August 13 & 20, 2001

Legislative attempts to correct CARA

These are some of the amendments offered by congressmen to protect free enterprise, landowners, and private property rights. All were defeated.

n  Rep. Mac Thornberry (R-Texas) proposed to bar condemnation to acquire any land with CARA funds. His proposal was defeated in committee 21-16.

n  Rep. John Peterson (R-Penn.) proposed to allow the use of CARA funds for restoration and maintenance of lands. His proposal was defeated 18-13.

n  Rep. Richard Pombo (R-Calif.) proposed to protect a landowner's "full use and enjoyment" of property targeted for acquisition or abutting land acquired under CARA. His proposal was defeated 22-17.

Here are a few reasons why CARA is not in the best interest of our country.  It basically is $45.6 billion worth of pork barrel legislation.

1. CARA, if passed, would funnel into an off-budget trust fund $3.1 billion a year. A lot of legislation is terrible, but CARA is especially horrendous in myriad ways. Ridiculous money distribution schemes, environmental degradation, private property usurpation, and fiscal irresponsibility.

2. Title II of CARA apportions $900 million for the Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF), half of which goes to the federal LWCF and half to states. This quadruples the Clinton Administration base-level funding for the LWCF. The majority of this money would be used to purchase private property

3. Funds in the other titles ($350 million for Wildlife Conservation and Restoration, $125 million for the Urban Parks and Recreation Recovery, $160 million for the Historic Preservation Fund, and $350 million for Endangered and Threatened Species Recovery) could also be used for land acquisition.

5. CARA could trash some very precious and important resources. The bill calls for LWCF to target acquisition of private lands that are surrounded by federal lands. Such private lands are often the best or only providers of supplies and campgrounds for visitors to national parks, forests, and wildlife refuges. Agencies are likely to first target private landowners who have taken the best care of their property for acquisition, since such land will have the highest values for wildlife. Thus, CARA penalizes sound private land management by taking that land from the people who have been managing it so well.

6. The Forest Service rated over 60% of national forest and other federal resource lands as "very unhealthy" or in "deteriorating health." The estimate for the maintenance backlog, the amount that would have to be spent to get federal land into a healthy condition, ranges from $5 billion to $15 billion. CARA would not help the backlog, but compound it.

7. CARA is poor fiscal policy. The bill creates off-budget, dedicated trust funds that are not subject to further congressional appropriation.  Forty-five billion dollars would go toward this specific spending without future consideration of mismanagement, waste, or abuse.

8. CARA is also new spending. The bill states that it is to "supplement, not detract from appropriations."

9. By setting aside a special fund for CARA, the proponents of CARA are stating that land acquisition is more important than education, social security, crime prevention, defense, medical research, and invasive species.

10. More money from CARA won't make the NPS a good neighbor.  CARA will guarantee that the Park Service and other Federal land agencies will never be good neighbors.  If CARA passes, it will mean that Members of Congress will have to become management consultants constantly trying to blunt the attacks by the Park Service against their constituents.

Can It Happen Again? HR-701 Makes It Appear Impossible To Avoid!  HR-701 will bring on a nightmare to rural communities across America.

Unwilling – often illegal land acquisition, businesses rampant

Below is a list of just a few of the land acquisition related horror stories over the past 30 years.   These cases are just the tip of the iceberg.  Hundreds and perhaps thousands more have not been recorded.  Investigators can find these kinds of stories at nearly every park or other special designation Federal area. No law has been passed to prevent these abuses.  CARA will only make them worse.

Case Studies from the ‘70s

¨ Lake Chelan National Recreation Area, WA---Was made a NRA so that the small community of Stehekin could continue its pioneering subsistence way of life, it offered a unique opportunity to provide the handicapped, elderly, and children a truly wild experience at the end of a 40 mile boat ride, the only regular method to get into Stehekin.  There were only 1,600 acres of private land.  According to the GAO, the Park Service purchased most of these, cutting off the ability of the community to provide for many visitors 

¨ Lake Crescent in Olympic National Park----There were more than 15 recreation resorts and destinations here before the Park Service went on its land acquisition rampage. Now there are only two. 

