Date: Wed, 27 Jul 1994 16:04:11 -0400 (EDT) From: Competitive Enterprise Institute Subject: CEI LIST - PROPERTY RIGHTS REVOLT To: Recipients of the CEI List PROPERTY RIGHTS REVOLT by Jonathan Adler, CEI associate director of environmental studies appeared in *The Washington Times*, 7/16/94 Ever since World War II, Howard Burris' family had owned a 997-acre plot in Travis County, Texas. Because the land was on a hill and too rough for farming or grazing, selling access to deer hunters once a year was the only revenue it provided. Thus, when the land was incorporated into the city of Austin, and the annual property tax assessments reached five figures, it became time to think about selling. Mr. Burris had another idea. With hard work and careful investment, he figured the land could be developed and converted into lots for family homes. So, in 1978, he began work developing half of the land. About $1 million was invested in running sewer and water lines; almost another million was spent building an access road up the hillside. By the late 1980s, Mr. Burris had invested approximately $11,000 an acre in the land, and the investments were paying off. Developed lots sold briskly even during the Texas real estate recession. In 1990, Mr. Burris was in the process of developing an additional 58 lots when he received a cease and desist order from the Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS). The golden-cheeked warbler had just been listed as an endangered species, and Mr. Burris' land was identified as suitable habitat, despite the continuing construction. With his land classified as habitat for an endangered species, all development on his land became subject to federal government approval. "I was in a box: I couldn't go forward, couldn't go backward," Mr. Burris recalls. Without a green light from the FWS, he was stuck. Soon his bank foreclosed on 58 lots, as well as 320 of the remaining 380 acres. The golden-cheeked warbler has cost Mr. Burris plenty. A self-described "centrist" with liberal leanings, Mr. Burris had never thought much about property rights before his own experience; "my tie and fingers [were] caught in the gears" of the regulatory process. Now, he is deeply concerned about the impact of federal regulations on private landowners like himself. Mr. Burris, and thousands more like him, are part of the growing grass-roots property rights movement, a bottom-up rebellion against the excesses of environmental regulations that is active in every state. The movement has not gone unnoticed. "The things that people are talking about in every part of my district are property rights," recalled Rep. Henry Bonilla, Texas Republican, on his return from Congress' Easter recess. Washington's environmental lobbying establishment has also noticed the surge in concern for property rights. On July 6, fifteen major environmental groups announced a joint counterattack against private property rights and other elements of the environmental "backlash." Claiming that "we have never faced such a serious threat to our environmental laws," the lobbying groups charged that property rights advocates are really "special interest groups who profit from pollution." By this standard, Mr. Burris is a "polluter" for wanting to build homes on his own land. While environmental lobbyists proclaim that property rights activism is a big business front, their own internal analyses have recognized the true nature of the property movement. Consider the recent study "prepared under the direction of the Wilderness Society" (one of the groups in the anti-property rights coalition). Property rights activism "is a local movement," it declared. "There is no doubt," it continued, that property rights activism "has taken root in rural America and found fertile ground there for future growth." Most significantly, the report explicitly rejected the notion that this activism was the result of outside agitation, business-led or otherwise. While they won't acknowledge it publicly, the environmental establishment knows that it faces true grass-roots opposition. Property advocates may oppose excessive environmental regulation, but they are not "anti-environment." "I'm not at all opposed to protecting endangered species, just to giving up my net worth to do it," says Mr. Burris. Like most Americans, property advocates are in favor of both environmental protection and increased protection for private property owners. More than two-thirds of Americans believe that property rights are not sufficiently protected under existing law, according to Democratic pollster Celinda Lake. Indeed, a recent Times-Mirror poll found that 60 percent of Americans feel the government "should compensate private property owners... when land is devalued by [the] need to protect an endangered species." _______ __________ ___________ / | / | | | |__________ | | | | \ | | \ _______ |__________ ___________ COMPETITIVE ENTERPRISE INSTITUTE 1001 Connecticut Ave. NW #1250 Washington, DC 20036 202-331-1010, fax 202-331-0640 Permission to copy granted as long as these lines are left intact. To subscribe to the cei list, send a message to cei@digex.com. "The Virtual Hand: CEI's free-market guide to the information superhighway" is available for $5. CEI's monthly newsletter, "CEI UpDate," is free to contributors of $25.