North Carolina is the second-largest hog producing state in the United States. Thus, disposal of hog waste is a constant concern and contentious issue. In a new paper, Kelly Lester of the John Locke Foundation describes what has failed and what might work. The Failures: “Regulatory Overreach. Government regulations, rather than addressing the root of…
Search Results for: property rights
The Secret of Environmental Protection
Yes, data from the Yale Center for Environmental Law & Policy and the Fraser Institute’s Economic Freedom of the World Index send a resounding message: Economic freedom brings about environmental protection. Why? Because economic freedom leads to prosperity and only prosperous countries can truly protect their environment. Are you skeptical? As the graph above shows,…
Planners Want Control over Sugarloaf Mountain, Maryland, a Privately Owned Preserve
No good deed goes unpunished. That adage might be applied to Gordon Strong’s 1954 donation of Maryland’s Sugarloaf Mountain as a preserve for public use, while remaining in private hands. Stronghold, Inc., a nonprofit organization, owns most of the mountain and, until recently, intended to keep it open for public use (as it has been…
The Dangerous Turn to Conservation Syndicates
For 30 years, I was an appraiser and a frequent expert witness on the value of property. Sometimes government agencies would condemn property under eminent domain, and I would estimate what the agency should pay the owner; at other times, I estimated the value of land or easements given to a conservation group such as…
Did You Know a Debate Is Brewing over Conservation Easements?
They are more popular than ever but also controversial, writes Alex Brown for Stateline, a journalistic initiative of The Pew Charitable Trusts: “[T]he growing interest in preserving privately held land has sparked a fierce debate between supporters who say such efforts guarantee environmental protections and critics who say they take away individual property rights.” Conservation…
Beach House Burns but Couple Can’t Rebuild
Four and a half years ago Michael and Cathy Zito’s house on the North Carolina coast burned down. State and local governments have prevented the Zitos from rebuilding—and refuse to compensate them for the loss of their home! Erin Wilcox writes in the Carolina Journal: “The Zitos’ house was built in 1982 when it was…