¨ The Buffalo National River, AR - In 1988 the NBC network found that the Park Service had started out with 1,103 landowners in 1968.  The law clearly encouraged easements and did not intend to destroy the special cultural communities along the river. However, NBC said there were only 8 landowners left in 1988.

¨ St. Croix River, MN-----In a 1978 report by GAO, they found the Park Service had acquired 21,000 acres when they were only supposed to acquire 1,000 acres of access sites according to the legislative intent.

¨ St. Croix River----- A 1979 GAO report found the Park Service had 2,100 acres under condemnation, which was 900 acres over the legal limit.  The Park Service agreed but said that when they concluded the condemnation trials on people to reach the limit, the rest would receive scenic easements.

¨ St. Croix River ----- Park Service was found guilty by the Justice Dept of using project influence to pay landowners less than fair market value.  Justice ordered the agency to re-appraise the land and pay for what it had taken illegally. 

¨ St. Croix River-----Park Service is now over its legal limit for using condemnation to buy fee title.  They are now threatening landowners with excessively restrictive public access easements that only leave the landowner with the right to pay taxes and liability for personal injury.

¨ St. Croix River-----The Kettle River is a tributary under the responsibility of the State of Minnesota.  The state purchased land protection in the form of easements for a fraction of the average cost paid by the Park Service in adjacent areas.

¨ Boundary Waters Canoe Area, MN----The Forest Service used LWCF funds to buy up and remove many resorts throughout the whole region of Minnesota.  The result was not more recreation but recreation transferred to the young and healthy at the expense of the elderly, handicapped and children.  There was a massive loss of access to traditional hunting and fishing areas further reducing broad-based family recreation.        

¨ Voyageurs National Park, MN-----The Park Service admitted in a 1979 GAO report that they had acquired enough land for the park from the timber companies and did not need to acquire all the private landholdings that dotted this sparsely populated area.  The agency went on to acquire the inholders anyway.

¨ Fire Island National Seashore, NY - The Park Service was found guilty in a 1981GAO report of acquiring an expensive home completely surrounded by other homes and not available for any form of public recreation.  The Park Service justified its condemnation simply because the landowner had built his deck a little too large and had received a zoning variance from the local town.  The cost to the taxpayer was $100,000 for nothing.

¨ C & O Canal, MD - The Park Service threatened all landowners with condemnation in the years around 1974.  Even though they were required to offer landowners a life tenancy under the 1969 Uniform Relocation Act, the agency failed to provide landowners notice of his rights because park officials wanted to limit any use and occupancy reservations to 25 years.  The result is that now the landowners are fighting to get what was fairly theirs. 

¨ Mt. Rogers National Recreation Area, VA-----A Forest Service area created in 1966.  Congress had specified that the agency should acquire 39,500 acres, 40% of them in fee title that would have allowed the communities to stay.  Admitted to congressional investigators in 1979, they had purchased over 26,000 acres in fee and no easements.  The agency thought Congress didn't really mean what they said in the law.  They viewed it as just a suggestion. 

¨ Yosemite National Park, CA-----76-year-old James Downey, was threatened with condemnation in 1971 because he wanted to add a bathroom.  He had no tub and there was a covered breezeway under which the bathroom was to be built.  There would be no new land coverage.  The Park Service said what he was doing was an incompatible act and he would be condemned.  They came back to him two weeks later and said that if he would sell them his home, they would lease it back to him and then it would be OK to build his bathroom.  Was the goal to stop the bathroom or buy the house?

 Abuses in the ‘80s

¨Foresta Fire, Yosemite National Park-----In the late 80's a fire got out of control and wiped out the entire village of Foresta, about 80 homes.  Park Service Superintendent Michael Findley had turned down help from the Forest Service and the state forestry service.  After the fire, Findley requested that Congress give him immediate permission to condemn all the home sites because he could buy them cheaply since fire insurance would pay for the lost houses.  When he was denied, he then set up as many roadblocks as possible to prevent the landowners from rebuilding, thereby forcing some to sell.

