal forests, and Federal grazing areas 
than has ever been developed. Today, you could put every family of four 
in the State of Texas and give them 3 acres of lands each and leave the 
whole rest of the country empty. Over three-fourths of the population 
lives on 3\1/2\ percent of the land.
  USA Today reported last November 30 that the U.S. now has 37 million 
acres of private land under some type of protective trust or 
restrictive easement, a 54 percent increase just since 2000. Also, 
conservation of private land from 2000 to 2005 averaged 2.6 million 
acres a year, which USA Today said was almost half the size of New 
Jersey, each year. This is information from the Land Trust Alliance, 
which represents 1,200 of the 1,667 local, State, and national land 
trusts.
  Another group, the Nature Conservancy, manages 1,400 areas in the 
U.S. and now has assets of $4.14 billion. Some people will recall The 
Washington Post series about the sweetheart deals the Nature 
Conservancy was doing for its wealthy contributors and board members. 
The Nature Conservancy had income of $1.8 billion in 2004 and 2005 and 
has set aside 15 million acres. According to its tax returns, the 
Nature Conservancy in fiscal year 2005 received over $97 million in 
government grants, over $14 million in government fees and contracts, 
and over $165 million from sales of land almost all to government. All 
this is always reported in the news as the greatest thing since sliced 
bread; but unless these activities are slowed, which is very doubtful, 
young people will find it extremely difficult to find places to start 
small businesses or build new homes. Also, there will be less money for 
people to travel to and enjoy all the parks, preserves, national 
forests, and recreation areas we already have.
  Mr. Speaker, if we keep taking more and more property off the tax 
rolls, we are going to really cut back on government services. Much 
worse, if we keep destroying private property and restricting 
development, we are going to slowly do away with the dream of 
homeownership and we are eventually

[[Page 5460]]

going to bring about a lower standard of living for our children and 
grandchildren.

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