¨ Grand Teton National Park, WY-----A landowner had been trying to sell his 160 acres to the Park Service for 10 years.  They've had the money.  The landowner finally had to threaten to subdivide his land in order to get them to make the purchase.  The landowner did not want to subdivide and had been a good steward. The agency condemned him.  The case then went to trial and ultimately cost the government over $3.2 million, far more than the agreed upon settlement.  The judge was not complimentary to the bad faith negotiating by the Park Service.  

¨ Santa Monica Mountains NRA, CA - Murphy Duane spent years going through the vast permitting process and Coastal Commission approval to build his dream home. Only when he had spent thousands of dollars and man-hours to get local approval, did the Park Service say they were going to condemn his land.  Intervention by Members of Congress stopped this abusive example.

¨Golden Gate National Recreation Area, CA - The Trust For Public Land acquired an option on this property for $8.5 million.  They then negotiated a sale to the Park Service for $9.6 million.  The Park Service did not want to buy the property.  Both the Carter and Reagan Administrations agreed that the land was not of park quality and should not be purchased.  However, TPL forced a political confrontation.  They obtained appraisals to show that the land was valued at $24 million.  The landowner, part of a large oil company, hoped to obtain a large tax deduction.  Interior Sec’y Bill Clark ultimately negotiated a sale near the $8.5 figure.  The problem is not that there wasn't enough money, but that the money was spent unwisely.

¨ Appalachian Trail, NH-----The Park Service tried to use LWCF funds to buy a greenway around Dartmouth College.  They did this by moving the Appalachian Trail over to make it go through the middle of farmlands rather than along the fence lines as they were supposed to do and using a 1000 ft corridor to build their impact.  Caught lying to Washington officials, they ultimately had to move the trail back to the fence line. 

Abuses in the ‘90s

¨ Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lake Shore,MI-Riverside Canoes owned by Kathy & Tom Stocklen has been serving the public for many years, but they would not sign over an easement type contract to the Park Service without compensation.  The Park Service had already purchased two other canoe liveries and a campground either in condemnation or under threat of condemnation.  In 1990, the Park Service condemned the Stocklens.  After several meetings with Park Service officials in Washington, no one at the agency could justify the condemnation, yet it went forward anyway.  Finally, in 1992 just before the election, American Land Rights planned a huge demonstration in front of the Interior Building in Washington, DC.  The Interior Department forced a settlement that gave the Stocklens back their land and compensated them for their attorney's fees prior to the demonstration.

             Sleeping Bear was originally set up as a National Recreation Area.  It is tough to have full access to recreation when the managing agency buys out all the services providing certain types of recreation 

¨ Darby Farming Community, OH - USFWS wanted to establish a 55,000-acre Little Darby National Wildlife Refuge in Madison and Union Counties in west central Ohio, a 106-mile watershed parcel of land along the Big and Little Darby Creeks. Some of the best farmland in the country, granted as homesteads to Revolutionary War veterans and their heirs, the land has been farmed by some of the same families in the area for 200 years.  While Bill Hartwig, regional director, stated, "It is no accident that this biologically-rich stream flows through land cared for by conservation minded farmers, Wes Beery, agricultural coordinator for The Nature Conservancy disagreed with FWS and blasted the farmers, stating, "Farming can't help affecting the Darby. More than 80% of the land is used for agriculture. The problems that show up in Darby are sediments, many caused by farming. " Congress outmaneuvered the plan’s proponents and scuttled the  $1 million appropriation for the proposed Little Darby National Wildlife Refuge.

¨ Appalachian Trail, PA - Park Service condemned the Tumbling Rund Game Preserve in Pennsylvania in 2000.  The Tumbling Run Game Preserve, a beautiful piece of property owned by 24 families in Cumberland County, PA since the 1920's is an excellent example of private conservation.  It is a good neighbor to the Michaux State Forest, and has voluntarily allowed access to hikers along the Appalachian Trail. In 2000 the Park Service formally condemned and took to court the owners because they did not want the trail to run through the middle of the game preserve.  They were willing to donate a corridor less intrusive.  Never mind.  That's what the Game Preserve Association gets for being a good steward for 80 years. Power hungry bureaucrats who manage the Appalachian Trail had to have it their way, period